Undergraduates participating in Krannert’s Brock-Wilson Center for Women in Management are on the move with renewed focus and expanding initiatives, says Cara Putman, the center’s new director and a clinical assistant professor of management.
“Roughly 40 percent of the School of Management undergraduate population are women, so the center is focused not only on recruiting more women, but also on creating a package that’s going to allow them to graduate as confident, holistic leaders,” she says. “We want them to develop strong academic skills in the classroom while enhancing that with out-of-class experiences.”
Toward that end, students will follow what Putman calls the ACE Roadmap. “We’re focusing on the things that these students need to be doing each semester while they’re here, as well as the career competencies and skills they should be acquiring.”
According to Putman, the center is taking a strategic look at what it already has in place and explaining to students why it’s important for them to engage with the various opportunities.
“For example, study abroad is an academic and a career competency type of experience. Employers are looking for students or recent graduates who are able to work in an intercultural context, and study abroad provides that,” she says. “It’s a really safe way to expose our students to what it’s like to learn and live in another culture while also moving towards graduation.”
Another example is the Women in Management Learning Community, an enhanced experience for first-year students who want to live with other young women interested in business and form a smaller cohort. “Krannert has 2,500 students, but a learning community has 20 to 30,” Putman says. “Even a large university can feel very personal when you’re in a learning community, and you gain a sense of belonging.”
Women in Management students can also take two courses their first year — Navigating Gender in the Workplace (MGMT 29400) and Bridging the Gender Divide at Work (MGMT 29450).
“Both courses equip young women with the tools to walk into any environment and be a confident advocate, as well as to step in if somebody else is experiencing the impact of gender issues in the workplace,” Putman says. “Students need to learn how to speak up effectively for themselves while also being part of the solution for other people.”
In MGMT 29450, students are paired with an alum who is in a career field that they’re interested in. “They learn more about the graduate’s experience and get a sense of how gender plays out in the workplace,” she says. “It’s much more powerful when you can start hearing stories and experiences of individuals who are further down the path than you are. It provides context and a sense of space.”
The PowerShift Case Competition is another one of the tools and strategies that the Brock-Wilson Center uses to help students explore real issues related to gender in the workplace. The most recent case focused on COVID implications for women.
“We’ve all seen the studies and research that shows that the pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on women having to leave the workforce because of situations like schools being shut down,” Putman says. “Students create plans to present to a business on how can they minimize the impacts for women, which gives them a chance to look at a real-world issue and advocate for a plan that balances the gender divide in a way they can understand.”
In partnership with the Purdue University Summer College for High School Students, Krannert’s Brock-Wilson Center offers an annual summer program for college credit, the Empowering Women in Business Fun Sized Course.
Designed for young women in high school, the five-day residential credit-bearing course on Purdue’s West Lafayette campus includes hands-on activities to promote team building and skills in leadership, confidence and negotiation. The program introduces students to the business principles of economics, strategy, marketing, supply chain and finance, while other fun and engaging activities provide a glimpse of life as a Purdue Boilermaker.
“That helps them imagine themselves at the School of Management, but more important, also imagine themselves in a business career,” Putman says. “When you have high school students who are good at math and science, they are traditionally pushed towards engineering and STEM without a recognition that business is actually a fantastic place for young women.”
More than 100 students took part in the course in 2021. “To keep expanding, we needed to break the summer course into two components,” she says. “It’s the same content and curriculum, but allows students to participate with a cap of 60 students instead of 100. That will give them more engaged interaction with each other, as well as with the faculty and with the staff, which hopefully will help them feel even more like Purdue and Krannert could be their future home.”
The center’s recruiting efforts expand beyond the summer course, however.
“We want to better reach young women and help them see themselves at Krannert,” Putman says. “Especially as we’re coming out of COVID, people are hungry for community even more than they were before. The Brock-Wilson Center is a place where young women can find a place where they belong, where they are welcomed, and where they can get the best experience possible while they’re at Purdue.”
