February 23, 2005
McCombs School Announces New
Program to Expand Diversity in Management
AUSTIN, Texas—America’s leading companies want more diverse managers. A new program from The University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business aims to meet that need by expanding the pool of top students who consider an MBA degree.
The Jump Start program targets undergraduate seniors who are academically qualified for a top-ranked MBA but lack the required work experience. Companies agree to provide the experience by hiring the students for three years. The McCombs School then offers candidates deferred admission to the MBA program based on the completion of their job commitment.
So far eight companies have agreed to sponsor the program and hire qualified candidates: BMC Software Inc., Deloitte Consulting LLP, FedEx Kinko’s, Frito-Lay North America, JPMorgan Chase & Co., SBC Communications Inc., TXU Corp. and Wells Fargo Bank.
“Diversity is critical to Frito-Lay's long-term business success strategy,” said Dave Rader, chief financial officer of Frito-Lay North America. “Jump Start brings us the ability to assure we will have great talent with a strong education to continue to deliver world class business results. Future leaders of Frito-Lay will clearly come from this program.”
“SBC has rich and robust diversity programs, and we're always looking for ways to supplement our efforts,” said Ray Wilkins, SBC Group President. “Programs like Jump Start make an invaluable contribution in helping us diversify our management ranks.”
Law and medical schools, which do not require work experience, have always attracted minority candidates and women more successfully than business schools. Jump Start hopes to level the playing field with its professional school rivals, at least at The University of Texas at Austin. Jump Start will be open to students from any background. Companies, not admissions officers, will define the diversity they seek and will select final candidates.
“Our corporate partners are looking for a more diverse workforce, which they define in a number of different ways, in terms of race, ethnicity, geography, even gender, with firms seeking more women in management,” said George W. Gau, dean of the McCombs School. “Our MBA program shares this desire,” Gau said.
With 7 percent of its MBA students describing themselves as African American, Hispanic, or Native American, the McCombs School is representative of U.S. business schools. Average minority enrollment at the country’s top MBA programs was 6 percent according to the most recent survey, conducted by the Boston Consulting Group in 2001.
Increasing diversity is one of the McCombs School’s core strategic initiatives, both as a response to industry needs and a means to improve the academic experience of all students.
“With Jump Start specifically,” said Gau, “we want to reach out and give talented undergraduates a path to business, and at the same time give them the chance to earn a great degree.”
The University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School has the top nationally ranked graduate business programs in Texas and the Southwest. Most recently, The Wall Street Journal ranked the full-time MBA No. 16 nationally and BusinessWeek ranked the executive MBA No. 8 worldwide. In January, the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education found that McCombs has the highest percentage of black faculty of any leading U.S. business school.
For information on specific programs at the McCombs School, consult our contacts page. For media information, contact the Communications Director by phone at 512-471-3314 or by email at CommunicationsDirector@mccombs.utexas.edu.
