There’s a lot of technology that is missing in developing countries, in veterinary medicine and in human medicine. My experience in both areas could help create a bridge to support those people. Being at Rice gives me the support to do those things.

 

Chidi Igweh, MBA@Rice ’22 

Animals were Chidi Igweh’s first love. Growing up on his family’s livestock farm in Nigeria, he’d help his father care for the animals — and he gave them names. “For me, they were all pets,” he says. “The chickens were pets; the goats were pets. For my brothers they probably were the product, but for me, it was personal. The animals were part of us and needed to be taken care of.” 

In the 1990s, however, tragedy struck: Newcastle disease, a deadly poultry virus, spread across Africa. There was no treatment. Farmers could only watch helplessly as their livelihood was destroyed. Entire farms were wiped out, including Igweh’s. The senseless loss inspired him to become a veterinarian, which he did, eventually opening his own practice in Lagos along with a dog-breeding business. Four years later, however, he suffered another loss: One of his dogs got cancer, but because of limited diagnostic and treatment options, he once again found himself powerless to help her. “She died, and that kind of broke me,” he said. “I decided to study engineering and help create diagnostic kits for developing countries. In the U.S., you have diagnostic, treatment and management tools in veterinary care. The drugs are available here, and staff that understand oncology. Those things hadn’t made it to Nigeria.” 

He came to the U.S. and earned a master’s degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Bridgeport, then took a job at Johnson & Johnson, where he delivers strategic advice about the company’s medical devices to healthcare practitioners. But he realized that to really make a difference in medicine — human or veterinary — he’d need a sophisticated understanding of the business side. “I started to realize there are ways to manage healthcare apart from the technical side. There are options like investment: finding out who has a great idea and needs funding for it,” he says. “As an investment banker, for example, I could identify a medical device that could solve a problem, and I could have influence enough to direct funds to support that business and maybe help developing countries in the long term.” 

He decided to pursue his MBA at Rice Business partly because of the school’s deep ties to the healthcare industry. And because he lives and works in Newark, New Jersey, he chose the MBA@Rice program. The surprise for him has been how connected he feels to his classmates and professors, even though the program is virtual. “I feel like this program is teaching me about life — I wasn’t expecting that,” he says. “Strategic communication or even managerial economics — those things affect your life, your personal life, as well. You can use them in every part of your life.” 

This new path could lead him to investment banking with a focus on medical technology — or perhaps enable him to start his own business one day. “I think if I were to own my own business, it would be animal-care related,” he says. “It could be creating a diagnostic center for animals using the latest equipment — basically helping vets use modern equipment, especially in cancer detection. I’d want to focus on the animals, and focus on disease prevention, to solve problems before they happen."

Rice Business professor Mikki Hebl specializes in lifting the bedrock of business to study the unsettling activity underneath. Her research reveals the health and productivity effects of workplace discrimination, bigotry toward overweight men, and how legislating bans on workplace bigotry change everyday behavior. Encompassing both psychology and management, Hebl’s findings have special urgency now that historic numbers of Americans are linking institutional racism and the killing of Black citizens, including Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. We spoke with her about how the Black Lives Matter movement is transforming American businesses — and whether those changes will last. 

Q: Your work looks at some of the most painful aspects of human interactions: racial discrimination, Nazism, prejudice against people with physical vulnerabilities, bigotry about body types. How did you come to this specialty and what are the big questions that motivate you?

A: I came this way via an education at Smith College, which made me dig deeply into looking at issues related to gender inequities in our country and world. From there, I wanted to pursue graduate studies in gender-related issues which quickly spread to just generally examining stigmatized groups more generally. I’m mostly motivated by ways we can make workplaces and lives more equitable, fair, and optimal for all people regardless of their demographic backgrounds and characteristics.

Q: Many Americans right now are learning intensively about structural, institutional and interpersonal racism. From your research, how do institutional racism and interpersonal racism affect each other?

A: They deeply affect each other. When institutional racism is allowed, interpersonal discrimination flourishes. Our own research has shown this — if you pass laws preventing formal discrimination, interpersonal discrimination also decreases.

