(U-WIRE) BERKELEY, Calif. — Modest in number but booming in voice, black business students met this month to launch the Haas Undergraduate Black Business Association, bringing the highly competitive school together with a handful of business hopefuls.
Like most career-oriented groups, the atmosphere of the meeting was light — students mingled over pizza and cake.
However, beneath the interview tips and the recruiter presentation lay a deeper dilemma.
Their numbers shrinking on the University of California-Berkeley campus at large, black students find themselves even more outnumbered at the Haas School of Business.
In an entire undergraduate body of 422 students, the School of Business had only six black students last semester.
T-shirts worn by many black students last year screamed, “Represent — Less than 3.9%.”
If the business school’s black undergraduates were to make T-shirts, they would read just 1.4 percent.
But like the rest of the campus, bound by Proposition 209, the business school cannot directly address minority numbers through admissions.
Students say the school’s limited racial diversity makes for an uninviting environment in business classes.
“When I walk into a classroom and don’t see anyone that looks like me, it’s very intimidating,” said Solomon Asfaw, the group’s executive vice president.
As a black business student, Asfaw fears that cultural stereotypes still pervade classmates’ perceptions of him.
“People assume we’re athletes or not even in Haas because we’re black,” Asfaw says.
But it is at the Undergraduate Black Business Association meetings that Asfaw can find fellow black students sweeping by in business suits, shaking hands with potential members and setting up equipment for detailed PowerPoint presentations.
Instead of business administration, most black students flock toward sociology or political science majors, according to campus statistics.
Mustafa Sheikh, a black UC-Berkeley student, considered majoring in business administration at one point but opted for a major in the College of Letters and Science. Sheikh said he was more interested in how politics affected his peers and why things were the way they were in society.
Financial obstacles also stand in the way of applying for the business school’s small number of slots. Many students have to seek out jobs their first year in college and cannot devote time to meeting Haas’ extensive prerequisites, Sheikh said.
But business school student advocate Faye Lawson, who is African American, said that the issue is not a lack of interest.
Lawson said black students are eager to study business but that the College of Letters and Science does not give enough support to prospective Haas School of Business students.
“What are we doing in L&S that doesn’t empower and prepare them to get into Haas?” Lawson asked.
But the group’s goals do not end at admission. Moving Haas graduates into business careers is another prong of Association’s mission.
“The black community is especially underrepresented in the Midwest, like in Kansas City where I work,” said recruiter Perry Golden, who is from Cerner, a health-care corporation. “We feel scared or hampered, but we hamper ourselves. There are outlets.”
Those outlets are support groups like the Black Business Association that minority students can use to network with black business professionals.
Presentations help members get a feel for the business world with résumé tips, and major corporations like Wells Fargo and Siemens AG connect with the Association.
Many are eager to recruit minority business students, said the Association’s president Melanie Boughton, who has been speaking with Washington Mutual and Merrill Lynch.
“A lot of corporations have been calling, looking for diversity and talented black students,” Boughton says.
