Spring 2008 Institute 1 1/2 Hour Workshops

Envisioning the Future: Cultural Identity in the Global Age

May 28 – June 1, 2008
The Westin Alexandria

1 1/2 Hour Workshops: Thursday Afternoon
May 29, 2008

Workshops will be offered twice:
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
3:45 pm – 5:15 pm

101. MicroInequities: The Power of Small

Stephen Young

This workshop addresses the small, yet powerful, biases communicated in the workplace. It focuses on one of the most hidden barriers to success; the subtle, usually subconscious messages we all send that can devalue, discourage and ultimately impair performance in the workplace at all levels of an organization. Through the workshop, participants will learn to identify micromessages, gain an understanding of the effects of such messages that drive rapid behavior change within the workplace. These skills will help improve the quality and productivity of daily interactions with colleagues.

Mr. Young is Founder and Senior Partner of Insight Education Systems and author of Micromessaging: Why Great Leadership is Beyond Words. Insight Education Systems has received international acclaim for its leadership seminar MicroInequities: The Power of Small™ which has been delivered to nearly 10% of the Fortune 500 in 22 countries. He is a leading expert in organizational leadership and frequently consults with senior executives and management teams of numerous Fortune 500 companies. His clients have included Starbucks, IBM, Raytheon, Merck and the Federal Reserve Bank.

102. Best Practices in Diversity Leadership

Moderator: Todd Chester
Panelists: Lisa Gardner, Vicki Mirandah, Rolddy Leyva

These experienced corporate leaders will discuss some of the major issues they have addressed in brining about change in their own organizations. They will identify key components of their diversity strategic planning efforts; describe the dilemmas and the realities encountered when developing and implementing their diversity initiatives; discuss strategies on how to move beyond diversity rhetoric; share experiences on the impact diversity can have on an organization and its workforce; and explore emerging issued on diversity management in a corporate environment.

Mr. Chester is Manager of Corporate Diversity and Inclusion at AARP. He has vast experience in volunteer and community organizing around social change issues. Prior to AARP, Mr. Chester served as a Master Trainer-of-Trainers for an international firm where he designed and facilitated workshops to diverse groups worldwide. He is a Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF) through the International Association of Facilitators, is active in the National Speakers Association and serves on the boards of several community organizations.

Ms. Gardner is an independent diversity consultant. Most recently, she was Director, Diversity and Inclusion at Fannie Mae, where she advised on corporate diversity strategy and supported diversity initiatives within the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. Prior positions also include Senior Diversity Advisor at Freddie Mac and Director of Diversity at AARP. She has served as chair of The Conference Board Diversity and Inclusion Council, co-chair of the Washington Metropolitan Diversity Council, and was a founding member of the Business Women’s Network Diversity Best Practices Council.

Ms. Mirandah has been at Capital One since 1998 where she is currently Director of Diversity. Her responsibilities span many aspects of corporate diversity including Capital One’s Associate Network groups, business Diversity Councils, Diversity Education, Targeted Recruitment strategies and focusing on Women’s Initiatives. She serves on The Conference Board’s Council of Diversity Executives and was appointed to the Virginia Asian Advisory Board in 2006.

Mr. Leyva is the Senior Director for Sodexo’s Corporate & Government Service market segments where he provides diversity counsel and leadership to the Presidents and leadership teams of these market segments. Mr. Leyva joined Sodexo in 2006 as Senior Director of Staffing and Performance Planning for Corporate Services. Prior to Sodexo, he was Director of Human Resources/Diversity at Capital One Financial Services, where he developed the company’s first formalized executive diversity development program.

103. Internalized Oppression and Dominance

Peggy McIntosh, PhD and Hugo Mahabir, MA

This interactive workshop will explore participants’ experience of internalized oppression and internalized dominance. In internalized oppression, the victim does the oppressors’ work for them by taking in the negative and disempowering messages and making them their own. In internalized dominance, the message is about being superior and making it one’s own. In both oppression and dominance, we absorb and enact these postures, often without conscious knowledge of the politics of the process.