Q: Your research gives peer-reviewed evidence for workplace issues that African Americans have been battling for generations. Do you think the new Black Lives Matter conversation — and apparent growing respect for these issues, as shown in opinion polls — will make a long-term difference in the American workplace

A: Ibram X. Kendi wrote a book called “How to Be an Antiracist,” and one of his take-home messages is that you cannot lose hope even though racism often feels like metastatic cancer. If you lose hope that things will get better, you die. Racism has been here since the inception of America, but our past does not have to be our future. And I hope this is a different moment. I am hopeful that November will bring the first vice president who is Black and female. And that with this change is also ushered in real change in the great inequities that so many BIPOC people face in our society.

Q: More specifically, do you think anti-Black discrimination in the workplace in the wake of Black Lives Matter is better? Worse? Unchanged? 

A: I’m not sure that things have changed much, although I think they may be polarizing more. What we know is that prejudiced people look for behaviors that rationalize the expression of their prejudices. So, if I am against obesity and I see a heavy man eating a Snickers bar, I might say “See, that’s why he’s fat — he has terrible eating habits.” In reality, many people eat a candy bar from time to time. In the case of Blacks, if I am prejudiced, I might see the small amount of violence at peaceful protests and focus on the violence, citing that “See, Blacks are violent,” so that I can maintain my prejudiced outlook. Thus, I think that once formed, opinions can become difficult to change.

Q: What trends do you see ahead for leadership positions for African Americans in major industries? (The extremely white publishing and magazine industries, for example, have moved some African Americans to top positions in recent months.)

A: I am hopeful. Very hopeful. There are three reasons to anticipate change: the realistic, business, and moral cases. In terms of the realistic case, we do know that demographic trends show that whites are going to soon be a minority of the workforce and country. However, it is not Black individuals who are rising in the makeup of our workforce and population — rather, they are projected to remain at the current percentages. Instead, it is Hispanic individuals and Asian immigrants, both of which are expected to increase. 

But the point is that white leadership is likely to change just based on the changing demographics of our country. In terms of the business case, many research studies consistently show increased creative solutions, innovation, and other positive outcomes related to diversity. And finally, the moral case posits that we must change if we are a country that truly holds egalitarian values and believes everyone deserves a fair shot.

Q: What questions do you suggest CEOs ask themselves as they reflect on their own workplace culture and their Black employees?

A: What are my own biases? How did privilege land me where I am? How can I educate myself about racism? Why aren’t there any women or minorities in upper management? What can I tangibly do to change this? How can I ensure diversity within my organization? What policies best support the people? Do I enable people to bring their authentic selves to work? Am I hiring people based on “fit” and a false sense of “meritocracy”? Am I being transparent with hiring procedures, numbers, pay equity, promotions, retention offers?  These would be a handful of questions I’d start asking. 

In Buenos Aires, a family business that builds furniture for office buildings wanted to branch out and add modern, residential wood and steel products to its mix. In normal times, the MBA students helping Cimo Saci craft a business plan as part of a Rice Business Global Field Experience might have popped into competing furniture stores to gather intel or interviewed shoppers strolling along Buenos Aires streets. 

But this year, the course faced a significant challenge: COVID-19. What is typically an immersive cultural experience, helping companies abroad solve real-world business problems, was constrained by the fact that students couldn’t safely travel. Organizers of the global program quickly adapted, however. They moved the course online, maintaining the cross-cultural dialogue — but doing it from a safe distance. 

Students working on the business plan adapted as well. They created a digital consumer survey and translated it into Spanish to gauge customer interest. They interviewed competitors by phone. Then, over Zoom, they presented their client with a detailed business plan, marketing strategy and starter portfolio designed to get buy-in from the family’s patriarch and help the company jumpstart its new endeavor.

“It was a crash course in how to assess a new market, and it was a huge learning experience,” says London Hayes ’21, one of the students who worked on the project. “From marketing to understanding customers’ preferences to pricing strategies, I tackled challenges I’d never faced before. We gave the client the proof that they needed for dad.”

