Published: July 30, 2009
Baylor University MBA Students Recognized for Prison Entrepreneurship Program
Newswise - Baylor University's MBA students are one of six MBA programs from across the United States and Europe to be recognized by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) in its TeamMBA Awards. GMAC confers the honor in recognition of commitment to community engagement and corporate social responsibility. The schools received the awards at the GMAC Annual Industry Conference in June.
Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business is winner of the Service Award for a Collaborative Program. More than 30 MBA students from the school volunteer regularly as business plan mentors for inmates in a Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP). Assigned to individual PEP participants, Baylor MBAs spend at least an hour per week helping inmates with business plans. Additionally, Baylor MBAs help prisoners learn about business etiquette, making a sales pitch, and how to redirect their entrepreneurial skills into legitimate businesses.
"The PEP program, now in its fifth year, serves 80 to 100 students each for two classes per year," said Laurie Wilson, director of graduate business degree programs. "Because it offers so much, including valuable counsel from business people, PEP seeks a genuine commitment from the inmates who participate." The application form is some 20 pages long. Prisoners get dropped if they don't take the program seriously. But the results are significant: Once back in society, PEP graduates gain employment in an average of just 10 days. Their recidivism rate is just under 5 percent, vs. 50 percent nationwide and 75 percent in Texas. "Their lives are genuinely being changed," Wilson said.
(NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: VIDEO ABOUT BAYLOR'S PRISON ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAM MAY BE VIEWED ON YOUTUBE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnuS_2l7xWc. LENGTH = 4:41.)
The TeamMBA Awards are part of GMAC's TeamMBA initiative, which encourages, recognizes and supports social engagement by graduate business schools and their students. Presented annually, the awards honor graduate management education programs for exceptional student and institutional initiatives designed to give back to the community.
"TeamMBA is all about giving back to society and making this world a better place for all of us," said Dave Wilson, president and chief executive officer of GMAC. "These students are actually helping to educate business owners, aspiring entrepreneurs and community leaders."
The 2009 TeamMBA Award recipients, selected by an international panel of judges, are: Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business, The Boston University School of Management, The Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College, Mississippi State University's College of Business, The University of Central Florida's DeVos Sport Business Management Program and The University of Navarra's IESE Business School.
TeamMBA is an initiative of the Graduate Management Admission Council to encourage, recognize and support social responsibility and community engagement by graduate business schools and their students. More than 7,000 students, staff and faculty from 71 schools around the world have donated over 25,000 volunteer hours and raised more than $500,000 for charities and community organizations since the inception of TeamMBA in 2005. For more information about TeamMBA, visit www.gmac.com/teammba.
About the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC)
The Graduate Management Admission Council (www.gmac.com) is a nonprofit education organization of leading graduate business schools worldwide dedicated to creating access to and disseminating information about graduate management education. GMAC is based in McLean, Virginia, and has a European office in London. The Council owns the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), used by approximately 4,600 graduate management programs at some 1,900 business schools around the world to assess applicants. The GMAT - the only standardized test designed expressly for graduate business and management programs worldwide--is currently available at more than 450 test centers in over 100 countries. More information about the GMAT is available at www.mba.com.
About the Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP)
Founded in May 2004, PEP is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Houston, Texas. The mission of PEP is to stimulate positive life transformation for executives and inmates, uniting them through entrepreneurial passion, education and mentoring. More information about PEP is available at www.pep.org.
About Baylor Business
Source: Baylor University
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