Professor Selected for SOCHE’s Diversity and Inclusion Award

Ellen Novar's Multicultural Marketing Course I National Trailblazer Wilmington College’s Ellen Novar will receive a 2016 Diversity and Inclusion Award presented by the Southwestern Ohio Council for Higher Education (SOCHE) at the Diversity in the Multicultural Millennium Conference planned for later this month in Dayton. (PICTURED) Ellen Novar, associate professor of marketing, places an emphasis on marketing to diverse segments of American society. Novar, an associate professor of marketing, has been on WC’s Business Administration faculty since 2000. As a result of her course, Multicultural Marketing, Novar became a national trailblazer in responding to experts’ prediction that Caucasions will become a minority in the United States before the middle of the century. Indeed, non-white racial and ethnic groups are expected to comprise the majority of the United States’ population around 2043. This rapid shift in population over the past few generations also is on the radar of business as it endeavors to market goods and services to diverse populations of Americans. Novar became fascinated by that demographic dynamic and created a course in 2007 designed to prepare her students for marketing to diverse groups. “My goal with the course is for my students to better understand people and appreciate diversity and different cultures all within the context of these massive demographic changes,” she said. SOCHE created the new award as representative of the consortium and its member schools’ dedication to diversity. The awards are a way to recognize students, faculty, staff and institutions that have created innovative strategies that promote the development of the skills and knowledge necessary to meet the needs of a multicultural society.