To adapt to the current health crisis, Global Field Experience organizers and advisors, plus the dozens of participating students, were challenged this year to come up with creative ways to work — and together, they made it a rewarding experience for all involved, says Abbey Hartgrove, senior associate director of Rice Business Global, who organizes the trips.

“Over the years, we’ve been able to develop very high-quality relationships,” Hartgrove says. “Then, when something like this happens, it’s not hard to ask people to transition to online, and they say, ‘Absolutely.’ The relationships we’ve built over time were imperative to the quick transition, and the program was a success all the way around.”

Despite having to do it remotely, students honed their critical and creative thinking skills and analytical reasoning, while the companies they worked with — many of which don’t have an MBA on staff — benefited from their in-depth research, business plans and advice. 

Brandon Horne 21’, who also worked with Cimo Saci, was excited to learn about business operations in another country after working for years in the U.S. in engineering. Solving a business problem in Argentina, which has one of the highest inflation rates in the world, presented students with an especially unique challenge. 

“It was interesting to see how much more work is involved when you can’t make assumptions about things we take for granted every day,” such as stable prices, Horne says. “It was a fun drill to build out a model for the client, and based on their reaction, our work was valuable to them.”

And connecting with the client virtually had some unexpected benefits, Horne adds, especially when a team member’s child inevitably wandered into the room. “The client liked to see the kids and waved to them,” he says. “It added to the relationship.” 

MBA Concepts in the Real World

Part of Rice Business’ core curriculum, the Global Field Experience was created in 2018 to give students valuable experience working on consulting projects hand-in-hand with companies in emerging markets, with a focus on Latin America. 

For these courses, full-time, professional, and executive MBA students split up into small teams, and each is assigned a company with a specific business problem. Teams initially chat online with executives at the companies, which range from major global corporations to local startups. They also learn more about the country and business landscape through lectures from top executives and experts in the region. Then, they travel abroad to present their solutions in person. Plans for 2020 included sending more than 400 students across six cohorts to São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Lima, Santiago and Panama City.

“Students get a great opportunity to try out some of the MBA concepts they’ve picked up, and in many cases, they get a newfound confidence,” says Bill Glick, a management and organizational behavior professor who was a co-advisor to students participating in the Argentina courses. “They gain an appreciation of how to do business in other contexts and see that their ideas are valuable to businesses.”

In past years, Rice Business students have helped companies make major breakthroughs. One company even changed its name after student research revealed that it wasn’t serving the brand well. 

“Students leave behind tools that companies can really use,” Glick says. “The program has done a lot of good for clients.”

David Van Horn, an operations management professor and Glick’s fellow Argentina advisor, says that travel does amplify the experience. “But even without that, doing this type of high-quality work for an actual business over Zoom builds camaraderie. The businesses really enjoyed working with the students,” he says.

In normal times, students spend seven to 10 days in-country at the end of the semester, meeting with company executives and fine-tuning their business solution during the day, networking at night, and engaging in a service project to help the local community. During the trip, students also meet with local experts and business leaders. 

Image

But in early March, it became apparent that this wasn’t going to be a typical year. “Storm clouds were already on the horizon,” says Van Horn. During an in-person kick-off class at Rice for the 53 professional MBA students in the Argentina cohort, travel abroad was the elephant in the room, he says. “We said, ‘Let’s see how things go.’ ” 

Virtual Problem Solving

Professional students, who were assigned to Argentina, broke off into teams of five and made a top-10 list of their preferred companies out of a list of 19. Most of the business problems focused on developing strategy and marketing solutions for companies including an organic winery, an oil and gas company, a gelato maker and a handful of software companies. 

“Students learn about operations, finance, markets — all the different gears of a business,” Van Horn says. 

With the help of the Austral Group, which connects universities with corporations and business leaders abroad, the Rice Business professors ultimately decided on the team-company pairs. Students then met executives from their business virtually, as they normally would have. Michelle Depenbrock, ’21, said she was excited to travel to Argentina, adding that the uncertainty about the travel piece was difficult. “We were all on the edge of our seats trying to make plans and to get a definitive answer,” she says. 

