Mary L. Connerley, associate professor of management and director of the Business Diversity Center, administers the new program.

The Business Diversity Center will focus on teaching and researching diversity issues. It will coordinate the 18-credit program for juniors and seniors that will be launched in the fall of 2008.

"All resources for the minor and center have been provided by Dean Sorensen and the Pamplin College of Business," Connerley said in an e-mail.

"We've done some looking around, and we believe that this may be the first program of its kind," Connerley said.

"Some other business programs have diversity programs that are more HR (human resources) based," Connerley said. "Ours is based more within the business major."

"Our objectives are to develop our students' readiness and ability to take a leadership role in managing diversity and multiculturalism in their careers," Connerley said in a statement.

Connerley has developed and will oversee several courses for the minor.

"The minor aims to help students develop a vocabulary and ideas around issues of gender, race, age and cultural difference within a corporate context," Connerley said.

"It would promote awareness of cultural values, attitudes and beliefs -- their own and others' -- and an understanding of how these influence behavior and interactions in the workplace," Connerley said. "It works for any business major field: finance, accounting or management."

The minor will be restricted to eligible business majors initially. With additional resources, it could be opened up to non-business students.

The program has an enrollment goal of between 40 and 45 students each year.

The General Motors/United Negro College Fund Sullivan Fellowship Program has also presented Connerley with her fifth annual award, a $10,000 grant from the General Motors/United Negro College Fund Sullivan Fellowship Program to promote principles of corporate social responsibility developed by the late Rev. Leon H. Sullivan.

Erin Sheehan, a Fairfax, Va., sophomore mechanical engineering major, has been selected as the student participant in the program.

Sheehan will receive a paid summer internship at General Motors and will assist Connerley in developing and delivering the program modules.

Both Connerley and Sheehan attended a General Motors-hosted training workshop on the Sullivan Principles in April.

Leon Sullivan was a Philadelphia minister and civil rights leader who became the first black member of General Motors's board of directors in 1971.

Sullivan developed the Sullivan Principles in 1977 as a code of conduct for companies operating in South Africa. The Sullivan Principles are generally acknowledged to have helped end workplace discrimination and apartheid there.

To expand human rights and economic development to all communities, Sullivan created the Global Sullivan Principles of Social Responsibility in 1997.

Sullivan said "The objectives of the Global Sullivan Principles are to support economic, social, and political justice by companies where they do business; to support human rights and to encourage equal opportunity at all levels of employment, including racial and gender diversity on decision-making committees and boards; to train and advance disadvantaged workers for technical, supervisory, and management opportunities; and to assist with greater tolerance and understanding among peoples; thereby, helping to improve the quality of life for communities, workers, and children with dignity and equality."

Connerley also attended the Leon H. Sullivan Summit VIII in Arusha, Tanzania, in June 2008.

This summit, which included many African presidents and several high-ranking corporate executives, focused on investment, infrastructural development, tourism, and environmental sustainability.