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JanFeb2012

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Mexico where perfect medieval Spanish is still spoken. With the coming of the railroad, the smattering of Anglo fur trad- ers was broadened into a stream of settlers. These included Jewish families whose leadership in com- merce and the professions led them to become pillars of our society. All these influences have cre- ated the multicultural population of New Mexico today, which the University of New Mexico closely mirrors in the demographics of its undergraduate student body. At the Robert O. Anderson School of Management, 42 percent of our students are Hispanic, 40 percent are Anglo, 6 percent Native Ameri- Native American students face strong family pressure to leave school to attend tribal ceremonies. Mentors can help them find the strength to stay on the educational path. can, 3 percent African American, 3 percent Asian, and 6 percent other. We are especially pleased that the graduation rate for our minority students closely resembles the rate for the student body as a whole. We believe those graduation rates are so good, in part, because we regard attracting a diverse enroll- ment as only the first step. At Ander- son, we put a great deal of energy into retaining our multicultural students, primarily through scholar- ship aid, advisement, and mentoring. We also draw on the university's resources for financial aid, mentor- ing, and counseling services. Mentors can be especially critical 24 January/February 2012 BizEd when students lack family support for their university studies. Many of our Hispanic and Native American students are the first in their families ever to attend college. Unaccus- tomed to the benefits of higher edu- cation, some of these parents resist their children's efforts to attend col- lege. Students quote their relatives as saying, "Why are you going off to college when we need you here in the family business?" Native Ameri- can students face the additional challenge of strong family pressure to leave school for days at a time to attend tribal ceremonies. Mentors can help minority stu- dents find the strength to stay on the educational path, and so can role models among the faculty and staff. Sixteen percent of Anderson's tenure and tenure track faculty and full-time lecturers are of Hispanic, African American, and Native American heritage, compared to 6.1 percent for the average AACSB school in the U.S. Their presence, their example, and their counsel bring comfort and inspiration. Peers also can provide support and create affinity among minority students, particularly in clubs and student organizations. At Anderson, these groups include the American Indian Business Association (AIBA), the Association of Latino Profes- sionals in Finance and Accounting (ALPFA), and the Hispanic Business Student Association (HBSA). While we honor our broad eth- nic heritage at Anderson, we real- ize that other kinds of diversity are equally important, and we look for ways to diversify the campus in terms of gender, level of physical Twenty-nine percent of our tenured/tenure track faculty are women. In addition, women occupy the faculty chair and the chairs in ability, and political orientation: n two of our four departments. n People with disabilities are often overlooked in the workplace. Anderson's accounting chair and I both have disabled children, and we were dismayed to learn that business schools do very little to encourage businesses to accommodate people with disabilities. We hosted a confer- ence to discuss current efforts in the field, and we were heartened by the enthusiastic response from partici- pants representing academia, indus- try, NGOs, and government offices. For me, the conference pro- duced three key messages. First, it

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