Summer program created to increase enrollment of black students in UC graduate management schools
By Alexia Boyarsky
Feb. 6, 2012 1:29 a.m.
Low enrollment of black students at graduate management schools across the University of California system in recent years has spurred a program intended to boost numbers and increase access.
At the UCLA Anderson School of Management, for example, black students currently comprise only 2 percent of the student body, said Steve Montiel, spokesman for the UC Office of the President.
The number of minority students at UC business schools has dropped since the enactment of Proposition 209 in 1996, Montiel said. The proposition prohibits state government institutions, including graduate schools, from taking race, sex or ethnicity into consideration for admissions.
To address this issue, six UC business schools announced in January a new program that will host 25 undergraduate students from seven of the schools classified as Historically Black Colleges and Universities ““ institutions established before 1964 that aim to serve the black community ““ such as Florida A&M University and Morehouse College.
The students will spend two weeks at a UC business school during the spring, Montiel said.
This year, the Summer Institute for Emerging Managers and Leaders will be held at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.
In subsequent years the institute will split students between northern and southern California campuses, he said.
The students will participate in seminars about careers in business, meet with various company executives and attend lectures by professors from the business schools, said Linda Baldwin, director of admissions for Anderson.
Some Anderson students, however, pointed to certain problems as underlying causes for low numbers of black students in the UC, which the program may not fully address. One is the relative lack of financial aid that public schools can give to black students compared to private schools.
Schools outside of California, which are not limited by Proposition 209, tend to have a more diverse student body because they can take race into account and offer more scholarships to minority students, Montiel said.
“If you want a full ride, the East Coast schools have private endowments that often let more (black) students go to graduate schools,” said Bryan Graves, co-president of the African American Students in Management group at Anderson.
Black students in the top of their class often go to Ivy League schools or Historically Black Colleges and Universities that are located in the South or on the East Coast, said Erika Walker, executive director of the undergraduate program of the Haas business school.
In addition, students who leave California for their undergraduate education are likely to attend graduate schools out-of-state, she said.
Programs that do not have a strong black population are less likely to draw minority students in future years, Graves said.
“Inevitably, when African-American students visit, they ask what the (black) population at (Anderson) is,” Graves said. “When they hear something like 1 or 2 percent, they are taken aback and less likely to come here.”
The new program is designed to help black students become aware of opportunities through California business schools, Walker said.
Graves also applied to a school on the East Coast, but he said he chose Anderson because of its focus on the real estate market, which is the field in which he plans to work. While he felt welcomed when he came to the school, he said he misses the feeling of community that a larger group of black students brings.
One advantage of being part of a small number of black students, however, is that reaching out and connecting with black alumni is easier, Graves said.
“They’ve been through the same experience as you’re going through being a part of a very small community, so they have the same sort of feelings as you have,” he said.
But students who want to be a part of a large black student community must often leave California for their undergraduate education, said Joe Hopkins, a lawyer and newspaper editor who works for increased representation of black students in higher education.
The West Coast does not have any predominantly black colleges or universities,
Hopkins said. For that reason,
California corporations looking to hire black students
cannot identify a single school to aim its recruitment efforts at, whereas corporations that have headquarters on the East Coast can recruit from the area’s 110 Historically Black Colleges and Universities, of which there are none west of Texas, he said.
Hopkins first brought the issue to the attention of California State Assemblyman Anthony Portantino several years ago. Portantino has since worked with the UC Office of the President to implement the Summer Institute for Emerging Managers and Leaders program.
While some are skeptical that the program will resolve the low numbers of black students in UC business schools, Graves said he was hopeful that it will take small steps forward.
“We want to see incremental change because if we can get one or two more (black) students to come, then even more might come the following year,” he said.
