Mateo Askaripour, author of the acclaimed bestselling novel “Black Buck,” will visit SUNY Oswego for a presentation and to lead a community discussion of racial justice in the workplace.
Askaripour’s campus-community keynote will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 12, in the Marano Campus Center auditorium (Room 132). Supported by the Shineman Endowed Fund, the talk is free and open to the public.
Sponsored by the School of Business Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, Askaripour’s visit involves working with community organizations and the college’s alumni network to encourage business participation and development of a roadmap moving forward. The collaboration includes a research project assessing student pre-post perceptions of microaggressions and racial justice in the workplace. "Black Buck" is included in the curriculum of three current business courses, and a reading group has been discussing the book and related topics as well.
While here, Askaripour will be involved with the college’s Sales Triathlon, which runs April 11 and 12 in Rich Hall and challenges students to demonstrate their mastery of sales skills and knowledge.
“Black Buck” focuses on Darren, an unambitious 22-year-old living in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother, who wants nothing more than to see him live up to his potential as the valedictorian of Bronx Science. Darren’s content life changes when a chance encounter with a silver-tongued CEO of a hot tech startup results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team instead of working in a Midtown Starbucks.
After an intensive training, Darren –- the only Black person in the company –- re-imagines himself as “Buck,” a ruthless salesman unrecognizable to his friends and family. He eventually hatches a plan to help young people of color infiltrate America’s sales force in this novel that features sharp comedy and skewering of America’s workforce while exploring ambition and race, and makes way for a new vision of the American dream.
Persons in need of accessibility accommodations to attend this event should contact the School of Business at 315-312-2272 or email business@oswego.edu.
About the Shineman Endowed Fund
The Richard S. Shineman Foundation celebrates and proudly takes an active role in reviewing grant proposals from around the SUNY Oswego campus for the Shineman Endowed Fund.
As the 233,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art Richard S. Shineman Center for Science, Engineering and Innovation prepared to open its doors, the foundation made its first -- and still its largest -- commitment of $4 million in 2012 to establish an endowment to benefit the college. Coupled with another, immediate $1 million gift from Barbara P. Shineman, the donation to the Oswego College Foundation was, at the time, the largest SUNY Oswego had ever received.
The Shineman Foundation began making quarterly payments of $100,000 in 2013. To date, $4.2 million has been paid into the endowment. The value of the fund has grown to $7 million.
Goals included establishing the flexible pool of funding now known as the Shineman Endowed Fund to support collaborative educational and cultural opportunities that benefit the Oswego community, brought forward by SUNY Oswego professors and department chairs.