Beyond campus, you can tap a rich abundance of channels for help in advancing a diversity mission.

Connect With Your Community

Just about any town has groups that are interested in, or even focused on, increasing diversity. Maybe it’s an informal community group, a church committee, a group of business leaders, or a chapter of a powerful national organization. Connect with these groups and become active with them. They’ll not only help open doors for recruiting, but they can provide channels for spreading the word about diversity and inclusion—and help to lead more diverse students to consider graduate management education.

Find Business Partners

Many campus diversity professionals find that executives in local or national businesses are eager to lend their assistance—in the form of ideas, time and sometimes money. Corporate relationships can be mutually beneficial, as they often have diversity goals that may align your institution’s goals. Invest the necessary time to nurture relationships with these groups.

Tap Your Alumni

Your school’s graduates can be an extraordinarily powerful and persuasive network to help you to recruit prospective students. You will find that your alums have ties to every aspect of the community—to businesses, schools, churches, NGOs, government, and beyond. Tap this power in your outreach. Leverage your institution’s connections with graduates. You’re likely to find that alumni are extremely enthusiastic about contributing to a meaningful way. Whether you seek financial support, help opening doors, channels to connect with students, or help in other ways, you will find a lot of energy in the alumni partnership. You may even want to create an alumni advisory group that can help you generate ideas and gain support among alumni. 

One colleague's perspective:

Work With Recruiters

Campus recruiters can provide candid insights on diversity in their companies—information that can help you shape recruiting strategies. Try to expand that horizon, however, by also talking about diversity and inclusion with top management in corporations—their perspectives will also be invaluable.

One colleague's perspective:

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