Celebrate Diversity: Talent Has No Particular Color or Gender

Rawls College of Business Dean Lance Nail understands the path to creating a visible difference in the college: make sure Rawls College stakeholders realize that business talent has neither color nor gender, and that their role as a college is to identify and cultivate that talent.

Nail and the Rawls College of Business are one of many Texas Tech University entities striving to make the campus more diverse. That initiative will be recognized with the third annual Celebrate Diversity Awards Banquet. The banquet, hosted by the university’s Division of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement, is tonight (Oct. 16) at the McKenzie-Merket Alumni Center and features broadcast journalist Soledad O’Brien.

“One of the best ways to cultivate this talent is to provide mentors for our students in the form of faculty, alumni and members of the business community,” Nail said. “When students are paired with successful professionals who came from similar backgrounds to achieve their success, they tend to develop a bond that translates the success of their mentors into their own success.”

One avenue to identify this success, Nail said, is to break down the obstacles to admission for first-generation college students. He explained that many first-generation students have the talent to succeed in business school, but they find the collegiate experience to be intimidating and either drop out or never enroll.

“We want the Rawls College of Business to be a welcoming environment that breeds success for all of our students,” he said. “That will mean developing bridge programs aimed at recruiting and retaining first-generation college students who might not otherwise find a successful academic path.

With the outstanding commitment to diversity that permeates the Texas Tech campus, Nail said the Rawls College of Business will become an even stronger partner in this effort through this new programming.

“In an increasingly competitive global business environment, we have a responsibility to produce the best and brightest in business – and that means the best and brightest from ALL of our students.”

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