Development
MBP Endowment to ensure strong foundation for diversity and inclusion
Ernest S. Betts
When alumni of the Multicultural Business Program (MBP) at the Broad School say, “Thanks a million,” they’re ready to back that up with some green.
“Now that I am working in my career, I appreciate even more the value of the MBP experience,” says Arica Drummond (BA Finance ’00, MBA ’04) about the endowment campaign pledged in late 2005. “And each of us who has agreed to serve on this endowment committee feels the same. We want to know that the program will be financially secure in perpetuity to extend the same advantages to future generations of students of multicultural backgrounds.”
In addition to securing the future of the program and its mission of fostering a racially and ethnically diverse student body, the alumni of the program wish to honor MBP Director and Assistant Dean Ernest S. Betts, who has guided the program and the students since it was established as an academic unit within the Broad School in 1990.
Expenditures from the endowment will be used to support program needs at the discretion of the director, including but not limited to a tutorial program, summer business institute and a business student camp for prospective and incoming students.
In the first months of the “silent phase,” the campaign attracted more than $100,000 in contributions and pledges. Ultimately, the endowment goal is $3 million in personal and corporate donations by 2010.
Drummond, who was a graduate assistant in the Broad School Development Office for several years, helped bring together a committee of donors to champion the fundraising effort. In addition to Drummond, the endowment committee members are Armand Sawyer (BA Accounting ’98; MBA Finance ’02), Damian Caldwell (BA Supply Chain ’98, MBA Finance ’02), Gil de las Alas (BA Hotel & Restaurant Management ’95, MBA Human Resource Management ’97) and Richard Lewis (BA Finance ’98).