Informed by the efforts of AASU, HBS invested in outreach throughout the country. In 1971, HBS jointly established the Council for Opportunity in Graduate Management Education (COGME) with nine other leading graduate business programs. Funded initially by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, these schools agreed on a mandate to increase student diversity. Management Formation, Inc., headed by Ulric St. Clair Haynes Jr., a former visiting lecturer at HBS, consulted on the endeavor. Its subsequent report was authored by AASU founding member E. Theodore Lewis Jr. (MBA '69). COGME funded the educational endeavors of nearly two thousand African Americans and other non-white MBA students for almost two decades.23

Bert H. King (MBA '70), who was the assistant director of HBS admissions from 1970 to 1971, served as president and executive director of COGME from 1971 to 1984. King increased corporate contributions to the program, which provided significant scholarship funding for minority students.

Summer Venture in Management Program (SVMP)

The HBS Summer Venture in Management Program (SVMP), established in 1983, continues today. SVMP began as a joint enterprise of HBS, the Executive Council of the Harvard Business School Association, the Harvard Business School Black Alumni Association , and corporate sponsors. During a one-week residency at HBS, college seniors from underrepresented groups in business education become acquainted with the challenges and opportunities presented by a career in business. Professor James L. Heskett spearheaded the SVMP initiative and served as its first faculty chairman. Dean John McArthur, Associate Dean Dean Currie, Associate Professor James I. Cash Jr., and Director of Admissions John Lynch also played a vital role in the creation and early success of the program. By 1990 around five hundred students had attended SVMP.24

SVMP enables college seniors to engage in the case method of instruction and attend presentations by HBS administrators and alumni. AASU students entering their second year have also volunteered for the program to help participants through the process of case analysis. Corporate sponsors selected students who worked as paid summer employees in their companies to attend the program.
Influencing the HBS Curriculum Building on the Legacy
23
William S. Benjamin, “B-Schools May Disband Aid Agency: Black Leader Says Deans Dissolving Minority Group,” The Harvard Crimson, March 7, 1983.
24
Colleen Walsh, “Business School Summer Program Offers World of Possibilities,” Harvard Gazette, July 18, 2008, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/07/business-school-summer-program-offers-world-of-possibilities/ (accessed December 2017).