The Business of Becoming a Woman of Influence
by Professor Eileen V. Brownell, Program Coordinator for the Business & Organizational Management Program and the Allies Center for the Study of Social Responsibility
The first question I asked while traveling down a dirt road in Reynosa, Mexico was, Why are there so many unfinished concrete dwellings? Delegation leader Maureen Casey explained that it takes months for a maquiladora, or factory, worker to save up enough money to buy one concrete block. This was my introduction to the effects of free trade agreements between the United States and Mexico. The year was 1998 and my life as a business professor changed forever.
Chrys Ingraham, Ph.D., Professor Emerita of Sociology, and I were part of that New York Labor-Religion Coalition delegation to northern Mexico to study issues on the border and spent the next several years coming to terms with what we witnessed. The result of our combined research became what is now the Business and Organizational Management bachelors degree program at Russell Sage, which focuses on social responsibility.
Coincidentally, the Enron crisis emerged in those years and with it a new nationwide awareness about business ethics. Our research also led us to discover the growing business and social responsibility movement and one of its key leaders, Dame Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop. Dame Roddick endorsed our program and spent a week on campus in 2003, inspiring creativity and encouraging us to imagine possibilities. She was an entrepreneurial genius who ran a global corporation while making positive change in the world, both personally and through her business.
The convergence of these influences made clear that the future of business is changing and balancing people and profits is becoming essential. We integrated issues such as the environment, sustainability, diversity, human rights, labor, and community into the existing Management major at Russell Sage College to evolve the program into one more relevant to the world of today and tomorrow. The program mirrors the Russell Sage motto: to be, to know, to do. No longer can students learn about how to be a successful businesswoman or entrepreneur in the 21st century without understanding that traditional business practices and thinkingprofit at any cost, stability, defined systems and processes, top-down decision making, a disregard for accountability, and consumption of limited resourceshas resulted in a global crisis.
At no time has the necessity for this kind of approach been clearer, as we all experience the effects of the energy crisis, the transformation of the automobile and airline industries, the mortgage crisis, and environmental issues such as global warming. Our management program, by integrating social responsibility, leadership, innovation, and an entrepreneurial mindset, will enable our majors to change with the times.
Today, the glass ceiling for women is cracked but not broken. As a result, many women have decided to start their own business. In fact, 70 percent of new entrepreneurs are women. There are 10.4 million women-owned businesses in the U.S. that employ nearly 13 million people and generate $1.9 trillion in sales, according to the Center for Womens Business Research. In addition, the momtrepreneur movement is also growing, enabling mothers to better balance work and home. Developing an entrepreneurial mindset is a key component in the programs course in Entrepreneurship. Students create a business concept and a business plan, and present that plan to area businesspeople for feedback.
Its clear to me from working with these students that young women want to love their work; they want to create a career that mirrors their values and opens up a lifestyle that brings them joy. They want to do work that is meaningful to them and to their community and world. I understand this completelyI am an entrepreneur who has worked in two family businesses over the past 25 years, as vice president in Brownell Insurance Agency, Inc. and as co-owner of Gauthiers Saranac Lake Motor Inn. Currently I am a consultant in organizational development and change management, working with a variety of not-for-profit organizations as well as small companies. These organizations want to value people, create a shared culture, position for change, and be good organizational citizens.
My advice to RSC students and to RSC alumnae who may be thinking about a change is: Work hard, study, travel, embrace our learning-in-action pedagogy, and look deep inside yourself to know who you are and build self-confidence. Find work that matches your values and lifestyle and brings you joy, and if you find yourself in a job that doesnt fit who you are, dont be afraid to look for one that does. You are worth it; you are able to do anything you can imagine.
