University of Wisconsin Provost Peter Spear addressed what he called the importance of diversity in corporate America to a crowded audience at the Great Hall Wednesday afternoon.
Spear introduced executives from international businesses and how they address diversity in the workplace.
“There are many different reasons why diversity is important on a campus like this … businesses are wanting to hire students that have diverse backgrounds, experiences and are able to learn and work with others that have different backgrounds,” Spear said.
The university’s plan to increase diversity on campus, called Plan 2008, is supported by companies like Cargill Corporation, Procter and Gamble and Kimberly-Clark, who say in order to compete at an international level of business, one must have diverse experiences at a university level.
The Cargill Corporation, known for manufacturing food ingredients that are in products like Coca-Cola; Procter and Gamble, identified with consumer products such as Tide detergent and Cover Girl make-up; and Kimberly-Clark, known for products such as Kleenex and Huggies diapers, have several things in common. All are billion-dollar corporations, all heavily stress diversity and all have reduced recruitment on the UW campus due to issues related to lack of diversity.
“Whether we like it or not, the world is changing around us, and we need to adapt,” said Andy Smiltneek, director of innovation management at Kimberly-Clark. “Diversity is a fact. Inclusion is what you want.”
Smilneek explained that if the world population were reduced to 100, only five people would be from the United States and Canada; he also said how institutions, like the University of Wisconsin, should provide a person with the knowledge of how to be effective in a diverse atmosphere to understand and relate to the other 95 people, especially in a business.
“The demographics of the university does not reflect the world population,” Smilneek said.
Therefore, Kimberly-Clark and the other two companies continue to assist Plan 2008 to better prepare students for the future.
Ann Schwister, director of global skin care finance for Procter and Gamble, said a university graduate can be talented and qualified, but they must be racially diverse in order to compete in the world marketplace, especially in the future.
“Diversity is a weak link for UW in choosing schools to recruit from,” Schwister said. “There is only three of the original seven recruiting centers on campus, and in order to continue the relationship with Wisconsin, changes need to happen to improve diversity.”
Dale Farenbach, Cargill vice-president and business unit leader, said it is in the company’s best interest to seek people that are diverse in order to improve the business’s ability to be a high-performing organization.
“People that have diverse backgrounds lead to an all-inclusive environment with differences being valued to more productivity and better results to growth and profitability to more secure jobs and greater possibilities,” Farenbach said.
“There is no correlation between the SAT, ACT, the success at a university and the success in life,” Smiltneek said.
