UNIVERSITY NEWS
Women in business
Innovative programs are not only helping women students juggle multiple commitments to get the education they seek, but are also empowering students and alumni to make real differences in the lives of underprivileged women around the world.
Of the 20,000 or so Australians who graduate from MBA programs each year, less than one third are female. It’s a depressing statistic, and one that the Macquarie Graduate School of Management (MGSM) is determined to tackle.
It recently launched the $8 million Women in MBA program – the largest investment of its kind in Australia – which aims to boost the number of women achieving their MBAs by offering financial assistance and direct mentorship during their studies.
Macquarie is offering a scholarship partnerships program in which the University matches, dollar for dollar, any investment made by a corporation to support a female MBA applicant.
In addition, the NAB/Macquarie Applied Finance Centre (MAFC) Women’s Mentoring Program pairs up-and-coming early-career female MAFC students with senior female NAB leaders. The program’s goal is to inspire, motivate and educate students on employment options and development programs for future leadership in the finance industry.
“[Across the University’s business programs] diversity is something that we’ve really taken on,” Dean of MGSM Alex Frino says.
Long tradition
Macquarie has a long legacy in women’s education, which shows in the stellar line-up of female graduates, including Stephanie Lorenzo (BIntComm 2006), founder and CEO of Project Futures, and Jennifer Star of Tara.Ed who were both recognised at the 2014 Women of Influence Awards.
Project Futures is a not-for-profit organisation, based in Sydney, that works to raise awareness and funding to support anti-trafficking projects in Australia, Cambodia, and Nepal.
“We’re not a service provider, we raise funds and raise awareness through our networks in more fortunate countries such as Australia, to get people to understand the issue of human trafficking,” Stephanie says. The funds raised by Project Futures go to service providers such as Maiti Nepal, Child Wise, The Salvation Army Safe House, and the New Somaly Mam Fund, which work directly with the victims of human trafficking.
Jennifer Star (BA (Hons) 2010), CEO of Tara.Ed and 2012 NSW Young Australian of the Year, has also dedicated herself to improving the quality of teaching in India by building relationships between Indian and Australian teachers.
“A lot of NGOs come in and build new schools, then leave without thinking about the future, so we come in and take the schools to the next step,” says Star. “We don’t need to build new schools, we need to make the ones that are already here better.”
Tara.Ed takes Australian teaching students and places them in Indian schools, where they are paired with an Indian teacher and work together towards a particular outcome, such as creating teacher aids, producing a specific language-based program, or putting together a maths program.
“The Australians also often bring resources along that can be left with the teacher, such as computers, picture books or flash cards,” Star says, adding that having started with one school, 12 teachers and 250 children, the program now involves more than 200 teachers, and is aiming to reach 200,000 students by 2020.
Discover more about furthering your career in business through outstanding programs at businessandeconomics.mq.edu.au or explore other postgraduate study options at mgsm.edu.au
Disappointing that a university publication and a university is adding discrimination (in the form of financial incentives) to make Australia’s largest disadvantaged group, that is men, even more disadvantaged.
Look at any statistic of well-being… health, education, rates of imprisonment, ill-health, victims of violence rates, suicide, self-harm, poor health behaviors like drinking and smoking, obesity… by every measure, men are worse-off than women. so where is the help for men?
The MGSM is doing a great job for the women to stand on their own feet. That’s certainly remarkable. One should know that women matter in modern day professional world!
MGSM is doing a very good job to bring forward women in the world. This is certainly notable. One must know that women are the thing in the modern-day professional world!