Cheryl (Doddy) Howard ‘71

Transcript

Interviewer: Sarah Granoff (SG)

Narrator: Cheryl Howard (CH)

CH: Uh, I think the whole philosophy of women, um, finding their own voice and having an independent living, I mean, all that stuff was just so relevant and I really loved it and I loved this, you know, ‘What is the career that you're interested in?’ and the fact that you could explore a range of careers. Um, obviously I did not major in, in retail because my favorite Professor was Margaret Hennig, who, um, at that time was, um, in the doctoral program at Harvard Business School. And she, you know, became quite a mentor to me, and she pulled me aside in one of the marketing classes – You know, she knew that I wanted to be in retailing, and she said, “Cheryl, I just want you to know that you really shouldn't go into retail.” And I said, “Why not?” And she said, “Because, women–” It's still at the point where women are at all the lower level jobs and the men are the ones who run the stores, run everything. And she said, “You need to go where the men go.” And of course I said, “Well, where do the men go?” And she said, “The men go to get MBAs, and after they get their MBAs they are positioned for much higher roles within organizations,” and she said – She was there, and she said, because I had never heard of getting an MBA, never – I didn't know what an MBA was, and she said, “I will help you, with your application, and I will support you.” And so, she did, and so I applied to Harvard Business School and I got in and what she said is, “I really think it's not retailing that you like so much as you like marketing.” And she explained, you know, how you could do all these things with marketing. So, you know, to this day, the fact that she noticed me, that she advised me, that she supported me, that she – I mean that changed everything in terms of what I wanted to do and what I was able to do. Um, and I hope that that will always be the experience for anyone going to college and certainly for anyone going to Simmons, that a faculty member or somebody in a, in an adult role will see a talent in every person who's there and really help to guide them.

SG: Yeah, wow, that's very special.

CH: It really is.