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| Presenting $1,000 Circle of Founders bursaries to MBA students Juliano Tupone (fourth from right) and Gerald Desroches (third from right) Nov. 3 were, from left: MBA advisor Kelly Lendsay, Bank of Montral Senior V-P Ron Jamieson, Commerce Assoc. Dean Lou Hammond Ketilson, Procter and Gamble’s Bob Johnson, Wascana Energy’s Manager of Aboriginal Partnerships tom Hunter, SIFC’s Jo-Ann Thom, and the Farm Credit Cor¡poration’s Terry Kremeniuk. |
The Aboriginal business education program in the U of S College of Commerce has grown and matured to the point where "we’re really ready to market it as a world-class program", says the man who was a key developer of the array of new courses and initiatives.
Kelly Lendsay, the College’s MBA Program Advisor, says reports by College officials to the Nov. 3 annual meeting of the Circle of Founders group of seven companies that help to sponsor the program shows just how successful it has become.
Many components of the program are just two or three years old, yet "last year 15 undergraduate Aboriginal students earned their Commerce degree – the highest ever in the College’s history – and in May two Aboriginal students earned MBAs," Lendsay said.
He says that besides new Aboriginal course development (see On Campus News, Sept. 29, 2000, Page 6), a further indication of the growth of Aboriginal programs at the College is the enthusiasm and ongoing support of the seven corporate sponsors who make up the Circle of Founders.
Each ‘Founder’ – Procter and Gamble, the Bank of Montreal, the Farm Credit Corporation, IMC Global, the Saskatchewan Dept. of Intergovernmental and Aboriginal Affairs, the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, and Canadian Occidental/Wascana Energy – have committed to providing $50,000 over three years to support the development of Aboriginal programs in the College.
At their Nov. 3 annual meeting, Lendsay says the Founders were "very impressed" with how things are going, including the aspects of program outreach, recruitment, enrolment, and graduates.
He says program leaders are now in a position to do more marketing and promotion of it, and one indication of this is the placement of a glossy ad in a recent edition of Canadian Business magazine.
The idea for an MBA program started in 1992-93 when a group of MBA students, including Lendsay, completed a study on "Increasing Aboriginal Access into the MBA Program: A Demand for Aboriginal People with Business Skills".
Then in 1993 the College identified Aboriginal access as one of five key strategic issues. John Brennan, Dean of Commerce, established a committee to investigate procedural and academic aspects of the programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Officials at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College and the College of Commerce pursued Aboriginal business programming initiatives.
Three programming opportunities were identified.
The first was to focus on a two-year Certificate in Indigenous Business Administration co-sponsored by SIFC and the College of Commerce.
The second opportunity was to increase the number of Aboriginal students graduating with a Bachelor of Commerce.
And the third was to promote more Aboriginal participation at the MBA level.
In 1994-1995, Lendsay was contracted to work on fundraising and program development for the MBA program. The "Circle of Founders" was created in 1995.
The financial support provided by the Founders has given the College an opportunity to design curriculum, host seminars, support students, travel and market, pilot-test and promote its programs.
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