Underrepresented Students of Color
Learn about professional, social, and educational opportunities available to underrepresented students of color at Chicago Booth.
Underrepresented Students of Color
Diversity and inclusion are fundamental to the mission of Chicago Booth and its transformative approach to business education.
Our commitment is to foster a diverse and inclusive community that embraces people of all backgrounds and beliefs. We develop and support an environment that enables students, faculty, alumni, and staff to bring their authentic selves, ideas, and inquiry—all of which uphold the fundamental values of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Among Booth’s core values is respect for different perspectives, ideas, and a recognition of common humanity. We welcome and embrace people from all races, ethnicities, cultures, genders, sexual orientations, ages, abilities, political ideologies, and religious or non-religious beliefs. Fostering an inclusive community of individuals with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints allows for an environment of rigorous, open-minded inquiry and produces knowledge with enduring impact.
We recognize our critical role in educating empathetic and principled leaders who can create positive systematic change in communities and organizations, who are empowered to eliminate racial and other barriers, and who are able to shape the next generation of groundbreaking ideas. Booth remains committed to examining and addressing bias and inequity, and values, supports, and celebrates efforts that promote diversity and inclusion. We will continue to take meaningful action and measure our progress to ensure that our community better reflects our world.
Booth’s Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan serves as the cornerstone of our commitment to rejecting racism, and to building a more diverse and inclusive community.
The plan outlines D&I initiatives across Booth in six key areas:
We strive to do better. We are inspired by members of our community and other influencers who are blazing the path toward a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable world.
We have been reviewing our recruiting initiatives; emphasizing qualities of empathy, self-awareness, and resilience in our interview process; providing implicit-bias training to interviewers; and evaluating and implementing new ways to develop a strong pipeline of diverse candidates.
Angela Pace-Moody, director of global diversity and inclusion since mid-2021, has overseen several D&I initiatives for students in Booth’s Full-Time, Evening, Weekend, and Executive MBA Programs, and has served as a liaison to our alumni community globally.
Our ongoing recruiting initiatives include virtual and in-person diversity events; one-on-one office hours with diversity outreach staff; initiatives in diverse markets globally aimed at attracting more women to the Executive MBA Program; affinity group events expanding pipeline development with outreach to organizations and undergraduate schools, including historically Black colleges and universities; and frequent evaluations of our recruiting initiatives to measure diversity and inclusion efforts.
Booth piloted a new program with Questbridge to allow their graduates to apply to Booth through a matching process. Questbridge’s mission is to support access to graduate level education to talented low-income students.
Booth leadership was part of the university’s effort to establish a new department on Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity (RDI) within the university’s Social Sciences Division (SSD), a novel approach to exploring these increasingly interconnected concepts. Dean Madhav Rajan, one of Booth’s deputy deans of faculty Pietro Veronesi, and professor Jane Risen worked with the university and offered to support the SSD in this effort, further expanding interdivisional collaboration with Booth’s undergraduate instruction at the university.
We are building on existing and new partnerships with groups that support diversity and inclusion, including 30% Club, Forte Foundation, JumpStart, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, Posse Foundation, Prospanica, Riordan, Reaching Out MBA, and Toigo.
Our recruitment initiatives include partnerships with several student organizations, including the African American MBA Association, Chicago Women in Business, Hispanic American Business Students Association, OUTreach, Coalition of Minorities in Business, Booth Pride Group, and Graduate Women in Business, as well as with alumni groups including the Chicago Booth Black Alumni Association and Hispanic/Latinx Booth Alumni Association.
