{"id":1992,"date":"2019-08-26T11:13:38","date_gmt":"2019-08-26T15:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/?p=1992"},"modified":"2019-08-26T11:14:18","modified_gmt":"2019-08-26T15:14:18","slug":"julie-keck-class-of-2019-class-speaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/2019\/08\/26\/julie-keck-class-of-2019-class-speaker\/","title":{"rendered":"Julie Keck, Class of 2019 Class Speaker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Sustainable Innovation MBA Class of 2019 was celebrated at their program-end Inauguration ceremony on August 17, 2019 at the Royall Tyler Theater on the campus of the University of Vermont. Julie Keck ’19 was chosen by her cohort to deliver the Class Speaker address. The text of her remarks is below.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before I get started,<\/strong> it\u2019s important to point out that this event is taking place on traditional Abenaki and Wabanaki land, and it is a privilege to have been educated on – and to now graduate within – the land that they have stewarded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Julie Keck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I have the honor of speaking to you today because my peers voted for me. <\/strong>I suspect those who clicked on my name either thought I would say something funny, say something touching, or politely \u2018stick it to the man.\u2019 Those hoping for any of these three things will be satisfied. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have gone through this Sustainable Innovation MBA program at the University of Vermont – or if you love us, teach us, or support us in any way – you\u2019ll know that we completed many, many, many presentations in this program. While public speaking can be stressful for some, it was no secret in our classroom that I love a good microphone. For me, the only problem was that I had to share my presentation time with my lovely classmates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now – finally – the microphone\u2019s all mine. And I Have Some Things to Say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But first more about me: when I was little, and I was super cute when I was little, my dad would sometimes ask me a question, and I\u2019d respond with: \u201cLet me sing you about it.\u201d Those who\u2019ve come to live-band karaoke with me at Sweet Melissa\u2019s over the past year will be relieved to know I\u2019m not actually going to do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another response I sometimes had to questions was: \u201cI can\u2019t know that yet.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I like that better than \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d don\u2019t you? It conveys that one might not *currently* have the knowledge to answer a question, but that the knowledge is surely on the horizon. Four-year-old ME had some insights that adult ME had lost in the ensuing years. I like to think I regained some of that intellectual optimism this past year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, to be totally honest, and I consider you all my best friends, so I will always be honest with you, my pessimistic side almost kept me from applying to business school at all…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because I\u2019m not supposed to be here. For a few reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Julie Keck, right, and partner Jess King<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

First, I am a woman.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, there were more women on the Fortune 500 list of CEOs than ever before. Sounds like progress, right? Wanna know what the number was? 33. 33 out of 500. Let me make that clearer. Out of 500 CEOs on that list, 467 were men, and 33 were women. That\u2019s 6.6%. That\u2019s appalling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

And this is especially a problem if you\u2019re a woman about to finish her MBA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When there are fewer women in positions of leadership, there are fewer women to mentor me, and there are fewer opportunities for me and other women seeking job opportunities to meet a high achieving business exec, strike up a conversation, and inspire her to want to help you because she sees you as a younger version of herself. Which is routinely what happens with men. That is fine; good for you – I just would like the same opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I would need another hour to delve into how the backlash against the #MeToo movement is resulting in even fewer opportunities for women in the C suite. Or how men who don\u2019t know how to manage problematic men perpetuate problematic men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the SI-MBA program is fairly balanced in terms of female and male students admitted, it is not balanced in terms of gender in its leadership or faculty, which I *might* have brought up over the course of the year. Once or twice. And I\u2019m not even touching on the lack of nonbinary and trans representation at any level of this program, student or otherwise – or acknowledgement of you, if you are here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another reason I\u2019m not supposed to be here: I\u2019m queer. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My sexual orientation falls outside of the heteronormative monogamous relationships that most of our culture lives within. I\u2019m comfortable with this, as evidenced by the rainbow sash I\u2019m proudly wearing today. I\u2019ve been out for over 20 years – almost as long as my colleague Meg has been alive – but even in 2019, over 50% of LGBTQ MBAs will remain closeted on the job for fear of lost opportunities. That does not sound like equality, and that does not bode well for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who fall outside of the white straight able-bodied norm don\u2019t get invited to the golf outings and weekend cookouts where the real business happens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t worry, there\u2019s good news for me: many of my barriers will be mitigated by my white privilege and my citizenship privileges. For my classmates and future attendees of this program who are of color, immigrants, religious minorities, bearing disabilities, non-binary, and holding other difference that we can\u2019t even see, the climb is exponentially steeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why does it matter? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why does it matter that most of the people in CEO positions look, think, and act the same? Why does it matter that people who don\u2019t look like them often face the majority of what we like to call playfully call in our program \u2018negative externalities\u2019? And why does it matter that I\u2019m getting an MBA as a queer woman in my 40s who grew up in a trailer and has two too many tattoos?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because I\u2019m trying to get into an industry that doesn\u2019t look like me and, frankly, isn\u2019t looking for me. This status quo isn\u2019t designed for me. And I\u2019m not alone. I\u2019m not the biggest outsider, and I\u2019m not the most silenced – I have the mircophone. Other people don\u2019t get here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have spoken ad nauseam in our program about how innovation in business is needed to bring industries up to speed as we face the startling fact of climate change, but it remains that people running our businesses have no incentive to change, because when the status quo is designed to benefit you, you are less likely to upend the status quo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need diversity in business leadership. Not just in a way that checks a box, fulfills a sparkly new policy, or looks good on a brochure. We need diversity in thought, which comes from a diversity of experience, ways of seeing and being in the world that are truly different – not better, but different – which leads to conversation, innovation, iteration, and improvement. Based on all of our conversations about the triple bottom line this year, it\u2019s not just about money anymore. It can\u2019t be. So we need to think past the money men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pessimism is the enemy of change. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a laziness to thinking that business as an industry, or our planet as a whole, is irrevocably broken. It lets us off the hook, stuck in blaming mode and accepting of the status quo. And this part is specifically for my classmates: Screw the status quo.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need to leave this program not just with an understanding of transparency, corporate social responsibility, or stakeholder engagement. Those are necessary but arduous intellectual exercises often employed in times of challenge or crisis, by people who don\u2019t appear to have the imagination to consider the consequences of their decisions. And they\u2019re often presenting these things to boards full of people who look exactly like them – a different type of pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To illustrate what I\u2019m getting at here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n