Conference Highlights Increasing Diversity
Though the stated theme for the fourteenth annual African American
M.B.A. Association DuSable Conference in April was “Empowering
Self and Community in the Twenty-First Century,” the implicit
theme of the award ceremony was increasing ethnic diversity at
Chicago.
Dean Robert S. Hamada, looking over the partly filled auditorium,
said in his opening remarks, “Our hope is that next year, and
the year after, we will see more and more African American students
sitting in these seats.”
Hamada noted that a task force headed by Jim Hill, ’67, is studying
ways to increase the number of black students at Chicago. He also
welcomed the school’s first full-time, tenure-track African American
professor, Damon Phillips, who was in the audience and started
teaching last fall. “This problem [of a lack of diversity]–and
I call it a problem–can be solved, and we’ll solve it. We’re committed
to it,” Hamada said. “We’re accustomed to success, and we will
make this a more friendly, diverse business school.”
Monique Bernoudy, then director of diversity affairs, presented
the Umoja Award to Jennifer Williams, president of the African
American M.B.A. Association (AAMBA), for her work organizing the
conference. Reinforcing Hamada’s sentiments, Bernoudy said, “There
were times that, in terms of diversity, the GSB has felt like
a merry-go-round. We didn’t have a goal; we were just going around
in circles and not getting anywhere . . . but now we have a sincere
commitment from the top.”
That commitment, in fact, prompted Arnita Boswell, professor emeritus
in the School of Social Service Administration, to accept the
Community Leader of the Year Award from AAMBA.
Boswell, a pioneering social activist in Chicago, helped found
Operation PUSH; the League of Black Women, of which she is currently
the director; National Hook Up of Black Women; and Boswell-Young
& Associates, an international consulting firm, of which she is
president. She also served as regional director for the office
of civil rights for the U.S. Office of Economic Development and
as manager of the family resource center at Robert Taylor Homes.
“This is my first time back on campus in seventeen years. When
I left here, I was unhappy because of what was going on [at the
University of Chicago]. I resigned, retired, whatever. I’ve refused
this award many times in seventeen years, but this time I said
yes because I like what’s happening here. I expect great things,
because you’re doing great things,” Boswell said, to loud applause.
AAMBA’s Corporate Partners of the Year, Deloitte & Touche Consulting
Group and Goldman, Sachs & Co., are aiding in this effort to do
“great things” by hiring AAMBA students as interns and employees
and by participating in fireside chats, networking events, and
career fairs at the GSB. The companies also sponsored the DuSable
Conference.
Ken Thompson, ’97, winner of the Alumni of the Year Award, was
recruited by Deloitte & Touche after interning there. Thompson
counsels current students on their careers during countless phone
calls, dinners, and early breakfasts, and also is compiling a
comprehensive casebook for distribution to students at the beginning
of the year. “The GSB is a fantastic community,” Thompson said.
“You really make it easy to come back and give back.”
Two other awards were presented at the conference. Corporate Community
Leader of the Year Award was given to Shorebank Corporation, the
nation’s first community development bank. South Shore Bank has
lent over $400 million to more than eleven thousand inner-city
businesses and individuals. Business Leader of the Year Award
went to John W. Rogers Jr., a member of the GSB Advisory Council
and the founder of Ariel Capital Management Inc., an institutional
money management firm specializing in equities. Currently, Ariel
Capital has over $2.2 billion in assets under management. –J.V.
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Rudnick, ’73, Named Director of Entrepreneurship
As the way the world does business has shifted, so has the career
of Ellen Rudnick, ’73, moving from corporate success to personal
and financial rewards through entrepreneurship. Now Rudnick has
brought her expertise back to Chicago, joining the school as executive
director of the entrepreneurship program and clinical professor
of entrepreneurship.
As executive director, Rudnick is responsible for building the
entrepreneurship program and developing relationships with alumni
and the community to foster experiential learning and entrepreneurial
opportunities. Steven N. Kaplan, Leon Carroll Marshall Professor
of Finance, will continue to be responsible for faculty, research,
and curriculum in entrepreneurship.
For Rudnick, the move to Chicago is an exciting phase in an ever-evolving
career.
"I think of careers in terms of life cycles. It’s rare that anyone
stays with one company–or even one career–anymore," she said.
With this phase she is seeking "something that is rewarding personally
and professionally."
"I think entrepreneurship education is one of the most exciting
things going on in business schools today. It’s exciting because
of what is going on around us. There’s a new paradigm," she said,
in which an entrepreneurial attitude is highly valued. "It’s an
opportunity for students to get in on the ground floor of this
major change in the way we do business."
Technology has opened up tremendous possibilities, putting emphasis
on the individual. "You don’t have to be big to be successful,"
she said. Many of America’s corporate giants are not as influential
as entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, and students have taken note.
"It’s an issue of empowerment. Students today are very smart and
technically savvy. Many of them want to make a big impact early
in their careers. They also want more control over their lives."
Although Rudnick began her career along the conventional corporate
route, joining Baxter Healthcare Corporation as a project manager
in 1975 after a short stint at Quaker Oats, entrepreneurship came
early in her career. At Baxter, she quickly ascended the corporate
ladder and in 1983 made her first foray into new business development
as an intrapreneur, creating and heading a new company within
the corporation, Baxter Management Services Division.
