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Chicago GSB alumni and students were among those who participated in SuccesSoul, the minority business conference hosted in Chicago October 29 by Tavis Smiley, national broadcast journalist. The GSB was among cosponsors of the event.
Michele Hooper, ’75, managing partner and cofounder of the Corporate Director’s Council at the National Association of Corporate Directors, spoke at the awards luncheon about the GSB’s history of diversity.
In 1964, George Shultz, dean from 1962 to 1969 and former U.S. Secretary of State, developed the GSB’s minority scholarship program. It was the first such program at a business school, she said.
Hooper was among the scholarship recipients. “This was just the first of many times in my career that the Chicago GSB value system supported me.”
She added, “Rooted in the art of asking questions, Chicago GSB values the hierarchy of ideas. It believes in leveraging the diversity of views, thoughts, and experience in an intense learning environment. At Chicago, dialogue doesn’t rest until every voice is heard and each new idea is analyzed from every angle. We attack ideas—never people—and we learn how to think.
“My GSB experience bears out that value system to this day,” Hooper said.
—Patty Houlihan