Letter from the Director

Steven Johnson Jr. shares program updates and opportunities to connect.

Greetings, alumni and friends.

For those of you whom I have not had the pleasure of meeting yet, my name is Steven Johnson Jr. and I serve as the director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Student Programs for the School of Business. In this role, I have oversight of the Multicultural Business Scholars Program (MBSP) and Summer Venture in Business (SVB) program. I have found joy in working with both programs and the amazing students who participate within each of them. Since starting the role in June, I have felt and witnessed a culture of support, care and connectedness from staff, faculty, students, alumni and partners. I am encouraged to further this culture through my work with student support initiatives and program management, and I am excited about future opportunities to collaborate in these efforts.

As we near the second half of the spring semester, I am excited to share a few program updates. During the fall semester, we welcomed 10 new students into MBSP. Scholars within the program have continued to maintain a commitment to academic excellence. We celebrated more than 30 scholars who achieved a 3.0 grade point average or higher during fall 2018, and four scholars who obtained a 4.0 grade point average. Our program grade point average for the fall was a 3.41 on a 4-point scale. Five scholars graduated in the fall semester, two of them continuing their education in the Master of Accounting program here in the KU School of Business and the other three in career placements of their choice.

This spring, we have we have focused our efforts on recruiting the next class of scholars to join the program. It is especially exciting to see that students who participated in our SVB program are now starting to make college decisions, and many of them have continued to maintain a business interest here at KU. Considering the 31 former program participants who plan to graduate this spring, 22 of them have applied and been accepted to KU, 12 of them have chosen an academic program that reflects their business interest, and seven of them have been directly admitted to the school of business.

Opportunities to connect

As we continue planning for the future of the program, it is our hope to find ways to remain intentionally connected with you. For now, we will be hosting our last monthly business meeting on April 11, in which we will be discussing faculty and alumni mentoring. If you have not yet connected with the KU Business Mentoring Program, you are encouraged to do so. Additionally, if you are available to attend this meeting, our goal is to have students connect with program alumni in a networking capacity. If you would like to learn more about this opportunity, please email me by April 5.

Thanks for all you do, and for all you will continue to do to support this amazing program.

Steven Johnson Jr. (he/him/his)
Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Student Programs
KU School of Business