After rising to corporate vice president, she left Baxter in 1990
to become president and CEO of Healthcare Knowledge Resources,
a health care information company. Rudnick successfully refocused
and restructured the company, dramatically increasing sales and
profitability, and in 1992 engineered its sale, providing a significant
return to its original investors.
Rudnick then founded CEO Advisors Inc., a consulting firm for
health care technology and service companies. In 1993 she cofounded
BioQuant, Inc., a company that developed noninvasive, low-cost
medical screening tests.
Three years later, BioQuant merged with Pacific Biometrics Inc.,
also cofounded by Rudnick, and she became the company’s CEO and
chairman. Rudnick eventually stepped down from running the business,
although she retained her position as chair. "Part of being a
successful entrepreneur is knowing who the right person is to
run the business, and I wasn’t the right person," she explained.
Her career has now come full circle. At Chicago, developing entrepreneurial
opportunities for students is high on Rudnick’s list of priorities.
Experiential learning opportunities–those that put students in
the field, working with smaller companies and start-ups–are a
way for students to determine if the entrepreneurial path is right
for them, she said. Rudnick is also particularly interested in
expanding the Edward L. Kaplan New Venture Challenge, now in its
third year. To date, six companies have emerged from the first
two competitions, including Connect Innovations, which over the past year has raised more than $4 million in
capital.
As executive director and clinical professor, Rudnick will provide
students with learning opportunities that were nonexistent in
business education during her days at Chicago. "When I graduated
in 1973, people still thought of entrepreneurs as the Rockefellers.
Certainly things that I learned at the GSB applied to my work,
but today’s classes are much more focused. When I was at Chicago,
people went to school to open doors. Now people are going to business
school because they want to start their own companies. They’re
going for the tools and to build networks."
It is Rudnick’s goal to make Chicago the school of choice for
students who want to be entrepreneurs. "Our students here are
very well positioned because of our emphasis on finance," which
is an important piece of successful entrepreneurship, she said.
Now her job is to provide the rest of the pieces. "To be an entrepreneur
requires much broader knowledge than a corporate job. Entrepreneurs
need to know organizational functions, how to raise venture capital,
and so much more. It’s our place to provide the proper tools to
give students a head start."
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Two Alumni behind Best Books
How does one pick the one hundred best nonfiction books of the
twentieth century? Very carefully, said David Ebershoff, ’96.
Ebershoff was named publishing director of the Modern Library,
a division of Random House, in July 1998, shortly after it announced
the one hundred best novels of the twentieth century. The list
caused quite a stir in the media, in no small part because of
the statistical methodology used. When it came time to choose
the one hundred best nonfiction books, Ebershoff turned to a known
authority on statistics and an authority known to him personally:
Al Madansky, Ph.D. ’58, his teacher of introductory statistics
at Chicago.
Ebershoff approached Madansky, H. G. B. Alexander Professor of
Business Administration, partly because "he’s a book man, too,"
he said, pointing out that Madansky created and teaches an elective
course on the great books of business at Chicago.
Madansky said he accepted the project "because it was fun." Thirteen
Modern Library board members–including writers Stephen Jay Gould,
Jon Krakauer, A.S. Byatt, Elaine Pagels, and Caleb Carr–were voting
on nine hundred books to determine the best one hundred. But they
were not all voting on the same books. "They could only vote on
books that they had read, and there was no way to ask them to
read all nine hundred books," Ebershoff explained.
Madansky was up to the task. "It was statistically interesting
and I was curious about it. The statistical challenge was how
do you take a bunch of people who are not necessarily rating all
the same books and who have different grading standards and come
up with some kind of amalgamated rule that makes sense. It was
a nice little mental challenge.
"And I like books anyway," he added. Which is good thing, because
books were his payment for the project. Ebershoff explained, "Al
came to a meeting in December in New York and said ‘The good news
is I think I can help you. The bad news is my consulting fee.’"
Not having budgeted for a statistician on the project, Ebershoff
suggested that payment be made in books, and Madansky agreed.
Madansky has requested 20 to 30 selections, ranging from the 21-volume
edition of the Steinsalz Talmud to the 1998 intellectual thriller
The Gun Runner’s Daughter by Neil Gordon. He also requested the
number one book on the nonfiction list, The Education of Henry
Adams, published in 1918.
"Once I saw that The Education of Henry Adams was going to be
number one–which it was very clear even from the preliminary analysis,
and I had never read it–I said hey, I’ve got to read that to round
out my education," Madansky said.
The book happens to be Ebershoff’s nonfiction favorite, and he
was happy to see it top the list. He was pleased with the list
in general and the public’s reaction to it.
"We had no criticism at all about the way we put this list together,
on the methodology," he said. "A lot of reporters pointed back
to the fact that a professor from the University of Chicago had
done the statistical analysis."
Ebershoff also achieved what he sees as such lists’ overarching
goal: to influence readers’ choices. "People pay attention to
these lists," he said. In the two weeks after the list was announced,
the Modern Library sold 25,000 copies of The Education of Henry
Adams–ten times the number usually sold in one year. And that’s
just at one publishing house. Since the book is in the public
domain, Ebershoff assumes copies are also being bought elsewhere.
"What this means is people who were not going to read this book
are going to read this book," he said. "That’s a rather significant
thing to be able to pull off in our day and age when it’s hard
to get attention for serious books and books that aren’t new.
And when the authors are long ago deceased, there’s very little
way to get attention for a book. And here it actually sold out,
and we had to go back and print more."
That’s more than influencing readers, Ebershoff said. "That’s
influencing culture."
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