At Ogilvie Colloquium, Panelists Discuss Purpose and Prosperity in New Haven

In a wide-ranging discussion about purpose and prosperity at Yale SOM’s fourth annual Donald H. Ogilvie ’78 Colloquium earlier this year, New Haven nonprofit founder Erik Clemons poignantly encapsulated the real-world stakes of these two ideas.

“Prosperity means to dream,” he said. “And I know too many people who don’t dream.”

Clemons has done more than his part in empowering New Haven residents to dream. In 2011, he founded ConnCAT, a job-training program that originally placed participants at the Yale New Haven Hospital, the city’s second-largest employer, and later expanded to offer both life sciences and culinary training. He now serves as CEO of ConnCAT and its partner economic development organization ConnCORP. ConnCORP is currently building a transformative mixed-use development in the historic African-American neighborhood Dixwell which will house the organization’s new headquarters local residents with grocery stores, retail spaces, a food hall, town houses, a performing arts center, office space, high-quality affordable daycare, and community gathering spaces.

At the Ogilvie Colloquium, Clemons spoke with Ron Coleman ’25 in a conversation moderated by business journalist Stephanie Mehta and attended by faculty, staff, and students, as well as alumni who had convened for Reunion Weekend. Hosted by Yale SOM’s Council on Anti-Racism and Equity, the colloquium invites professionals of color to campus to share their perspectives and journeys to success. It is named for the late Donald H. Ogilvie ’78, who as a Yale undergraduate helped establish the university’s Black Studies department and Afro-American Cultural Center; he later became a member of the SOM Charter Class.

The colloquium allows “alumni and community members to talk about the things that are most important for us to move forward,” said Ebonie Jackson, SOM’s assistant dean of inclusion and diversity, while introducing the event.

Like Clemons, Coleman found his calling through local nonprofit work. Growing up in New Haven, Ron Coleman ’25 experienced what he described as “both sides of the opportunity gap” in the city. His mother, an educator in the New Haven Public School System, and grandmother, a professor at Southern Connecticut State University, made sacrifices to send him to a well-regarded private school. When he returned to his home city after college to serve as a middle school math teacher through Teach for America, he saw the systemic difficulties faced by children, educators, and families in underserved public schools.

“I started to see Yale as this critical bridge between these two worlds,” said Coleman, who connected with university initiatives like the Yale New Haven Teachers Institute and Dwight Hall while founding a new organization, New Haven Counts, that provides math tutoring to local kids. He ultimately decided to pursue an MBA at Yale in order to grow New Haven Counts and help close the opportunity gap he’d witnessed in his own life.

“If we can get the institution and the city to think more prosperously, then the students in my programs are going to be the ones leading the community in the future,” Coleman said.

Clemons regularly speaks about his work in Professor Teresa Chahine’s class Social Entrepreneurship and Professor Kate Cooney’s Inclusive Economic Development Lab; he also co-facilitates the course Interpersonal Dynamics with Professor Heidi Brooks. Clemons said that his work is grounded in a keen awareness of the racism Black people have faced in America and a goal of increasing access to opportunity and resources in New Haven.

“When I think about what civil rights leaders, and enslaved people before them, have gone through, I don’t want to let them down,” he said.

Both Coleman and Clemons drew on their long experience in New Haven to discuss how Yale can strengthen its relationship with the city. Coleman suggested that the university work to transform one-time events or temporary collaborations with city entities into sustainable, long-term partnerships. Clemons praised Yale’s “intention to be authentically in community” with New Haven, citing the Center for Inclusive Growth, a landmark economic development partnership between the university and the city. At the same time, he argued that in order to build lasting trust, the university must own up to its past failures to serve local communities.

During the question-and-answer portion of the event, One eighth grader stood up to ask what advice the speakers had for young people in the process of finding their own purpose.

“You’re going to need a support system for anything you do,” Coleman said. “And you’ll need to get comfortable working with folks who look just like you, and folks who don’t.”

Taking questions from other attendees about how students can pursue impact-oriented work in a landscape of political upheaval and funding cuts, Coleman and Clemons emphasized the importance of standing up for shared values and beliefs.

“Companies, especially enduring institutions, have to be courageous,” Clemons said. “At some point, people have to say that enough is enough.”