Stanford's Action Plan for Racial Equity

host us there. He is the dean alongside Sarah Soul associate Dean. They're really good to have you guys with us. Next same here. So Dean Levin, I want to start with you. Tell us what it's like out there right now, uh, you know, obviously, and we'll talk a lot about some of the work that you've been doing amid these dual crises that the nation is facing. But just you know, give us a sense of what life is like. They're

in palat them. Well, the weather is beautiful, and it would be a terrific summer if we weren't all walking around wearing masks and worried about social distancing. In a normal year, in the summer, we have thousands of business executives and other folks coming to campus for executive programs and all types of different summer programs that we run.

Of course, all of that has been shut down this summer, and so we're running the whole range of virtual programs we have working with businesses and were running a big virtual entrepreneurship program that we just put together over the course of the last two months, the Stanford Rebuild program UM.

But it's a very unusual time. There's nothing. You know, a university campus is meant to be a place with interaction and students and faculty and staff and everyone just bumping into each other, and right now it feels lonely and on your Stanford campus. Yeah, that interaction is key, and it's what contributes to the success of institutions like

Stanford Graduate School of Business UH associating SOUL. I want to bring you into this conversation here because obviously, as with other universities UH, Stanford is trying to of course increase its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, really increasing the representation of black and other disenfranchised people, not just among students but also in your faculty as well. Talk a

little bit about the plan to increase racial equity. How do you go about that in this kind of environment when people cannot get together and the interaction is so artificial and stilted. Yes, thank you with Scarlett, it's really nice to meet you. Nice to meet another Cornell alum.

Oh yeah, big, yes. Yes. Let me step back a little bit and say a word or two about what it is we've been working on here at the Stanford Graduate School of the no In ten, we re released our first Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Report, and one of the goals that we issued in that report for the academic year of was to spend some time studying and thinking about how we could do better as a school as an institution to learn from and um increase representation

and increase a sense of an inclusion and belonging for groups that otherwise before had been underrepresented in our efforts to date. So what we've been working on really started last year, and what we're announcing today is what we're

calling the Racial Equity Action Plan for the school. And as you noticed, Scarlett, one of the things that we are working on is representation in particular, and so what we are thinking about in in this particular bucket, and what we're announcing our commitment for is thinking how we can do better about bringing black and other underrepresented minority

teaching faculty, staff and students to campus. And you know, as I noted, this commitment really does build on the momentum that we have had over the last couple of

years around our broader diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. But in particular when we think about uh hiring of black and you r M teaching faculties, what we're thinking about doing in particular is taking advantage of an incredible UM initiative on the part of the university that Stanford University to UM to to bring ten new faculty members and ten year line faculty members to campus UM on a search that is really centered around the impacts of race

in America. So that's one piece of what it is that we're working on collaborating with the university to take advantage of these new ten billets for ten year line faculty members. And then on the on the sort of lecturer side, we also have a number of UM practitioners

who lecture in our classes. We're working actively with our alums and also with our our faculty to identify more black and underrepresented minority teaching faculty as well as guest speakers too, so we can make sure that we are having voices heard in the classroom and that we're able to teach issues related to race in business and race in America. Yeah, and I find that so interesting, you know, and Jonathan, the the integration into the curriculum as it were,

I find really interesting here. And you've even got some new courses that you're going to be offering. Tell us

about that. I think one of the topics that we've spent a lot of time thinking about in in our curriculum over the last few years has been generally preparing students to go out and be effective managers and leaders in uh in diverse organizations, and to help build organizational cultures and be the effective in leading in the world where the country has become more diverse and and the need for businesses to create widespread opportunity in many different

ways has become increasingly important and is on everyone's minds. And so that's that's been something that Sarah just mentioned. We've thought about in what sort of cases our faculty or writing in terms of the guest speakers, they're bringing and so forth. And and interestingly, when the when the pandemic arrived and we had to move very quickly into virtual teaching in the spring UM, we had the opportunity

to create some new classes. We created a Civic Workshop class where the students developed ideas to to around the pandemic. We created a new Business and Society class, which is a lack sure series virtual lestages. We bring people in from around the world to speak to the students. Wonderful thing about virtual learning is you can you can bring

