Voices

Ernst & Young Honor Faculty Committed to Diversity and Inclusiveness

Five individuals from top business schools have been named winners of Ernst & Young’s new Inclusive Excellence Award for Accounting and Business School Faculty.

The Inclusive Excellence Award recognizes the extraordinary efforts of faculty members who are helping to create more diverse learning environments that will ultimately help their students succeed in today’s global workforce.

Each winner was awarded $7,500 to use towards efforts to impact and improve inclusiveness and diversity at their school. They were selected from more than 260 nominations based on their contribution to inclusiveness on their campus through innovative teaching, research or program development. The winners were also selected based on their mentorship and support of diverse students and faculty as well as their involvement with under-represented minority students on an individual basis or through diversity-related organizations.

"Fostering diversity on college campuses is critical to developing the pipeline of diverse leaders for the future," said Ken Bouyer, director of inclusiveness and recruiting for Ernst & Young. "These winners are helping prepare the next generation of business and accounting professionals through great teaching, mentoring, and a personal commitment to the success of all types of students."

The five winners are:

•    Cindy van Es, senior lecturer, Department of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University – For incorporating diversity efforts into her statistics courses and for writing a benchmark-worthy diversity plan for her department.
•    Karen Bird, lecturer of accounting, director of Accounting Graduate Student Instructors Development, University of Michigan – For making every effort to include women and students of color/under-represented students as graduate student instructors for all sections of Accounting 271 and Accounting 272.
•    Mark Dawkins, associate dean for Academic Programs, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia – For Working diligently in building inclusiveness excellence in the business school, including positions as the facility advisor for the NABA student chapter of the University of Georgia, and originator of the Terry Diverse Student Listserv, a database in which relevant announcements are distributed to business and pre-business students of color from Terry’s Diversity Corporate Partners.
•    Matthew Anderson, associate professor, Accounting and Information Systems, University of Michigan – For Working to develop partnerships with select Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to help recruit their graduates to Michigan State’s MS program.
•    Michael Clement, associate professor, Accounting, University of Texas at Austin – For mentoring most of the minority students within the McCombs School of Business at UT and for his work in diversity and inclusiveness, which spans the academic spectrum.

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