Weeks later, it became clear that travel abroad would not be happening because of the pandemic. Students would spend the next several months solving their business problem virtually. Depenbrock ultimately found she enjoyed working online with global steel pipe manufacturer Tenaris, which needed help refining its customer satisfaction assessments. She and her team spoke with executives weekly over Zoom, and researched top customer satisfaction technology and methodology online.

Of course, it’s impossible to replace the in-person networking opportunities that students missed out on this year. Those add another dimension to student-client relationships, Van Horn says, including what likely would have been dinners with CEOs, possibly in their homes. Some experiences just can’t be replicated online, he adds. 

For example, in a past year, a team working with a Chilean textile import-export company gained valuable insight into the industry by walking around a massive textile marketplace in Santiago. “Sometimes, flat out, you just need to be there,” Van Horn says.

And working digitally brought new challenges. Connecting only through email and over screens made it tricky to get a feel for the client and exactly what they wanted. “Sometimes what they put on paper is not exactly what they want,” Depenbrock says.

But that drove home a valuable lesson, emphasizing the need to ask probing questions and to clarify the client’s goals every step of the way, she says. Once team members clearly understood Tenaris’ goals, they consulted with faculty and were able to deliver exactly what the client wanted.

Depenbrock’s team was thrilled when a high-level global marketing executive joined their final Zoom presentation and Q&A. “We were very happy with our client,” she says, “and the client seemed to be really pleased with what we delivered.”

Agustin Martinez Mosquera, the senior manager at Tenaris who sponsored the project, says the company is considering incorporating some of the team’s recommended methodologies and new technologies. “It was a great experience, and students surpassed our expectations,” he says. 

The Benefits of Going Digital

Other projects this year included helping a small Argentinian winery broaden its global strategy and increase its brand reach. Students dove into research on the Asian wine market, where a majority of sales go through restaurants instead of retail stores, and where home consumption is tied more to online sales. Conversations with Rice alumni who have expertise in this market were an invaluable asset, as were conversations with Rice professors across disciplines and schools, from Rice Business to the Baker Institute, says Glick.

Crucial to making the Global Field Experience work remotely were Zoom Pro accounts, which Rice gave to all students, allowing them to seamlessly connect with their companies, Hartgrove said. She and her team coordinated virtual roundtables with Latin American executives and facilitated students and executives regularly connecting over Zoom. “There were a lot of moving pieces,” she says. “We were trying to remain innovative and get ahead of the game.”

Some students and their clients set up virtual happy hours, while others found themselves going over facts and figures with a startup CEO lounging on his living room couch. Hartgrove says that sticking with a limited number of cities, working with hand-picked companies, and taking the time to nurture relationships with executives was key.
In past years during the course’s in-person segment, meeting with local businesspeople could get complicated. Sometimes the CEO was out of town during the students’ trip; sometimes an exec’s office wasn’t large enough to host the whole team. Moving the experience online at a time when much of the world was on stay-at-home orders made it possible for more experts to participate, Hartgrove says. 

“You would never have thought this would provide more opportunities,” she says, “but students were exposed to so much more, and they were amazed with how highly engaged the companies and executives were.”

Deborah Lynn Blumberg is a Houston-based freelance writer specializing in health and wellness and business and finance. 
 

Horror. Disbelief. Anger.

Those were just a few of the emotions that rippled through the Rice Business community in response to the May killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed Black man, at the hands of white police officers in Minneapolis — an event that led to mass protests across the country. Amongst people of color, there was also the bone-deep weariness that comes from yet another stark reminder of the injustice that pervades American society.

“It’s been one of the most exhausting, emotionally draining times in my life,” says Valerie Valentine ’21. 

Valentine, who is president of the Black Business Student Association, lost her father in the fall. She has not set foot in McNair Hall since spring break, when the school moved to remote learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. And she admits that having to process what Floyd’s death means for her as a Black woman — figuring out how to respond and where to focus her energies — while simultaneously navigating the challenges of life during a global pandemic has at times been overwhelming.

But if there is fatigue, there is also hope. Hope that administrators and faculty, students and alumni can seize this moment to achieve real and lasting change on campus and beyond.
 

