The first annual conference for the Black Business Student Association at what was then called the University of Michigan Business School was held in 1976. The creation of this event was a result of the growing number of black graduates of the University of Michigan Business School’s BBA, MBA, and Ph.D. programs.
The students of the BBSA decided that there was a need to organize an event to bring black alumni of the business school back to campus in order to share their experiences, knowledge, and insight with current students. A secondary goal was to provide a forum for alumni and students to network amongst themselves. Lastly, the conference would be a time when the outstanding business achievements of the many successful alumni could be recognized. Accordingly, the BBSA organized its first Annual Conference and Alumni Weekend in March 1976.
Over the past thirty years, the BBSA Annual Conference and Alumni Weekend has grown from its initial fifteen participants to several hundred annually, making it one of the most outstanding student-run business school alumni conferences in the nation.
In 2006, the BBSA officially celebrated the 30th Annual BBSA Conference and Alumni Weekend by renaming the conference to honor Dr. Alfred L. Edwards. Dr. Edwards is a professor emeritus at the Ross School of Business with a career that extends over 40 years. In addition to his extensive commitment to increasing diversity at Ross, he was also instrumental in the development of The University of Nigeria and was appointed by President Kennedy to serve as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. Dr. Edwards has worked tirelessly to increase the number of underrepresented minority students and professors at the University of Michigan and was the motivating force behind Michigan’s entrance to the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management.
Over 300 people attended the 30th annual conference, including current Ross students, alumni, faculty, prospective students, prominent business leaders, corporate sponsors and business professionals from throughout the Midwest.
In 2007, BBSA will celebrate its 31st annual conference and expects that it will continue to improve upon the successes of the past. The theme of this year’s conference is Pathways to Prosperity: Building Wealth in our Communities. The conference will provide a unique opportunity to address the challenges that have hindered the widespread development of wealth in the African-American community and to celebrate the successes of wealth creation as well as discuss how these successful strategies can be replicated on a wide-scale basis. This forum will be led by numerous distinguished speakers and panelists including keynote speaker Sheila C. Johnson, co-founder of Black Entertainment Television and keynote speaker Quintin Primo III, CEO and Chairman of Capri Capital, a $2 billion dollar real-estate development firm with a significant presence in urban America.
The BBSA was founded in 1970 and is one of the largest student-run organizations at the Ross School. The association is dedicated to the recruitment of black business students and the professional and academic development of its members.