in guests regardless of graphic boundaries. Phenomenal And Sarah, I want to pick up the conversation with you because I was reminded as I was getting ready for this, I mean, this is really part of your all of your jobs in many ways, is understanding all of this when it comes to social movements. And I remember talking to you about this in a totally different context when we visited last November. Then we were talking about sort of the

social movements around the use of technology. Now we're talking about something very different in many ways and yet adjacent to that. I do wonder when you look at Silicon Valley and certainly Stanford and the business school's prominent place there. What do you make of Silicon Valley's broader role in these discussions around equality, because, as you know, probably better than I, the reviews haven't been awesome when it comes

to diversity across the tech industry. That's a really wonderful question, Jason. And one of the goals that we have at the Graduate School of Business is to impact and make positive change beyond the g SB and that includes most approximately the Silicon Valley, and we aim to do this in

a number of different ways. One of the things that we are working on actively is the g SB Racial Equity Initiative, which is going to be in partnership with our alumni, many of whom are here in Silicon Valley, and the goal of this is to increase representation, strength, and leadership and foster economic conclusion beyond the campus and again, as I said, most approximately here in the Silicon Valley. So that's one of the ways that we hope to

help to help the companies here in Silicon Valley. The other thing that we're doing actively right now is collaborating with the Stanford VM where Women's Leadership Lab on a number of different tool kits and trainings that we're developing in conjunction with the lab, but which will become part of the training for all of the corporate partners in that lab. Now, while the lab is focused on gender representation and gender equality, they're more broadly focused on diversity,

equity and inclusion. And like most organizations right now are focusing on racial justice and racial equity. And so those are just some of the ways that we hope we can impact our local area, but our global area of the global arena as well. I want to pose my question to Dean Levin. I mean, obviously, increasing diversity is

a huge priority for for universities, for companies. I wonder, though, are you expanding your class size to bring to be able to bring more underrepresented minorities on campus or are you are you still looking at the same class sizes. And this matters because otherwise it becomes a zero sum situation. Are more spaces open up for a certain group of people, but that means others that might not might have been able to get in are no longer able to get in.

So wonderful question in terms of thinking about the some of the trade us that can arise in thinking about class composition at the Stanford gsb our class size has increased gradually over time, at a at a at a continuous rate, and so we have been able to have more students being our NBA classes and our one year master's and sex program over time, and that has helped to broaden the set of people who have who have access. And there are opportunities through some of the programs that

we also run that are non degree programs. For example, we run an online program, the Lead Program, which now has hundreds of participants every year, to to reach more people. And and that's a way by providing broader access to the Business School that we're able to reach more people and all different types of people, and and that that really helps when your goal is to to create more

access for different groups. All right, before we let you guys go on, only got a couple of minutes left, uh, Dean Levin, where are we when it comes to getting folks back to campus this fall? Given the backdrop that you're seeing in California, but also taking into account you are, by all means a very international school with a global footprint and a global population. It's a great question everyone once to know the answer. We're all trying to figure it out. We're in a mode right now where we're

we're planning for contingencies. So we have had a plan to bring our students back to campus to have a hybrid learning environment where there's a mix of in person and virtual learning. We are like everyone up when you're waiting for the state to provide guidance around what will be possible and allowed and our county, San Clair County to do the same, and we'll have to operate within

the bounds of those regulations. So we're also preparing for an eventuality where we would be doing virtual learning as a backup plan. And I think you know, our focus is that whatever rules were given by the state and the county, the public health rules, we will we will do everything we can to create a wonderful, immersive, interactive environment for our students. And I think our students are

committed to that, or faculty are committed to that. We're gonna no matter how we end up this spool, we're going to end up doing a lot of innovation because it's going to be uncharted territory and we're gonna we're gonna rely on the innovation of our community and the good will of our community to get through it, and I'm confident we'll have a great quarter no matter how it how it plays out all right, well, we look forward to visiting with you in per since someday, some

way or another. Jonathan Levin is the dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Business along with Sarah soul she is Associate Dean Professor of sociology organizational management as well organizational behavior. Excuse me, uh, really good to catch up with them.