On April 1, the College officially concluded the first-ever Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Grow the Good in Business Case Competition. After two months and three rounds of competition, the top three teams of Specialized Master’s students presented their business solutions to narrowing the wealth gap in Indiana.

While all three teams developed proposals that would lead to meaningful advancements in diversity, equity and inclusion, the top prize of $7,000 went to Team O’Hara, composed of Master of Science in Management students Katelyn Derifield, Maya Dodson, Maria Schorr and Kelly Straub. Team O’Hara focused on fostering collaborative relationships between anchor institutions and minority-owned businesses, and creating workplace engagement programs to connect community members, including high school students, with education and career opportunities.

This case competition was certainly a passion project for both of us, but one that was also successful by many metrics. The 30 teams of Specialized Master’s students who voluntarily opted into this case competition walked away from the experience with a strong sense of what it means to “Grow the Good in Business.” The competition also provided the students with a rigorous academic experience that afforded them the opportunity to use and improve their leadership, problem solving, teamwork and presentation skills outside of the classroom, and later talk about their business proposals during job interviews.

Additionally, because students were encouraged to form teams across Specialized Master’s programs, the DE&I case competition strengthened their sense of collaboration. Not only did we have teams from all five residential programs register, but we also had all five programs represented in the top 10. One of the teams that made it to the final round was composed of students from both the MNA and MSBA programs, and their pitch coach was a faculty member from the MSA program. In traditional coursework, such cross-program collaboration would not be possible!

In many ways, this case competition was absolutely necessary in order to truly prepare students to be future business leaders in our modern society. Because we created workshops for competition participants and aligned the competition with spring Interterm programming, we were able to deliver formal education on various topics related to DE&I to nearly 150 residential Specialized Master’s students. This is notable, given the short duration of our programs and lack of such formal learning opportunities in our graduate curriculum. Examples of the workshops included Social Justice, Poverty and the Wealth Gap; Inclusive Language & Voicing Values; Diversity Through the Lens of Catholic Social Teaching; Managing Diverse Teams; and a DE&I Corporate Sponsor Panel with 1st Source Bank.

The success of this case competition would not have been possible without the support of so many of you. You answered the call to use your work of educating future business leaders to guarantee that diverse voices, experiences and backgrounds are valued, respected and nurtured. In addition to the Mendoza faculty and staff listed below who served as case writers, judges and competition organizers, we want to offer our special gratitude to Joan McClendon for remaining committed to the competition despite a new position in UEE, Minhee Myung for creating our beautiful website, Jessica Stookey and Martin Johnson for creating unique networking and practice opportunities for students, Wendy Walker for supplying the food and fun, Karma Grundy for her administrative support, Mendoza IT for guaranteeing that our opening and closing events ran smoothly, and Mendoza Communications for assisting with signage and promotions. We were also blessed by the support of MBA students, alumni, campus leaders outside of Mendoza, and corporate sponsors who volunteered to serve in various capacities throughout the competition, including by mentoring our students.

We recognize the opportunities and challenges in diversity, equity and inclusion are complex and ongoing, and there’s much work to be done. We hope that this year’s case competition is just one example of the many ways in which Mendoza continues this meaningful and critical work.

Kristen Collett-Schmitt

Associate Dean for Specialized Master’s Programs

Jessica McManus Warnell
Associate Teaching Professor of Management & Organization