A Call for Mandatory Diversity Education at Jesuit Business Schools

Business education is being criticized as too vocational and not teaching critical thinking and other important skills. Employers are complaining that graduates do not have skills for the diverse workplace. This research proposes that mandatory diversity education in business schools will help fill these gaps. We argue that Jesuit business schools have a special stake in diversity education. In the promise to develop “men and women for others,” Jesuit business schools have the opportunity to re-invent business education to be more relevant in the high-tech, hyper-intercon- nected, culturally diverse, global economy of the 21st century. To support these topics, we provide data that examines awareness and attitudes toward diversity by one Jesuit school’s business students compared to that school’s liberal arts students. Finally, we provide implications for what “mandatory diversity education” might look like in Jesuit business schools.