KU News Release

KU Multicultural Scholars

Hill’s pet food executive to address annual Multicultural Scholars program

LAWRENCE — An executive officer with Hill’s Pet Nutrition Inc., based in Topeka, will speak at the fourth annual University of Kansas All-Multicultural Scholars Celebration that begins at 4:45 p.m. Friday, Feb. 2, at the Dole Institute for Politics.

June Jones, director of Global Workplace Initiatives and Diversity Outreach for Hill’s, will speak to the 115 Multicultural Scholars who represent nine programs on the Lawrence campus. Her talk is titled “The MSP Connection — A Leadership Vision for Today and Tomorrow.”

Jones’ address will be preceded by comments from KU Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Richard Lariviere and an update on the program by Renate Mai-Dalton, director and founder of the program and associate professor in the School of Business.

A poetry reading by a Multicultural Scholars Program alumnus will cap the dinner portion of the program. Travis Watkins, who graduated from KU in 2005, is completing his second year with Teach for America in the Houston school district. A former KU football team co-captain from Wichita, Watkins graduated with honors with majors in U.S. history and African-American studies and has won national awards for his poetry.

The annual program continues with the scholars attending “A Civil Rights Reader,” a performance by Daniel Bernard Roumain at 7:30 p.m. the Lied Center.

Since Mai-Dalton founded the Multicultural Scholars Program in 1992 with seven students in the School of Business, the program has expanded to 115 students in nine programs across campus. They represent the architecture, business, education, journalism, pharmacy and social welfare schools and the African-American studies, applied behavioral science, languages and humanities departments.

In November 2006, the Multicultural Scholars Program received a three-year U.S. Department of Education grant to start pilot programs that would to help several community colleges in Kansas to implement similar programs. The goal would be to achieve high retention and graduation rates for underrepresented groups.

The retention rate for the KU Multicultural Scholars Program from 2005 to 2006 was 97 percent, Mai-Dalton said. The overall grade-point average for scholars in all nine programs was 3.31 on a 4.0 scale in fall 2006.

Alumni of the Multicultural Scholars Programs have gone on to careers across the United States with companies such as Bank of America, Bentley, Boeing, Chanel, Ernst and Young, Ford Motor Co., James Madison University, Kansas Court of Appeals, Sprint, the U. S. Army, Westar Energy and many others.

In addition to the scholars and their program directors, representatives from Kroger Co., Philip Morris and Capitol-Federal Savings Bank will also attend the Multicultural Scholars annual program.

To learn more about the Multicultural Scholars Programs go to www2.ku.edu/~msps/.

Speaker biography:

June Jones joined Hill’s Pet Nutrition Inc., in 1998 as its first employee relations director. Today, she leads the development of global workplace initiatives and community outreach to improve employee satisfaction and endorsement of Hill’s as the “Best Place to Work.”

At KU, Jones is a member of the Multicultural Scholars Program advisory board and the Lied Center board of governors. She also is a member of the board of directors for TDC Learning Centers in Topeka; the Lawrence Arts Center; the Equal Employment Advisory Council in Washington, D.C., and Living the Dream Inc. Business Partners in Topeka. Jones is a founding member of the Downtown Topeka Child Care Consortium and is the immediate past chair for the Equal Employment Advisory Council in Washington, D.C. She was a course instructor for the University of California-Los Angeles School of Management, Labor and Business, the American Banker’s Association and the Bank Administration Institute.

Jones is a graduate of UCLA and the Pacific Coast Banking School at the University of Washington. She and her family live in Lawrence.

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