The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management is currently ranked third amongst top business schools in the MBA Ally Challenge. The challenge seeks to find the business school that is the most inclusive towards its LGBT community. Sloan is in third place halfway through the competition.
Sloan has a student organization called Sloan LGBT that reaches out to LGBT MBA students and their allies through a series of events, including mentorship activities, social activities, workshops, speakers, and networking and recruiting events. The group also seeks to be a source of information about gay workplace issues for straight students, and promotes visibility of LGBT issues at Sloan.
The challenge was organized by Friendfactor, a nonprofit dedicated to helping straight students and workers become allies for their gay classmates and coworkers. The competition is sponsored by McKinsey & Company and Bain & Company. Friendfactor rates each participating business school based on responses to a school-wide survey administered beore and after the competition about LGBT awareness and inclusiveness, the number of MBA students involved in LGBT outreach activities, and the number of activities.
Twelve of the top twenty business schools in the country are participating in the MBA Ally Challenge. Currently, the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan is in the lead, with Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in second place. Sloan’s Boston neighbor Harvard Business School is also part of the competition. Other schools in the competition include Columbia, Carnegie Mellon, Duke, Dartmouth, and the University of Chicago.
As of November 8, 2,400 students at the top business schools have participated in MBA Ally Challenge events. The Friendfactor MBA Challenge will continue through the 2013-2014 school year, and the final standings of the business schools will be announced in May 2014.