Lathon Ferguson, manager of Diversity and Community Engagement at Washington University in St. Louis, was told by his mother growing up that he would attend Wash U. When the time came for him to choose a college, however, the Berkeley, Missouri native chose to attend Mizzou instead.
When he visited Wash U. in 1998, Ferguson said, “I didn’t see many people that looked like me. It just wasn’t, in my mind, the place for me to go. It was the place to aspire to go, but it was not the desired place to go.”
Now his job is to change that impression. His mandate is to recruit more minorities to leadership and management positions within the university, retain those individuals once they’re there, and make the university seem more approachable to the local community.
“When I saw this position, it jumped off the page,” he said. “It gave me the ability to help change that perception.”
Ferguson hopes to show St. Louis that Washington University “is accessible, is a phenomenal place to work. Through work in the community, but also through some changes internally, we can do a better job of making sure that individuals are aware of the opportunities that exist, and aware of the openness of the environment and culture. It is a place that individuals can build a career from.”
Connecting Wash U. with the community as an employer is important, Ferguson said, because it is the fourth-largest employer in the metro area.
He was well-qualified for the job. After graduating from Mizzou, Ferguson went on to get his Master’s degree in business at Webster University, and then filled his resume with management jobs at both nonprofits and for-profit companies, eventually landing back in Florissant, where he now lives with his wife and two daughters.
“My background is actually in business and nonprofit leadership,” he said. “I worked for a large telecommunications technology company for about 12 years, I worked for a large healthcare company here in St. Louis for about two years, and then I ran a nonprofit. I was the Midwest regional director for Inroads for three years prior to coming to Wash U.”
Ferguson is using his nonprofit experience to better connect Wash U. with its nonprofit partners, to make those partnerships less symbolic and more helpful for all parties involved.
“One of the things that I’ve truly been focused on in my first 24 months was the ability to build strategic, sustainable, long-lasting relationships,” Ferguson said.
“A lot of times, institutions will build relationships with organizations on paper, for the appearance that they are truly working towards diversity, but sometimes the substance falls through the cracks. I’ve been focused on truly building a trusting and a working relationship with various organizations.”
He cited the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis,the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and minority professional organizations like the Black Data Processors Association and the National Black Nurses Association as examples. He finds that offering resources to these groups in order to build trust is a better approach than more traditional university-community collaborations such as job fairs.
“It’s kind of an indirect approach, instead of a mini-career-fair type approach, which is just more, ‘We really want to use you for your members to hire,’” Ferguson said. “You know, hosting things like the National Black MBAs’ annual quarterly business meeting. We get a chance to interact with them, give them information about the university, and they get a chance to conduct their business on our campus, which is a nice venue and facility.”
The university as a business benefits in the exchange as well.
“As we continue to evolve, it’s important to ensure that you have the thought process, representation, experience of diverse individuals,” said Ferguson. “And sometimes, the best way to ensure that you’re attracting that population is to have someone that can view through both lenses, that can view through the institutional lens and understand the traditions and culture that exists, but then also be able to bridge to how that can translate into the population that you’re seeking to attract.”
