Smeal program seeks to improve diversity

When James Dowdy, an Atlanta-area native, was looking at colleges, he like many of his peers began his search close to home. At the top of his list: Vanderbilt, Emory and the University of Georgia. He had also looked into programs at nearby Clayton State University and Morehouse College, a historically black college specializing in the liberal arts.

But after his sophomore year of high school, he followed a friend north on a visit to Penn State. The friend, a year older than Dowdy, had gotten into the BOSS program, a two-week “crash course” in the university’s Smeal College of Business. Dowdy, impressed, applied for the following summer and was accepted.

“I actually didn’t want to do business in high school; I wanted to do chemical engineering,” he said. “But then I did BOSS and it completely changed my perspective.”

Now a sophomore in Smeal, Dowdy, 19, has already secured an internship with consulting firm Ernst and Young for next summer. He credits BOSS, or Business Opportunities Summer Session, for connecting him. As part of the two weeks, students visit EY’s office in either Philadelphia or Pittsburgh and meet with representatives from the company.

Dowdy kept in touch with a recruiter. After returning to the program this summer — this time as a mentor for incoming students — he was contacted by EY’s Atlanta office. Three in-person interviews later, he had the internship.

“It’s definitely helped me get to where I am today,” he said. “Especially being a minority — just having a program like that, having minority students exposed to the business world and to college at that age, I think it’s something that’s needed.”

Despite an increasingly diverse nation, the workplace has been slower to align with the country’s changing demographics. Wealth in America is still largely in the hands of white males: About 4 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are minorities, while about 5 percent are women — a historic high point. According to the Los Angeles Times, about nine out of 10 venture capitalists are male and more than 77 percent are white.

Research, meanwhile, shows working in diverse environments improves creativity, critical thinking and problem-solving. It may also improve the bottom line. A 2003 University of Texas study focusing on the banking industry, for instance, found increased racial diversity was related to better financial performance.

“As our society becomes more and more diverse, we all have to learn how to work together,” said Jamie Campbell, the assistant dean for diversity enhancement programs in Smeal. “And we all have to figure out where this next generation of leaders is going to come from.”

Campbell pitched the idea when he was applying to run the college’s diversity enhancement program about a decade ago. It grew from just offering classes to eventually including trips to EY’s offices, the State College Spikes and DelGrosso’s Amusement Park. The trips, spread throughout the two weeks, allow the students to learn about the business of sports, in the Spikes case, or the ins and outs of operating an amusement park.

“It’s trying to figure out how we can engage the students,” Campbell said.

The students — about 24 high school juniors and seniors are accepted into the program each year — take classes spanning accounting, finance, marketing, management and more, all while living on campus. The program, part summer-camp, part-intensive training, puts students through the rigors of college life and showcases the opportunities of a business education.

“But a lot of people don’t have that, especially minorities,” said Brittany Daniels, a BOSS alumna. “It’s such a strong influence even just seeing a professor who is African-American — I’m like ‘OK, this is possible.’ ”

Lack of diversity in workplaces is a compound, and complex, problem. According to research cited in the Harvard Business Review, people of color are 24 percent less likely to get their ideas endorsed without diverse leadership. Conversely, employees in a “speak-up” culture, the research found, are 3.5 times more likely to share ideas and “contribute their full innovative potential.”

The program’s keystone, a business presentation at the end of the two weeks, puts the students in teams similar to a startup. The groups are tasked with everything from pitching the product to working out supply chain concerns. Sharing ideas openly is de rigueur.

“I think it’s the perspective,” said Alexis Williams, 22, who now works as a risk consultant for EY’s Pittsburgh office. “Everyone thinks about things differently. I think coming from the situations that diverse students may come from, it brings more creativity and different perspectives to the table.”

Lauren Miller, who also works for EY, spoke to the program’s students who visited the company’s Pittsburgh office over the summer. Among the group was her younger brother.

“It was rewarding to give back to the program, and to speak in front of him was neat,” Miller, 23, said. “It gives them the chance to understand that they aren’t alone in this process.”

An alumna of the program, she remembers taking a similar visit six years ago. For her, the program and her education through Smeal has come full circle.

“Before you know it, you’re working at a big-four firm and you’re two years out of college and you’re like ‘wait, what happened?’ ” she said. “It’s really gone super quick. I’m pretty happy with where I’m at.”

For Dowdy, it cemented his decision to come to Penn State — despite its relative lack of diversity compared to the other schools on his list. Penn State’s undergraduate enrollment, for instance, is 6 percent African-American, and more than two-thirds of its student population is white. By comparison, Vanderbilt and Emory each boast higher percentages of minority students.

But, he said, programs like BOSS are looking to change that dynamic — both in the classroom and in the boardroom. In Dowdy’s eyes, they already have.

“BOSS has helped me to see that people of color, we can be put in the same positions and do the same type of work and have the same type of success,” he said. “I think the program has helped people of color see that in themselves.”

This story was originally published October 3, 2016 at 8:53 PM with the headline "Smeal program seeks to improve diversity."