Booth’s research centers and programs have participated in and launched recruitment-related initiatives to attract students from a broad range of backgrounds. These include partnering with the Leadership Alliance’s Summer Research Early Identification Program to provide outstanding emerging scholars the opportunity to work with faculty from the Center for Decision Research, the Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence, and other areas of the school. Booth also hosts IDDEAS for undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds who are interested in business research at the doctoral level, partners with The PhD Project, and participates in Discover UChicago to support graduate students and postdocs in career advancement opportunities. Additionally, the Becker Friedman Institute of Economics launched the University of Chicago’s Expanding Diversity in Economics (EDE) Summer Institute, to identify and support talented undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds who previously may not have been interested in the study of economics.
We are evolving and enhancing our curriculum and leadership programs by developing leaders who prioritize diversity and inclusion.
Diversity and inclusion, ethics, and leadership remain focus areas for ongoing MBA curriculum review and LEAD curriculum review. LEAD—Booth’s experiential leadership development programming for students—includes new and updated modules on inclusive leadership and related topics. The Harry L. Davis Center for Leadership continues to feature guests and participants from diverse backgrounds in events such as ‘Leading with Inclusion and Creating Inclusive Workplaces: What Should Leaders Do?’
The Leadership Orientation Retreat includes discussion on diversity and inclusion, and implicit-bias workshops will continue to be part of Orientation+. We continue to explore university-wide opportunities for increased bystander-intervention training and implicit-bias training.
Booth’s Leadership Development Office offers programming on a variety of inclusion-related topics, including: addressing systemic racism; tackling social identity and bias at work; navigating power, privilege, and microaggressions; developing successful allyship and bystander intervention; fostering inclusive leadership; and more. We continue to seek insights on how best to integrate inclusion-related material throughout our leadership learning experiences.
We are working to strengthen the pipeline of diverse faculty candidates, and have redoubled our efforts through a more expansive search process that ensures we identify and recruit from the most diverse candidate pool available. We continue to examine our own hiring practices for Chicago Booth staff and work to eliminate biases.
We have expanded and enhanced efforts to improve communication and foster dialogue about diversity and inclusion among our staff, faculty, students, and alumni.
Our expanded Chicago Booth Staff Diversity and Inclusion Committee helps to enhance awareness and understanding of diverse perspectives, identities, and experiences, increase engagement and learning across all backgrounds, and ensure an equitable culture.
The Deans’ Diversity Advisory Committee aims to improve communication between students and the Deans’ Office, and to expand collaboration with students around diversity and inclusion efforts. The committee addresses diversity and inclusion at Booth and the broader university, focusing on developing meaningful D&I programming, advocacy, and other topics.
We conducted a staff climate survey and continue to encourage feedback from staff, faculty, students, alumni, and other stakeholders to help guide our D&I efforts.
We launched the Diversity and Inclusion Alumni Task Force comprising more than 35 alumni members, split into three distinct committees: admissions, engagement, and fundraising and hired D&I consultants to help us develop a strategy to better engage our diverse alumni community.
We expanded efforts to proactively develop and maintain relationships with employers who articulate a commitment to diversity and inclusion as critical to business success. We support business leaders who take a strong and public stance against racism, and whose actions influence positive change. We are taking steps to address and eliminate biases in the recruiting and hiring processes of firms that source Booth talent.
We partner with over 70 percent of DiversityInc’s Top 50 list, a leading ranking assessment of diversity management in corporate America. These companies collaborate with Chicago Booth when seeking talent, hosting educational events, supporting student-group programming, partnering with centers, and other efforts.
We partner with approximately 45 percent of the public corporations, universities, health-care systems, and private companies featured in Fortune’s Best Workplaces for Diversity list.
Career Services and Corporate Relations have expanded partnerships with student groups, Student Life, and Alumni Relations and Advancement to ensure a diverse suite of speakers are present at all Booth events.
Career Services and Corporate Relations are actively engaging in conversations with firms about diversity and inclusion and offering students a process to report any incidents of bias or discrimination they experience while working at a company.
We continue to expand our efforts to support and celebrate diversity and inclusion in all aspects of our community.
