Partner with the Partners Group

Sharing Some Platforms with Mothers at the GSB

By: Nidhi Thakur

Posted: 9/28/06

The Wall Street Journal, on September 20, carried an article on how B-schools are learning to accommodate the growing number of women with children who are applying to their programs. While this phenomenon of back-to-school moms is not new, schools in recent years have started to notice an increase in the number of women applicants who have children. This trend is interesting and, while it is one thing to marvel at Preeti Misra, '07 as she tugs her 4 year old baby-girl Cheenu in and out of GSB, I am very sure it is a totally different game being a Preeti or a Cheenu. Coping with academics, recruiting pressures, and the attempt to be an ideal mom, must surely weigh on the female student, while the sight of a perpetually frazzled mom must bewilder the kid. In such situations, needless to say, any support from anyone will be welcome.

It is only then right that B-Schools be the first to step up and start to institutionalize support for women MBA candidates with children. It is possibly in such a spirit that the GSB sometime back requested a meeting with the Chicago Partners Group to see if the GSB and the CPG could collectively negotiate slots and rates in nearby child-care facilities. In the GSB family, CPG has the members with the brightest smiles, and there are many more smiles that CPG can plant on the faces of mom-students too.

The CPG, while largely being a social group consisting of significant others of GSB students, is also a great network of GSB parents with kids. We have a branch called POLO (Parents of little ones) where partners with small children meet regularly on play dates and exchange notes on kiddie-stuff. While this facility is currently limited to the members of the CPG, it need not be so in the future. The GSB can invest more resources in the POLO group to accommodate female students and their children. Typically, most POLO events happen around the time that GSB students are busy. However, since POLO people (especially children) would not mind more playdates, perhaps more events can be organized around the students' schedules too.

Moms in some schools like Columbia University are organizing a group of their own, which seems a good idea in theory. However, one big issue here is that a student group like a Moms group may not always have the critical number that is needed to sustain it. In which case, there might be years when the group is non-existent and a new batch of moms would have to start a group all over again. On the other hand if the group is aligned with a Partners Group, then by virtue of the immortality of the CPG, the continuity of the POLO and its benefits are ensured for perpetuity. No new mom would have to start to run for course-packs, information sessions, and playdates at the same time.

Theoretically, the female student's partner (and/or the father of the kid) can be in POLO just by his status of a partner. However in practice, we all know that we have not seen many men in POLO. Thus extending POLO's hands to female students will have to be an explicit gesture. While the governance of the CPG is very flexible and perhaps could start to invite mom-students already, the GSB needs to give this issue an importance of an official nature. POLO membership is not free-it is included in the Partners' membership fee. Mom-students cannot be allowed free, either. But, money should not be a limiting issue for anyone---neither the moms nor the GSB. It's the institutionalization of a support group, dissemination of relevant information and acknowledgment of both mom-students' special needs and CPG/POLO's role in meeting those needs, at least to some extent, that needs to be done by GSB.