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From her days at Chicago GSB, Millicent Harris, ’48, maintains a fondness for one particular course that likely has taken on drastically different significance for today’s students. “One of the classes that really affected my life was ‘Government Intervention in Business,’” Harris told the Chicago GSB Black Alumni Association at its inaugural all-class reunion at Hyde Park Center on September 23.
“I really thought government intervention was good for minorities and poor people. It brought African-Americans up out of the dungeon. I was really happy for that class,” said Harris, one of two speakers for the event. The gathering included tours of the building and drew about 60 alumni, most of them from the Chicago area, who had attended the GSB in the 1970s through the late 1990s.
While speaker Joan Taylor, ’52, enrolled in the evening program at the GSB, she worked full-time at Carson Pirie Scott. “I was working at an interesting time, because African-Americans were just beginning to be employed in executive positions,” Taylor told the crowd. “I was hired there as a job analyst. I went on to become the wage administrator and later the training director and later the assistant to the personnel director—wonderful, wonderful experiences. I loved it.”
Little do most people know of Carson Pirie Scott’s commitment to the underclass at that time, Taylor said. With a social service background, the company president pressed the board of directors to develop a program for high school drop-outs. Carson’s agreed to hire every drop-out part-time and, in cooperation with the Ford Foundation, established a school in downtown Chicago for them to attend part-time. Taylor, who taught business education in public schools after leaving Carson’s, headed the school for 20 years. “I had the most marvelous experiences of my life,” she said. “We found that if young people were in a kind of environment that was respectful of them and really interested in bringing out some of their good qualities, they did make changes. They did make progress.”
Nyasha Nyamapfene, MBA ’99, MPP ’99, founder of the CBAA, and Ken Thompson, ’99, president of the Chicago chapter, also spoke at the event, which featured the dedication of the CBAA Group Study Room. In addition to Nyampafene, donors included Barbara Bowles, ’71; Eric Chatman, ’86; Vincent Grove, Kirk Hammond, ’99; Lyle Logan, ’89; Bufus Outlaw Jr., ’87; Vaughn Roberts, ’01; Aaron Tolbert, ’88; Steven Tolbert, ’87; Stephanie Wilson-Coleman, ’03 (XP-72); and Ava Harth Youngblood, ‘85.
� Phil Rockrohr