News > January 17, 2008

By Maya Yette | Staff writer

The Calloway School of Business and Accountancy hosted a diversity consortium Jan. 10-12 to introduce top students from historically black colleges and universities to its Master of Science in Accountancy program.

The Calloway School of Business and Accountancy invited students from historically black schools to campus Jan. 10-12. (Kelly Makepeace/Old Gold & Black)

Sixteen students from North Carolina A&T, North Carolina Central, Morehouse, Grambling, University of Maryland, Northwestern, Hamden-Sydney, Florida A&M, Spelman, Lafayette and University of Kentucky attended the consortium.

The Calloway Accounting Diversity Consortium was sponsored by the accounting firm Ernst & Young. This consortium builds on a summit the university held last January with business school deans at other historically black institutions.

Debra Jessup, Calloway School lecturer in business and director of diversity initiatives, said, “We decided when we began the diversity initiative that it was important to raise the awareness of the MSA program at Wake among historically black universities and colleges and to develop a relationship with those universities.”

To achieve this goal, Jessup and other Calloway professors made contact with key individuals at the selected institutions.

They then followed up by inviting students from those colleges to visit the university and learn more about the MSA program in particular and the value of the MSA degree in general to a career in accounting.

“We hope that by raising awareness of our program, we increase our applicants and therefore, increase diversity in the graduate accounting student body,” Jessup said.

Students who attended the consortium had the opportunity to meet with current students, faculty and Ernst &Young representatives.

Sessions held included a MSA program overview, application process and required courses led by the MSA Program director.

“In the beginning, we sought out advice from Ernst & Young as to how we could improve diversity within our MSA program,” Jessup said. “We worked closely with Allen Boston and Randall Duncan, an alumnus of the Calloway school, to develop a strategy.

“As a result, Ernst & Young agreed to partner with us to continue their support and assistance as we attempted to implement our plan.”

The Calloway School is one of Ernst & Young’s 77 priority schools.

“We’re very supportive of the University and its program and we try to recruit as many people as we can, serve on advisory boards and donate to the school,” said Allen Boston, partner and director of campus and diversity recruiting for Ernst & Young.

The Calloway School is currently ranked #1 in the nation for the highest pass rate on the first attempt of the CPA Exam.

The Diversity Consortium had a “twofold benefit because it is important for people to have experience in a situation where they are in a classroom with individuals from a lot of different backgrounds and it will also be a significant benefit to the non-ethnically diverse students by rounding out their educational experience as they work in a corporate environment, especially one with global reach such as (Ernst & Young),” Boston said.

“It was a win-win all the way around and such a very energizing experience.”