It’s heartbreaking, but what I feel right now is momentum. We need to move now.

 

Nalani Ortiz ’21

Shortly after Floyd’s death, Dean Peter Rodriguez established the Rice Business Task Force on Racial Equity and Social Justice. Meanwhile, the Jones Student Association launched a GoFundMe campaign that has so far raised more than $12,000 for Houston-area nonprofits such as Black Lives Matter Houston and the Black Trans Advocacy Coalition.

In ways both large and small, the entire community redoubled its efforts to confront and repair the injustice and inequality that have dogged this country for far too long.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Nalani Ortiz ’21, says of the recent killings, which include not only the death of George Floyd but also those of Ahmaud Arbery in February and Breonna Taylor in March. “But what I feel right now is momentum. We need to move now.”

Doing More

By many measures, Rice Business has been moving on issues of racial equity and social justice for some time.

When he arrived on campus in 2016, Rice Business Dean Peter Rodriguez supported and expanded the position of Director of Diversity and Inclusion. He also successfully petitioned to have Rice Business join the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, an alliance of top-tier business schools and corporate partners dedicated to increasing minority representation in business education and corporate leadership. Member schools must demonstrate a significant commitment to diversity and inclusion, not least through scholarships to students who do the same. 

“It’s been a game-changer in terms of attracting students,” says Lina Bell, who has been Director of Diversity and Inclusion since 2017. 

Valentine and Ortiz are both Consortium Fellows; Ortiz serves as the Rice Business chapter president. Michael Arnold ’21, the diversity and inclusion chair for the Jones Student Association, is also a Consortium Fellow. And all three are members of the Task Force on Racial Equity and Social Justice, where Valentine serves as student co-chair.

The school partners with various organizations that work to increase the number of women and underrepresented minority MBAs. It actively recruits from as broad a range of communities as possible. And administrators, staff and students organize events that bring together alumni, Houston-area business leaders, and groups such as Out & Allied, the school’s LGBTQ organization, and the Forté Foundation, which aims to give women greater access to business education and professional development. 

Those efforts have helped make Rice Business one of the most diverse business schools in the United States. According to Bell, the number of underrepresented minorities on campus increased from 10 percent to nearly 20 percent between 2017 and 2019. That same year, Poets & Quants magazine recognized Rice Business as having the highest proportion of minority MBA students of any top-25 business school in the country.

In the wake of George Floyd’s death and the ensuing protests, Bell quickly organized a series of workshops for staff on topics such as bias and systemic racism. Rodriguez created the task force, which is charged with recommending specific actions to promote racial equity and social justice. Yet everyone agrees that much work remains to be done.

Minority students, for instance, cannot help but notice that neither the faculty nor the curriculum reflect the diversity of the student body.

“I don’t think students see themselves in the faculty. I know I don’t,” says Arnold, who can trace his family roots to Nicaragua, Cuba and Puerto Rico.

What’s more, they lament the limited number of business cases that feature women and underrepresented minorities as protagonists. 

“We read hundreds of cases in our first year, and none of them reflect our experiences,” Valentine says.

And while bias and inequity are sometimes discussed in the classroom in abstract terms, more difficult conversations about racial equity and social justice are few and far between.

“I can’t think of a single class where I’ve had a facilitated dialogue around race, equity, privilege and inclusion,” says Ortiz, who like Valentine identifies as a Black woman. “I really want to know where my classmates stand on these issues. But if we never get to voice our concerns or thoughts with each other, then what we are left with is assumptions. And assumptions can be so damaging.”

Rodriguez agrees. “We haven’t done enough to increase the diversity of the faculty and of the groups of people who work in the building. And we haven’t done enough to infuse the curriculum with thoughtful training on what race, ethnicity, sexuality, and everything else that creates differences amongst people tends to do to the way they think of each other and how they behave in groups and in society,” he says, adding that doing so is critical to the school’s mission of producing ethical leaders who can build efficient organizations. 

Diversifying the Faculty

Making progress on these fronts will require an innovative mindset and a willingness to play both a short game and a long one. Fortunately, those are the specialties of the house.