We welcome and embrace individuals of all ethnicities, cultures, genders, sexual orientations, political ideologies, and religious and non-religious beliefs, and we actively recruit and support students from communities that have traditionally been underrepresented in business schools.
From diversity dinners to women’s leadership programs to our annual Pink Party, Booth celebrates diversity and encourages an environment of belonging for all.
Learn more about our cultural, regional, religious, and personal affiliation groups, and the diversity and inclusion initiatives they host throughout the year.
Learn about professional, social, and educational opportunities available to underrepresented students of color at Chicago Booth.
Underrepresented Students of ColorChicago Booth is deeply committed to supporting women students in their journey through business school and beyond.
Resources for WomenAt Chicago Booth, we’re committed to fostering a strong LGBTQ student community through partnerships, student groups, events, and more.
LGBTQ StudentsWe value your experience, perspective, and maturity as a military veteran, and we’re committed to supporting your success.
Members of the MilitaryLearn about the many professional, social, and spiritual opportunities available to students of faith at Chicago Booth.
People of FaithWe invite all of our alumni to engage with us in building a stronger, more inclusive community. From listening sessions with Black alumni to identity-based alumni networks and a new series of dialogues on issues such as social justice and equity, Chicago Booth Advancement is dedicated to creating an environment where everyone feels valued and respected.
Explore Our Alumni Initiatives
Booth’s community has come together to strengthen diversity and inclusion in the school’s pedagogy, scholarship, and culture around the world.
Building a More Inclusive BoothBooth faculty are making an impact on diversity and inclusion through their research into racial bias, the gender gap, inequality, and more.
Booth researchers are investigating how cultural norms and expectations affect women’s progress.
Why Is the Glass Ceiling So Tough to Crack?Booth researchers are exploring how discrimination gets embedded in algorithms—and how to address that.
Can Artificial Intelligence be Biased?Diversity is a core institutional value at our university. In addition to a number of events throughout the year, the University of Chicago website provides you information for getting involved, tools and resources, and the latest diversity and inclusion news at UChicago.
Discover UChicago's Commitment to Diversity
In 1926, Chicago Booth awarded the first business degree to an African American student. Since then, we have broken barriers in diversity and inclusion. In 1929, Booth was the first university to grant a PhD in business to a woman. In 1964, we were the first business school to establish a minority scholarship program. In 1970, Booth students founded the National Black MBA Association. In 1985, Booth became the first business school with an office dedicated to the support of underrepresented student populations.
Throughout the years, Booth has served as an educational partner to support promising professionals in communities of color. In 2014, Booth launched a partnership with the Chicago Urban League to create the IMPACT Leadership Development program, which connects up-and-coming professionals with senior Black leaders throughout Chicago. Members of Booth’s world-renowned faculty provide high-level instruction in areas such as business ethics, negotiations, decision-making, and interpersonal dynamics. Additionally, every year, Booth hosts the Management Leadership for Tomorrow Pre-Application Seminar welcoming Black, Latinx, and Native American students interested in business school for two days of virtual learning and networking.
In 2022, we partnered with Golub Capital and again with the Chicago Urban League to launch the Golub Capital Social Impact Lab at Booth’s Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation. Golub Capital’s significant five-year commitment will provide training and professional development to leaders of high-potential nonprofits serving communities of color. Golub Capital’s signature offering IGNITE, combines world-class educational content, coaching, peer mentorship, consulting assistance, and community networking for nonprofit leaders serving the Black community.
A Tradition of InclusionHelp us lead change and create a more diverse and inclusive community. Submit the form below to share your thoughts on what we can do better.
Booth Diversity and Inclusion leadership welcomes your questions and comments. Here’s how to reach us.
Student Diversity and Inclusion
Email Us
Jessica Jaggers
Interim Director of Student Global Diversity and Inclusion
Email Jessica Jaggers
Staff Diversity and Inclusion
Email Us
Jillian Davis
Staff Diversity and Inclusion Lead
Email Jillian Davis
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