B-School Deans’ White House Pow-Wow

Research also suggests that even workplaces free of overt gender discrimination can have barriers that prevent talented women from reaching their potential and fully contributing to their organization. Studies have found that mentoring can be successful in helping women advance in their careers by imparting leadership skills and guiding future leaders through an organization. There is also evidence that mentors, especially female mentors, can help women with quality of life issues, including balancing family responsibilities. However, women often struggle to find mentor relationships, especially with male superiors.

The CEA said that business schools can take important steps to prepare the next generation of business leaders to focus on these issues. Too few businesses recognize that many of their workers need to be able to balance home and professional responsibilities and are failing to acknowledge that simple policy changes will help bolster a company’s productivity through attraction and retention of the most talented and educated workers. In order to ensure business practices that fully utilize a 21st century workforce, it is important for business school deans to update their curriculum and practices to fully reflect the importance of women and working families in our labor market.

In the weeks ahead, the administration said it will work to compile best practices that will then be signed on to by a larger group of business schools than those attending yesterday’s meeting. This will also contribute to the larger goal of the White House Summit on Working Families. The Summit will convene businesses, economists, labor leaders, legislators, advocates, and the media to discuss issues facing the entire spectrum of working families. The discussions will focus on key issues such as: workplace flexibility, equal pay, pregnancy discrimination, paid family and medical leave, worker retention and promotion, and childcare/early childhood education.

The following deans attended the meeting:

• Maryam Alavi, Emory University (Goizueta)
• Sally Blount, Northwestern University (Kellogg)
• William Boulding, Duke University (Fuqua)
• Robert F. Bruner, University of Virginia (Darden)
• Robert M. Dammon, Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper)
• Alison Davis-Blake, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (Ross)
• Soumitra Dutta, Cornell University (Johnson)
• Thomas W. Gilligan, University of Texas, Austin (McCombs)
• Peter Blair Henry, New York University (Stern)
• Richard K. Lyons, University of California, Berkeley (Haas)
• Nitin Nohria, Harvard Business School
• Judy D. Olian, University of California, Los Angeles (Anderson)
• Douglas A. Shackelford, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler)
• Edward A. Snyder, Yale University

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