To win the Consortium’s Together Everyone Achieves More (TEAM) Trophy Award, peers at member schools must demonstrate a keen commitment to the organization’s mission to “enhance diversity and inclusion in global business education and leadership.” This year—and for the third time since the launch of the award in 2004—Cornell Johnson earned it.
“All Hands on Deck”
According to the associate director of Johnson’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI), Jessica Krom, the award shows Johnson’s commitment to the Consortium’s mission throughout the entire school community. She said, “We hold our students accountable for upholding the mission [of The Consortium], but as the administration, we also hold ourselves accountable. It’s all hands on deck. It’s not just one entity. Everybody is invested in this work, and I think that has a lot to do with the success that we’ve seen within our Consortium family.”
Many factors influenced Johnson’s TEAM Trophy Award win, including:
- More than 10 club boards having student leaders
- 100 percent participation in the Class Gift Campaign
- More than $25,000 raised for from various fundraisers
- Teaching high school students financial literacy
- A clothing drive for Giving Tuesday
- Tutoring, career and academic advice, and study groups
Clementina Ojie, the Consortium student liaison chair at Johnson, said that the school didn’t deliberately try to earn the award—it occurred naturally because Johnson is passionate about the Consortium’s mission. The large group of Consortium students on campus automatically translates into “deep and diverse involvement across campus,” and the award was just “icing on the cake, but we have a cake to make regardless.”
A Pledge to Action
“At the end of the day, I think all of those things kind of bleed into that Consortium mission, and … as an organization, we’re making an impact with underrepresented minority students in the business school in general,” explained Ojie.
One aspect of this is the fact that Johnson MBA Consortium students sign a pledge that demonstrates their commitment to upholding the Consortium mission. Beyond that, they also do various community service projects, write blogs about their experiences, solicit donations, and host events. They go above and beyond to do things that have an impact.
To read more about how Cornell Johnson has prioritized the Consortium mission within the MBA program and throughout campus, read the original press release here.
