Loida Rosario, DePaul University marketing faculty member, and David Rodriguez, multicultural marketing communications manager at Ford Motor Co., gathered for a meeting this fall of the newly formed corporate advisory board for DePaul’s multicultural marketing program, which includes an innovative Hispanic marketing major. Ford has given a $30,000 gift to support a comprehensive partnership between the car company and the university, and part of the donation will fund a conference DePaul will host in June 2009 to explore the rapidly expanding field of multicultural marketing.   

In addition to Ford, representatives from Humana, Aetna, Walgreen Co., Sears, Macy's, USG, ConAgra Foods, US Cellular and Abbott participated in the October advisory board meeting, which concluded with a reception attended by 120 DePaul students who study in the popular program at DePaul’s College of Commerce. 

The event exemplifies the strong connections that DePaul has forged with the Chicago business community to support academic programming and student career networking.