USC Marshall is proud of our efforts to foster a diverse, inclusive and equitable learning community. We believe that innovative strategies and successful solutions to business problems depend on cultivating vital knowledge, skills and tools to live, learn, and lead in a diverse and dynamic business world. Consistent with our longstanding commitment to preparing global leaders, Marshall fosters vital leadership attributes such as the ability to think critically, to engage with diverse teams collaboratively, to remain open to new ideas and perspectives, to cultivate emotional and cultural intelligence, and to communicate strategically as they prepare to become part of a vibrant global economy.
USC Marshall’s mission and core values reflect our dedication to ensuring diverse pedagogical and curricular approaches that enhance student learning and engagement, and promoting an inclusive culture for students, staff, and faculty to ensure personal, educational, and research excellence. In the spirit of community building and transparency, we remain intentional and relentless in our drive to do more by communicating our challenges, and affirming our progress. At USC Marshall, our collective efforts and dialogue involving diversity, equity, and inclusion are rigorous, thoughtful and ongoing. We are always eager to have new partners join us.
Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
The Marshall School of Business, Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion guides the strategic efforts to ensure a welcoming and engaging educational environment in a community of diverse faculty, staff and students. Our strategic efforts include engagement and leadership workshops, panels, discussions, speaker series, and trainings designed to create an authentic sense of belonging, engagement, collaboration, and community, as well as fostering a culture of inclusion paramount to the success of all at USC Marshall.
At Marshall we partner with outstanding statewide and national organizations and programs like the Ph.D. Project, which since 1994 has more than tripled the number of African-American/Black, Latinx and Native American business school professors. USC Marshall currently has a number of Ph.D. Project scholars and actively recruits at the annual Ph.D. Project conference.
Programs such as our Master of Science in Global Supply Chain Management convene conferences to excite interest in USC Marshall among women and underrepresented groups and to enhance their access to the field. We also offer an award to women in this area, who today fill only 15 percent of top-level supply chain positions. USC Marshall has taken important steps toward supporting and advancing women's achievement. Recently, the USC Marshall Graduate Women in Business and the Marshall Business Competition Program presented the inaugural MBA Everyone's Business Global Case Competition, which works with similar groups across the nation to reach gender parity and equity in business schools today and boardrooms tomorrow. Those efforts are bearing fruit: USC Marshall was the first school to achieve and exceed gender parity in the full-time MBA program for the Class of 2020.
Through the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, we have established a close relationship with the Leslie and William McMorrow Neighborhood Academic Initiative (NAI), USC's signature college preparatory program, which enrolls close to 1,000 children annually. NAI is a rigorous, seven-year pre-college enrichment program designed to prepare students from South and East Los Angeles for admission to a college or university. Students who remain in the program in good standing from sixth grade until their high school graduation are eligible for a full scholarship to USC.
Additionally, we partner with leading organizations such as the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, the Forté Foundation and Management Leadership for Tomorrow to help women, people of color and other underrepresented groups access transformational business education and develop as next-generation leaders. This year marks USC Marshall's 50th anniversary as a Consortium member, and we were the first school on the West Coast to join. Since 1968, over 700 USC Marshall students have been Consortium-affiliated. We also help nurture achievement through support of diverse student groups such as Black Graduate Business Leaders, the Black Business Student Association, the Graduate Asian Business Society, the Latino Business Student Association, the Latino Management & Business Association, SpectrumSC, Marshall Pride and others. National organizations such as the National Association of Black Accountants and the Association of Latino Professionals for America have thriving chapters at USC Marshall as well.
The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is led by Dr. Sharoni Little, Associate Dean and Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer, along with Assistant Deans, Dr. Smrity Randhawa and Debra Langford.
Dr. Sharoni Denise Little, Associate Dean, Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer, and Professor of Clinical Business Communication is an award-winning teacher, researcher, and mentor. A renowned author, global facilitator, and media commentator, Dr. Little’s research and expertise centers on organizational leadership, strategic communication, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. She is completing her forthcoming books, The Perpetual Surveillance of Black Men (2019), and Diapers and Dissertations: Women, Education, and Work (2019), and is the recipient of the USC Faculty Mentoring award, two Marshall School of Business, “Golden Apple” teaching awards, and the USC Remarkable Woman award. An educational and social advocate Dr. Little is a member and Immediate Past Chair of the Los Angeles County, Policy Roundtable for Childcare and Development Commission and sits on several boards of trustees. Throughout her career, she has partnered with numerous community leaders and organizations, including the Aspen Institute, Obama Foundation, Children's Defense Fund, and the Compton Human Trafficking Task Force.
Debra Langford is the Assistant Dean of Diversity and Inclusion for the USC Marshall School of Business, overseeing all aspects of diversity for students, faculty, staff and alumni. Previously she held corporate global vice president-level positions at NBC Universal and Time Warner, and spent 15 years as a senior-level creative content executive. In 2017, Debra was appointed by California Governor Edmund G. Brown to the California Film Commission, which followed her seven years as President Barack Obama’s appointee to the USO Board of Governors. Langford also serves on the boards of the USC Black Alumni Association, Dress for Success West and Digital Diversity Network. A native of Los Angeles, Debra is an alumna of USC Marshall.
