Press Releases | October 5, 2017

MBA Candidates to Tackle Education Workforce Diversity at Kellogg and The Mind Trust’s Education Case Competition

Chicago, IL – Teams of MBA students from top business and education schools across the country will compete this weekend to address the challenge of recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce of teachers in urban school systems. For the ninth consecutive year, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management has partnered with The Mind Trust, an Indianapolis-based education nonprofit, to engage America’s future leaders in solving the complex challenges facing school systems nationwide.

The Mind Trust runs the Education Entrepreneur Fellowship, Innovation School Fellowship, and Charter School Fellowship, three incubators designed to empower the nation’s most promising education entrepreneurs to develop and launch transformational education nonprofits and schools.  Through these fellowship programs, The Mind Trust brings exceptionally talented people into public education to dramatically improve education outcomes for Indianapolis students in underserved communities.

This year’s competition focus on developing a large-scale strategy to address the national shortage of diverse, excellent teachers.  The case will challenge students to develop a new, innovative solution that an urban school system could use to recruit and retain a high-quality workforce of educators that reflects of the diversity of the students in their classrooms.

“The challenges facing our nation’s school systems are immense and increasingly call for innovative, cross-sector thinking,” says David Harris, Founder and CEO of The Mind Trust. “The Kellogg School of Management’s Education Case Competition is an important step toward The Mind Trust’s goal of putting these challenges in front of our country’s brightest leaders.”

The thirteen teams are primarily composed of MBA students, but some include students in other education-related degree programs. The teams hail from the following schools: University of Chicago’s Booth School Business, Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management.

The case distributed to the competing teams one week before the event for their review.  The winning team will receive a cash prize of $2,000.  Presentations will be evaluated by a panel of judges from the private, non-profit, and education sectors, including representatives from The Joyce Foundation, Teach For America, KIPP, and The Mind Trust.

Team presentations will be held from 9:15 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 7 in Wieboldt Hall located at 339 E. Chicago Avenue on Kellogg’s downtown Chicago campus.  Finalist presentations will begin at 12:30 p.m. and an awards ceremony will take place at 2:15 p.m.

About Kellogg School of Management

The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University was founded in 1908 and is widely recognized as a global leader in management education. The school, located just outside of Chicago, is home to a renowned, research-based faculty and MBA students from around the globe. The Kellogg School’s academic portfolio includes the Full-Time, Part-Time and Executive MBA Programs, the Ph.D. Program, and the non-degree Executive Education Program. The school offers three joint-degree programs: the JD-MBA, MD-MBA and the MMM (MBA-MEM). Additionally, the Kellogg School of Management offers an Executive MBA Program in Miami and has alliances with business schools in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Canada. To learn more, visit www.kellogg.northwestern.edu. 

About The Mind Trust

The Mind Trust is a nonprofit striving to give every Indianapolis student access to an excellent, high-quality public school.  The Mind Trust does this through recruiting and empowering top talent, launching and supporting new, innovative and high-quality public schools in Indianapolis, and engaging community stakeholders in conversations about innovation in public education.

Since 2006, The Mind Trust has impacted more than 132,000 Indianapolis public school students, attracted and placed more than 900 teachers and school leaders and raised more than $73 million to bring innovative ideas into Indianapolis classrooms. More information can be found at www.themindtrust.org.

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