Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | March 5, 2018 | Worcester Business Journal 29 135-acre campus for sale in Lancaster? The Worcester Business Journal welcomes letters to the editor and commentary submissions. Please send submissions to Brad Kane, editor, at bkane@wbjournal.com. W e've all heard of the glass ceiling, an invisible bar- rier hindering women from rising within the ranks of corporate America. The term was coined in the 1980's and even resulted in a special commis- sion in the U.S. Department of Labor – the Federal Glass Ceiling Commission – which issued a report in 1995, Good for Business: Making Full Use of the Nation's Human Capital. More than 20 years later, the glass ceiling is still a problem. In 2017 only 6.4 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women; that's 32 women to 468 men. In 1999, Catalyst, a global nonprofit working to help build workplaces empowering women issued its own report, Women of Color in Corporate Management: Opportunities and Barriers, and introduced the concept of the concrete ceiling. The concrete ceiling, much like the glass ceiling, is a barrier for professional advancement of women, but unlike the glass ceiling, it is specific to women of color. Unlike glass, concrete is impos- sible to see through and much harder to break. Out of the 32 women CEOs mentioned above, only two are women of color (shout out to Pacific Gas & Electricity and Pepsi). Additionally, women of color occupy 3.8 percent of board seats at Fortune 500s. Yet, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, more women of color are earning degrees than their male and white female counterparts. How do we as a community become a jackhammer and help to break the concrete? The Girl Scout Research Institute, a think-tank surveying thousands of girls nation- ally on issues impacting them the most, found only one in five girls believes they can be a leader. However, the aspira- tion to lead was higher among girls of color. I wholeheartedly believe that seeing is believing. Offering young girls opportunities to see women who look like them in roles of leadership will help create the next generation of female leaders. I'm lucky to work for a com- pany that practices what we preach; our senior leadership team is all female and 42.8 percent of us are women of color. One of my favorite things to do is visit our commu- nity-based programs throughout Worcester. At Woodland Academy in the Main South neighborhood, we have enthusiastic girls who take part in the Girl Scout Leadership Experience program at no cost to them. The volunteers who help our program team are diverse college students who the girls can relate to. The creator of Take Your Daughter to Work Day, Marie C. Wilson, is quoted with saying, "You cannot be what you cannot see." If women of color can't see themselves in posi- tions of power, the concrete ceiling will never shatter. It's our responsibility as a community to show these young girls they can take the lead. Numerous opportunities throughout Greater Worcester offer ways to get involved, inspire and create a pipeline of female leaders, specifically ones to appropriately represent our diverse community. Melanie Bonsu is director of development for the Girl Scouts of Central and Western Massachusetts. Women of color need to break the concrete ceiling V I E W P O I N T E D I T O R I A L BY MELANIE BONSU Special to the Worcester Business Journal Melanie Bonsu WO R D F R O M T H E W E B Tweets of the week "Women leaders talk about the struggle for gender diversity on boards in @ WBJournal article. While noting there is still work to be done, our founder @JudyNitsch noted, 'For every person who was maybe a problem, there were 99 who were advocates." - Nitsch Engineering (@nitscheng) Feb. 21, on the gender gap in Central Mass. business leadership "If you use the industry ballpark that price = 4x earnings ... they made $300K last year." - Mark Henderson (@henderson_mark) Feb. 28, on Worcester Magazine and five others being bought for $1.2 million W Facebook feedback "Well, when these teenage-school fleeing mobs and weak-minded government officials takes our guns away, we will need something to defend ourselves." - Michael Scully, Feb. 23, on an axe-throwing facility at the Apex Center in Marlborough "The institution is so corrupt with nepotism and cronyism they have run it into the ground again. This used to be such a great happy place to be part of. I feel as though an entire central part of my life has passed away because of pure neglect and incompetence! So sad!" - Kevin Botelho, Feb. 22, on Atlantic Union College closing L ast year's withdrawal of an $800,000 annual subsidy to Lancaster's Atlantic Union College from one of its major funding sources appears to have been the death knell for the struggling Seventh- day Adventist School. Classes will cease by year end. While only 69 students were enrolled last year, the shuttering will have consequences for the school's employees and the town. Originally found- ed in 1882, Atlantic Union had close to 1,000 stu- dents just 20 years ago. While the closure is stun- ning in many ways, it's hardly a surprise. In 2011, the school lost its accreditation from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and was inactive for the next four years. In 2015, efforts were made to restart academic programs, and while the school could not grant degrees, the hope was it could build momentum and gain sufficient financial stability to earn back accreditation. That has proven to be a quixotic effort, and now the 135-acre campus with hous- ing for 420 students, a library, dining hall, gym- nasium and a number of charming buildings in varying states of disrepair will again go largely idle. That is not good for the school or the town of Lancaster. Knowing when to cut your losses can be the hardest decision of all, but that is when true lead- ership arises. The plight of the struggling non- profit is a familiar story. Plan after plan for turn- ing operations around gets put together, resources get stretched to make do, and all the people involved work and hope for the best outcome. But when those outcomes don't yield results, and before the organization becomes unsustainable, it's the job of the board to make the tough deci- sions. The power of positive thinking can only get you so far when the money runs dry. A town can thrive when its major institutions are strong, and suffer when they weaken. Atlantic Union has traditionally had a positive impact on Lancaster and the businesses in the region, but an empty, aging campus is a huge liability. The soon- er Atlantic Union works with the town to find a buyer for the bulk of its holdings, the better. But timing is critical if a sale to another academic institution or other major user is to succeed. Reinvestment in the campus infrastructure has been sorely lacking for years, and most of the buildings will need significant upgrades or resto- ration. Buildings not on the main campus may be best marketed separately while others, like the respected Thayer Performing Arts Center & Community Music School may be strong enough to be sustained without the college community. It will be a big job to assess and plan for the future use of the site, but the town and the local econo- my are going to suffer until the campus gets a new owner who can breath life back into it. The news of the closing is still fresh, yet judg- ing by statements on the school's website from its leaders, there does not appear to be an acceptance of the new reality. The fat lady is singing at Atlantic Union College in Lancaster – can the school's board and leadership hear her? W

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