Fox Establishes Entrepreneur Scholarship for Minority Students to Honor Late Mother

Dr. Joseph Fox, retired Chair of Business Administration at A-B Tech, has established a scholarship in his mother’s name for minority students enrolled in the college’s Entrepreneurship Program.

The purpose of the scholarship is to encourage students of color who have faced challenges in their educational journeys due to system biases, living in low-wealth communities, and/or a brush with the criminal justice system. Fox hopes scholarship recipients who complete the entrepreneurship program will have an opportunity to start their own businesses.

“Mother was a very sensible person, and I recall her telling us children on several occasions that we needed to get a good education because people cannot take that away from you,” Fox said. “Mother had always worked two and three jobs to make sure that we, children from a single-parent household, would have what we needed in terms of food, clothes, school supplies, and a roof over our heads.”

According to Fox, companies often have a policy where they have “banned the box” requiring disclosure of legal infractions on job applications. However, he said, there has been little consistency regarding the amount of years required to pass between a legal infraction and applying for a job.

“Individuals cannot wait five years, seven years, etc., before seeking gainful employment. The Hazel Fox Minority Student Entrepreneurship Scholarship was created to address such issues,” he said.

Fox’s company, Fox Management Consulting Enterprises, has partnered with Rebel Pine Coffee, a Mountain BizWorks-supported enterprise, to provide additional funding to the scholarship. For each bag of coffee or monthly subscription of online coffee purchases, Rebel Pine will donate 10% to the scholarship fund. Use the code HAZELFOX at check-out for them to track orders tied directly to the scholarship at rebelpine.com/hazelfox.

“One of my mother’s proudest moments was attending my graduation ceremony when I received an MBA,” Fox said. ”She stated that all of her hard work to make sure that we had a college degree was summed up in that moment. Unfortunately, my mother never got to see me receive my doctoral degree. However, I know that she would be so happy to know that I work with others from low-wealth communities through life coaching and mentoring, as well as starting a scholarship in her memory.”