The relative lack of faculty diversity, for instance, is a reflection of a larger problem that afflicts all top-tier business schools, and addressing it in a comprehensive way — i.e., increasing the number of underrepresented minority PhD candidates and ensuring that they have a level playing field in terms of career advancement — will take time. 

The school already participates in the PhD Project, an initiative that helps Black, Latinx, and Native American students earn doctorates in business. But as Rodriguez points out, the current gap in faculty representation is so large that the PhD Project could triple its numbers and still not fill it. 

“There’s no short-run solution to that part of the problem,” he says.

There are, however, a number of things that Rice Business can do to improve the situation in the short term while addressing the larger problem over the long haul.

For instance, the school can expand its own PhD programs and work harder to identify talent at state schools and historically Black colleges and universities. It can reconsider the merits on which promotion and tenure are decided, looking beyond the handful of journals that currently serve as the arbiters of quality scholarship. It can invite experts who are not traditional academics to do more classroom teaching. And it may even be able to make explicit calls to hire underrepresented minorities for specific positions — though that last piece, Rodriguez admits, may present legal issues.

If the specific details still need to be ironed out, the path forward is clear.

“We have to look outside the traditional pipeline to do better sooner,” Rodriguez says. “And we have to commit to being part of the long-term solution.”

Changing the Conversation

The same basic principle applies to curricular reform. On one hand, Rice Business can encourage faculty to engage more directly in conversations around equity, bias and social justice — a task for which Ortiz, herself a former teacher, argues they are uniquely well-suited. 

“Educators are taught to be facilitators of dialogue,” she says. “By avoiding those conversations, we’re really not leveraging what our faculty are capable of.”

At the same time, says Rodriguez, Rice Business can devote more resources to attracting scholars whose own research addresses questions of equity and social justice; creating symposia and other platforms for discussing race and bias; and supporting students who have their own ideas for raising those issues on campus.

It can also do more to redress the lack of business cases that feature women and people of color. Faculty members could choose cases with a more diverse cast of characters, Rodriguez says. In addition, they could augment the formal cases they use with examples of their own choosing that feature historically underrepresented groups. 

Not doing these things, he contends, adversely affects the underrepresented students in the room “by putting them at a greater distance from the protagonists in their choices — or by suggesting that they could not be leaders.”

A Force for Change

All of these changes fall within the purview of the task force, whose creation in early June was initially met with a certain amount of skepticism by students. At the time, some worried that it would move too slowly — or worse, that it was meant to quell their concerns without taking meaningful action.

“A lot of us were like, ‘Why do we have to wait for a task force?’” recalls Arnold.

Those fears were laid to rest by the composition of the group, which includes a diverse mix of students, alumni, faculty and staff, and by its timeline: While he has made clear that anyone can present him with a request at any time, Rodriguez has asked the task force to present its preliminary recommendations to him no later than October 2 and its final recommendations no later than December 18. 

“I do feel as if the school is listening,” says Ortiz.

Yet the task force is only one vehicle for change. Bell, for example, would like to find ways of increasing collaboration with other units within the university that do work related to diversity and inclusion, such as the Baker Institute for Public Policy and the Center for African and African American Studies. Student members of the task force have already reached out to deans and faculty members to explore their own ideas for addressing themes of bias and representation, equity and injustice. And Arnold has been mulling future JSA initiatives.

It’s too early to tell exactly what will come of all this activity. But one thing is certain: The results will reverberate well beyond McNair Hall.

“What we instill in our student body will ultimately radiate into all of the different businesses that students will have their hands in,” says Ortiz. “If they learn to release their assumptions and judgments about people, they’ll know how to check their biases, or at least be aware of them.”

That applies not only to race, says Rodriguez, but to gender, sexuality, and all the other elements of the human experience that make for diverse and inclusive organizations.

“We all know that the greatest impact that we have on society tends to be through the decisions that our students make, how they see the world and how they choose to lead,” he says. “We’re just one school. I know we can’t do it all. But the right people can make a big difference.”

Alexander Gelfand is a freelance writer based in New York City who often covers business, science and social justice.
 

