Mercedes Perry

She/her

Education: Bachelor of Science in business administration management (May 2015)

McNair Project: Diversity within Colleges’ of Business Mission Statements (2012)

Mentor: Brian Niehoff, Ph.D.

Research has shown that mission statements provide organizations with purpose and direction. Mission statements for business colleges have become important because the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (the accreditation body for schools of business) expects all of the actions for a college to flow from their mission statement. The AACSB also places a point of emphasis on diversity within their guidelines. The present study aimed to determine whether or not a college of business is conscientious about the importance of diversity. Content analysis was used to analyze mission statements gathered from seventy-four AACSB and a rubric was developed to measure each individual mission statement. About five percent of the schools contained information regarding diversity but fifty-seven percent had no mention of diversity at all. About twenty-four percent of the schools contained quality information pertaining to diversity while fifty percent contained poor quality of information. Recommendations for the findings were presented within the report.