C. Reid Schmutz is the president of the Youngstown State University Foundation, a non-profit organization separate from the university that primarily funds university scholarships through planned giving in an individual’s will. In this interview, conducted in late October, Schmutz discusses diversity and gender stratification within the YSU Foundation.
Leonard Glenn Crist: What role does diversity of race and sex play when choosing new trustees?
Reid Schmutz: Basically, I would say it’s not considered. We’re looking for objectivity. We’re not looking to do it that way. We got an award for diversity from the Diversity Council, so I think your actions probably speak louder than some of the things that you do. Some other things: we matched probably over $600,000 in matching scholarships for minorities at this point in time, which means there is about $1.5 million now in minority scholarship endowment that’s here. We’ve authorized, first it was a half-million dollar chunk, second, it’s another half-million dollar chunk. We started a minority loan program. It’s a revolving loan program, $50,000 we throw in. We started a minority work experience program.
Crist: At the foundation, of the 45 trustees, only three are women. Is that accurate?
Schmutz: I think that’s probably right.
Crist: And yet all of your subordinate staff members are women. When you hear those kinds of numbers, what are your thoughts on that?
Schmutz: I would say this. As this thing grew from— How many women trustees are at the university? Three out of nine. Over the course of things, not as many women are connected to finance. Not as many control the money in their families. So they don’t necessarily bring that knowledge and objectivity to the board. We have had more women, but some of them have gotten off for health reasons or passed on. We have had more than this. Again, it’s not, criteria-wise, trying to fill slots according to gender.
Crist: Is it difficult to find qualified women in this area?
Schmutz: First of all, you have to have interest in the university, so that eliminates people. There are people who would like to be on this board because maybe they think it’s prestigious. I don’t know why. Because we’ve got a lot of money, I suppose. People at banks might like to, but they might have other agendas, like we should do our business with their bank. So again, its just plain simply, not a criteria. We’re looking for objectivity and some knowledge of finance. There are again, a lot of women who serve on boards, but when you look at them, they might serve on a marketing committee in this community, but they don’t serve on the finance committee.
Crist: Coming from a fundraising standpoint, you said men control the money in families more often. Are they predisposed to trust a man more?
Schmutz: Look down the list of— Who’s in charge at Huntington Bank? It’s not a woman. There are plenty of women who work there that are very capable, but in this foundation, we want to have the president. So we pick the president of that bank, we don’t pick somebody down below. Same thing is true at National City. Look at Butler Wick. There are plenty of capable people. We got the president. Home Savings and Loan, we’ve got the president.
Crist: You’re representative of the leadership in the area.
Schmutz: Yes, and if the leadership isn’t gender diverse, then we’re not going to be gender diverse because we want those leaders that are recognized as capable and as leaders because the board sets the policy for the foundation. So those people are setting the policy for us. They set the policy in their own company; they set the policy for us. It’s a hard question.
Crist: Does the abundance of male voices bias decisions made by the foundation?
Schmutz: No. Most of our scholarships are decided by the university. They have a program. Lets say you are in the top 25 percent of your class and have an ACT of 21-24: you get $1,500 on a Red and White scholarship. I don’t see how you can— That’s pretty objective. That’s the bulk of our money. There are probably— I’ve got two or three gender specific scholarships where some man said, ‘I want it to go to a man.’ And some woman said, ‘I want it to go to a female.’ So it’s hard to do that. For the most part we look at need.
Crist: What could be done to increase the number of women serving on the board?
Schmutz: I think that’s going to have to come from— Again, if we’re going to be a board of community leaders, then women are going to have to rise up in the community. We invited two university scholars several years ago to start coming to our meetings to represent— That [the University Scholar’s program] is a big chunk of our budget. [Former YSU President Leslie] Cochran wanted us to do that so we did that. I think it’s been successful for the university. We invited a man and a woman, male and female. The male lives in Cleveland, expressed an interest and was very faithful in coming to our meetings, in snow, in the winter, the summer, sometimes he had conflicts. The female, I think she came once, and she’s still invited. The male was recently elected to our board as a full trustee. It’s interests. In that particular case we tried to— We’re saying, ‘Hey, the old families and community leaders, Youngstown is not that big anymore.’ We’re used to having Cushwas on here. No Cushwas in town anymore. We used to have Beeghleys. You can see that some of the old families in town are not going to be here. We’re interested in trying to find people who would be interested and qualified to be trustees, because we can see that there aren’t enough slots to fill up. So, will this change? Will the gender thing change? I don’t know where they will be in positions in their companies. Again, you go through these banks. All the banks in town have men presidents. If they had a woman president, we’d probably take them, but I don’t see one. It’s kind of the way, unfortunately. We’re not that much more a reflection of society.