September in Houston has always been a time to catch up on campus and settle into the school year. This fall is different. We’re all wearing masks, staying at a safe distance from each other in and outside the classroom, and many of us are streaming in from our homes. However we describe it, the bottom line is that we have reinvented what school looks like. Our adaptation for safety is working very well and we hope it will put us on a quicker path to a return to the closeness we all cherish and enjoy. 

In preparation for reopening, we have asked a lot of our faculty, staff and students. And still, so much is new and foreign. Except the things that connect us. Conversations. Eye contact. Laughter. Listening and learning.

At the same time we’re managing the challenges of the pandemic, we have also rededicated ourselves to rising to the urgent call to put an end to racial injustice and social inequities. Our Task Force on Racial Equity and Social Justice has been charged with researching, evaluating and recommending actions to make Rice Business a part of the solution to systemic racism. We have a lot of work ahead of us and an exceptional group leading our efforts.

You’ll have a chance to read up on the activities of the task force and some of its members in this issue of the magazine. Please join me in thanking and supporting this superb group of friends and colleagues as they pursue this critical work. Know that we are committed to being a part of the long-term solution on campus and in the world.

The magazine is filled with other good reads — a rundown on the first month of classes, what a virtual Global Field Experience feels like, and 20 years of entrepreneurial adventures. While this issue of the magazine will again be online — on our newly redesigned, elegant and inviting website — we hope to bring you real live pages to turn come the spring. 

Happy fall,
Peter

By Toddre' Monier

From 2015 to 2017, I worked for a high-profile startup in Marina del Rey, Calif., that prided itself on its social justice credentials. During those two years, Freddie Gray was killed by police in Baltimore. Alton Sterling was killed in Baton Rouge. Texas jurors refused to indict jail staff for Sandra Bland’s death and a police officer shot Philando Castile seven times in Minneapolis. It seemed as if the news reported the killings of unarmed Black women and men daily. But in my workplace, there was silence.

Every morning, I dragged myself out of bed, stuffed down the sadness and wondered if another lynching would be broadcast that day. Once in the office, I felt asphyxiated by a cloud of grief. Sometimes I’d discreetly head to the bathroom, lock the stall and cry. I wish our company had even once talked directly about the events traumatizing Black employees like me — and offered guidance to our coworkers on how to be a good workmate and friend. What could the company and my coworkers have said? The more advice you read, the more confused you may end up. It’s not simple.

Four hundred years of PTSD will not be undone with benevolence. We cannot heal from trauma until it ceases. But there’s a lot you can do to intercept it on behalf of your Black coworkers. The first step is simplest: Take action. Learn, vote, consider affiliating with a social justice group that can guide you through the issues. But what about the second step — supporting the people you see daily? How can you be a good friend to workmates doing everything they can to manage their grief while getting their jobs done?

To be Black in America, it’s been said, is to be African without memory and American without privilege. In particular, in many workplaces, African Americans are in a constant state of liminality — permanently suspended betwixt two cultural worlds. Former Rice Business professor Otilia Obodaru described the discomfort of this state in a paper, “Between and Betwixt Identities: Liminal Experience In Contemporary Careers.” Guiding figures and mentors can alleviate this stress of this ambiguous state, she noted. So can ride-or-die work friends. Unlike other peers, work friends have power to address structural and personal racism at the same time.

Politeness As A Survival Skill

While it may not always be obvious, African Americans constantly bend over backward to tame our Blackness to appear more “professional.” The effort can make the most mundane workdays grueling. Take everyday speech: While most of Black professionals would never use African American Vernacular English at work, we hear our white colleagues drop Black colloquialisms and be deemed “cool.” Most of us have heard or suffered disparagement or worse about Black hair worn naturally. So we subject our hair to harmful straightening treatments, wigs and weaves. Black colleagues, too, know from experience that if two or more of them congregate at the water cooler, some white coworkers will become extremely uncomfortable. So we keep our distance, sometimes not even acknowledging one another.

