Zicklin School Announces New Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives

Among the Zicklin School’s various initiatives in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), the most significant currently is the soon-to-launch undergraduate partnership with the Borough of Manhattan Community College, Zicklin’s Senior Associate Dean Paquita Davis-Friday, PhD, told an audience in December at the AACSB Global Diversity and Inclusion Summit.

Dr. Davis-Friday, who co-chairs Zicklin’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force with school benefactor Larry Zicklin (BBA, ’57), explained that the idea of the partnership is to create a Business Academy in which BMCC students would be paired early on with Baruch College alumni, faculty, and student mentors. The mentors would offer advice and support to students as they finished their associate degrees and transitioned into Zicklin’s BBA program.

“This sort of wrap-around support can help level the playing field for African-American and Latinx students, who are underrepresented at the Zicklin School,” offered Dr. Davis-Friday, who is working on the Baruch-BMCC Business Academy with Kannan Mohan, PhD, Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Innovation; and Sonali Hazarika, PhD, Executive Director of Undergraduate Programs. The partnership is set to launch in fall of 2021.

Update on Zicklin DEI Task Force activities

News about Zicklin’s past DEI initiatives was well received by the conference audience, Dr. Davis-Friday noted. Attendees were especially interested in the inclusive pedagogy seminar that Zicklin professors attended recently, she added, as well as the student climate survey recently conducted by the MBA Consulting Program.

The Zicklin School is also making strides to hire more diverse adjunct faculty. In November, Dr. Davis-Friday attended the KPMG PhD Project Research Symposium, where she solicited and received a number of resumes from traditionally underrepresented minorities interested in adjunct positions at the Zicklin School.

“Our faculty should reflect the experiences of the students, and our case studies should feature protagonists who aren’t only men,” Davis-Friday said.

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