Bridging Differences at the GSB
By Keya Patel and Sophie Hasson
This Spring, the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) faculty will vote on whether to require DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) in the business school curriculum. We urge them to vote yes.
The timing of this vote is particularly relevant in light of recent media firestorms Stanford has faced like the Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative and the student protest at Stanford Law School.
Our world continues to become more ideologically and culturally polarized. Both sides are to blame. We don’t listen, we make assumptions. We don’t forgive or agree to disagree, we just “cancel”. We want to graduate students who can help reverse that trend and we believe our proposal will be appealing to a majority of faculty and students.
That’s why we’re proposing that this requirement be called ‘Bridging Differences,’ instead of referencing DEI or social justice terminology. We believe this skill — bridging differences — is as important as understanding economics or accounting.
Today’s business leaders need to empathize with varying perspectives and navigate challenging conversations with different types of people. Voting affirmatively signals a commitment to help students prepare to do that.
Through this requirement, students will be prepared to:
- Respect different perspectives
- Hire, manage, and retain diverse talent
- Ensure all people and voices feel included
- Navigate intense organizational issues on identity-based topics
What are we proposing?
Introducing a graduation requirement allowing students to “choose their own adventure” in Bridging Differences would appeal to a far larger group of students, rather than force-feeding everyone the same material. This would be similar in structure to the GSB Global Experiences requirement. Students could fulfill Bridging Differences by selecting from an array of options, across academic and co-curricular activities. Here are samples of what could fulfill the requirement:
ACADEMIC
GSB classes — Focused on learning across cultures, politics, religion/spirituality, races, bias. Examples of GSB classes we suggest could qualify:
- Political — I’m Just a Bill
- Religious — Finding Religious and Spiritual Meaning at Work: Business Exemplars
- Cultural — Global Leadership
- Race — Racial Bias and Structural Inequality
- Bias — People Analytics
CO-CURRICULAR
Lunch and Learn Series — Organized monthly by student identity groups and open to all to learn and ask questions. Examples of previous GSB student-run sessions include:
- Black History Month: Language of Allyship, with 300+ attendees
- “Ask Me Anything” panel about China, hosted by the Greater China Business Club
- Drag 101: put on by GSB Pride
Faculty / Guest workshop series — Lectures on research related to differences, belonging, or inclusion, followed by student discussion. Examples of similarly run GSB programming include:
- CASI (Corporations and Society Initiative) labor unions in America: student workshop, guest speaker, small group discussion
- Leadership for Society Speaker Series and reflection groups to discuss the weekly topics
What needs to change for Bridging Differences to work?
The GSB has experimented with several optional, diversity-related initiatives. There were student-led pods to build relationships and empathy across differences and an MBA1 course, called Arc of Learning, focused on identity and privilege. These efforts fell short in execution and adoption, leaving supporters and would-be critics frustrated and disengaged.
Other top business schools have tried to include similar instruction in their curriculum. Last year, Harvard Business School transformed a popular elective, “Inclusive Leadership,” into a required course for first year MBAs. Feedback ranged from constructive recommendations to students asking for the course to be canceled. MIT Sloan holds Leadership Challenges for an Inclusive World as a 2.5 day course. This degree requirement has students attend an ethics workshop, partake in simulation, and participate in peer discussions.
These past experiences, at GSB and other business schools, help inform how to shape future programming:
- One size fits all → Choose your own adventure: Students enter the GSB with different backgrounds. This is why we have base, accelerated, and advanced levels of courses. Similarly, students have differing levels of familiarity with discussing differences. Bridging Differences stretches far beyond academics and allows students to select environments that may maximize their learning.
- Brief instruction → Extended engagements: A jam packed day focused on identity and bridging perspectives only checks the box on these types of conversations. To have deeper discussions and think critically, a longer routine is needed where trust and comfort is built. This happens in classrooms or weekly/monthly sessions.
- Opt-in → Required: The audience needs to include all GSB students. With voluntary participation, students who are already passionate about these topics end up talking to like-minded people. Our goal is to bridge differences, not reinforce existing bubbles.
What do students think?
Our discussions with many classmates show that student appetite for this learning is palpable. Below are thoughts shared by classmates in surveys, focus groups, and class reflections this past winter:
“I grew up in a town that prioritizes God, family, and community. Oftentimes, I see these priorities are not shared by others at the GSB. I wish classmates understood that most of the country operates in a completely different way than in San Francisco and New York City. Understanding this would make us all better humans, family members, and leaders.”
“As an International Student from a nation that is quite homogeneous, it was difficult for me to grasp nuances around racism and economic class differences in the US last year. I aspire to be a political leader in my home country, advocating for people who may care about issues I might not resonate with. I am not sure GSB prepared me for this goal, since the most I learned about differing perspectives was through two sessions of Touchy Feely [Interpersonal Dynamics] — which I still have not figured out how to apply in my real life.”
“I attended the Language of Allyship workshop because a friend texted me to go. I’m ashamed to say I wouldn’t have thought to come otherwise. It was an extremely powerful session where I learned more about how my Black classmates are treated in workplaces and day to day. I’m shocked workshops like this aren’t required at the GSB (and focused on different groups each time like Veterans, Asians, Hispanics, etc), since I felt so welcome to ask questions and the facilitator emphasized we’re all learning together.”
Why do we care?
We — Sophie and Keya, authors of this post — have much to praise about our GSB experience. We ended the fall quarter of our MBA1 year feeling jazzed and optimistic. For Sophie, this meant interactions markedly more diverse than prior experiences — half of her new GSB friends were queer, international, or both — a stark contrast to her predominantly white, straight, affluent friends with progressive political views from pre-GSB. Seeking to break out of her echo chamber, she took “I’m Just a Bill” and requested to play a Republican congressperson to meaningfully engage with views she disagreed with. For Keya, this meant diving into cultural and regional nuances, after befriending many classmates from international backgrounds — which was drastically different from growing up in the suburbs of Detroit.
These experiences were nurtured via formal GSB structures, like sections (75 classmates of varying backgrounds taking classes together for the first quarter), small group dinners (where random groups of students gather over food and conversation), and identity groups (where students of a specific identity — like Women in Management — could share common experiences). For both of us, these experiences validated our decision to come to the GSB.
But then came Feb. 23, 2022, when Sophie invited a Black friend to her dorm room. Her friend was the first to find the n-word written on the door’s whiteboard. How could this happen at the GSB? This act of hate drove both of us to seek leadership roles within the GSB community for our MBA2 year — Sophie as co-president of Pride and Keya for the Student Association Diversity Committee.
What now?
Zooming out, we both believe organizations will be better off when individual leaders, employees, and staff understand and embrace different viewpoints rather than perpetuating “cancel culture”. The hate crime at the GSB was a microcosm of what can happen in the working world when people do not learn about and appreciate differences and historical contexts.
Many alums we’ve spoken to have expressed that they graduated feeling unprepared to navigate complex managerial issues, related to our diversity and our polarizing world. They’re not alone. We need to train leaders to tackle real-world challenging situations, like the Google employee memo titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” and Coinbase’s decision to focus exclusively on its business and withdraw from addressing policy/non-profit/societal issues.
The aptitude around Bridging Differences is no longer a nice-to-have, it is a must-have for tomorrow’s leaders. The GSB has always been a thought-leader and knows when to change the rules. It’s time to change the rules.
Editor: Soa Andrian