This workplace loneliness is sharpened by a racialized form of politeness many of us learned explicitly at home as a survival skill. Today, it’s part of modern interracial friendships that might seem to be intimate and relaxed. As Maryland opera singer Zyda Culpepper put it in this gentle, anguished video: “For a long time, I have been conditioned to believe that it is important not to make white people uncomfortable. Especially those who were white liberals or white progressives. … And so for years I held my tongue if I experienced a microagression.” Now, like many other Black people, Culpepper has resolved to speak up — even with good friends and our friendly colleagues. To be a true friend, take a deep breath — and listen.

But the truth is, there are no easy answers. Resources telling how to behave within a moment we’ve never experienced before are conflicting. Chad Sanders, for example, wrote in the New York Times that he doesn’t need non-Black friends to send “love” texts. He’d rather you fight anti-Blackness amongst yourselves. To avoid being drained of his time and energy, he avoids communicating with his well-meaning non-Black friends altogether.

My sister April sees it differently. She works in retail and is often the only Black person within her professional and social circles. Among friends, she says, her feelings are dismissed, making her liminality particularly acute. Her knee-jerk reaction is to act as if everything is fine. But what she wishes, she told me, is for coworkers to ask her how she is doing and if her family is OK. While this is the opposite of what Sanders’ New York Times piece advises, it resonates for me too.

One thing Sanders absolutely hit the mark on, however: Don’t make it about you. My friend works in the public transportation sector, where employees are not permitted to discuss current events at the office. But he does hang out with a couple of non-Black colleagues outside work and says he’s glad to talk about politics with them. “Just be respectful!” he advises. Most importantly, he says, listen carefully, and think first about what you say. Saying, “I wish my great-grandfather hadn’t owned slaves,” comes off more about your feelings than those of your listener.

Show Warmth – And Real Professional Support

Looking back on my experience in California, how would I have suggested my non-Black colleagues behave? In addition to kindness, would I have wanted them to broach the subject of police brutality at work? Honestly, no. To ask me about such a delicate subject would undo the glue of my mask and send its glitter scattering into shallow air.

Instead, I would have wanted them to show warmth and active professional support during the workday. While I don’t want to talk about the trauma of watching a murder in a staff meeting, I would’ve appreciated an after-work call or email, admitting ignorance about the perfect thing to say, and asking honest questions about how I’m doing.

Above all I would have wanted my company leadership to acknowledge the public tragedies wounding their own Black workers every day — and to foster a culture where friends knew how to support each other, or could learn how.

In most ways, being a good friend to your Black colleague during a time of trauma is no different than being a good friend, period. Even so, technology, scholarship and a changing national culture have shown many Americans not only the effects of structural racism — but of the racial aggressions that take place even between people who genuinely care about each other. From my own experience, as a high performer in a workplace where I was often weeping inside, I can tell you that if you work to be a reliable friend, and you listen actively even when you hear things that surprise you, your Black colleague will feel your genuineness. We are all learning what to say and how to behave in the new America attempting to rise from the ashes.

How To Be A Good Friend

So, how can you be a good friend to your Black colleague(s) during this unprecedented moment? As a Black woman who has worked in corporate and government spaces for over 20 years, from coast to coast, I offer these suggestions:

1. Share a kind word, genuine smile and greeting. Warmth goes a long way.
2. When you make a kitchen run for snacks and beverages, ask us if we’d like something too. Food and drink bond people and show love.
3. When you hear someone make an inappropriate or inaccurate statement about your Black coworker, speak up. It’s what any friend would do. But for a Black colleague the practical results can be momentous.
4. Invite us to lunch or share food from home.
5. Give us the inside scoop on what’s happening in the company especially when it has the potential to affect our careers.
6. Encourage us to apply for open positions we would be perfect for.
7. Embolden us to take advantage of company sponsored mental health benefits.
8. Pick up the slack when you see that we are overwhelmed with responsibility and/or grief.
9. Send funny memes for a good laugh.
10. Give us space when we need it.
11. Commit to becoming a lifelong learner about the pernicious effects and causes of racism.

Toddre' Monier is a multi-hyphenate creative and freelance contributor to Rice Business Wisdom. You can discover more about her at https://beautyisuniversal.com/

A version of this article appeared in the Houston Chronicle.