Participants will have an opportunity to discuss this phenomenon and examine its impact on their lives and on those around them. The role of culture in perpetuating some of these images will be reviewed and addressed.

Dr. McIntosh is Associate Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women, Wellesley COllege. She is Founder and Co-Director of the National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum: Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity. A world-renowned lecturer, she consults with higher education institutions nationally and internationally on creating multicultural and gender-equitable curricula. She is best known for her groundbreaking work in white skin privilege in its most widely distributed form: “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.”

Mr. Mahabir is Dean of Faculty at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City. He served as staff trainer with the National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum: Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity for fifteen years. He is a founding board member of SAYA (South Asian Youth Action) in Queens, NY, a community-based organization serving immigrant South Asian youth. He consults nationally to schools and non-profits on diversity.

104. Starting with Our Experiences: A Path Toward Engaging Communities in Public School Reform

Jessy Molina, JD and Michael Molina, JD

Everyone has experiences – some empowering, some disempowering – with an educational system. This workshop will explore what makes for a quality education by engaging participants in a reflection of their own experiences with education. By examining their own experiences of what works and what does not, participants will begin to answer the question “what is a quality education?”

Facilitators will lead participants through a process Quality Education as a Civil Right (QECR) has found helpful in engaging communities across the country in the movement to transform the American public school system into one that serves all children. Through the workshop, participants will learn techniques for gathering input and actively engaging their communities in a process of school reform.

Mr. and Mrs. Molina are Co-National Coordinators for QECR, a movement to create a national dialogue about the current crisis in public education for students of color and calling for quality education as an enforceable legal right.

Mrs. Molina, prior to QECR, worked with youth through the John Gardner Center for Youth and their Communities at Stanford University to develop and implement a youth-led social justice curriculum. She also completed a Soros Justice Fellowship at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights on the Books Not Bars.

Mr. Molina, prior to QECR, was a state-wide policy advocate and lead organizer for the Books not Bars project where he facilitated grassroots organizing, planned education trainings and events, coordinated advocacy initiatives and developed research documents. He also designed curricula and served as a facilitator at the ROOTS project in San Francisco.

1 1/2 Hour Workshops: Friday Morning
May 30, 2008

Workshops will be offered twice:
9:00 am – 10:30 am
10:45 am – 12:15 pm

201. A Roadmap for Creating a Culturally Competent Organizational Culture

Howard J. Ross

This workshop will be based on a model for creating a culturally competent organizational culture. The Cook Ross Diversity Systems Map addresses all aspects of diversity, beginning with identifying ways to bring high performing employees into the organization, and then addressing issues such as: interviewing and hiring; orientation and mentoring; staff development and training; retention; development of performance standards; establishment of diversity metrics; creation of leadership and employee behavioral models; as well as focusing on the external application of diversity and its impact on customers, marketing, vendor relationships, and public relations.

Mr. Ross, Founder and Chief Learning Officer of Cook Ross, Inc., is a nationally recognized expert on diversity, leadership, and organizational change. He has successfully led large-scale organizational culture change efforts in corporations, professional services organizations, media companies, healthcare providers, educational institutions, and non-profit organizations. He is the 2007-2008 Johnetta B. Cole Institute Visiting Professor of Diversity at Bennett College for Women and can be heard on NPR the first Monday of every month on the Kojo Nnamdi Show.

202. The Anatomy of Prejudice

Jane Elliott

This presentation will explore the problems of racism, ageism, sexism, homophobia, and ethnocentrism as they exist in us and in our society. Using Ms. Elliott’s internationally acclaimed discrimination exercise, “Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes,” participants will discuss each individual’s responsibility for eliminating these “isms” and address the following questions: Where do prejudices come from? Who originates them and why? What do we do about prejudice? Is prejudice the problem?

Participants will be encouraged to discuss the issues raised as they relate to their own organizations, and will receive a list of suggested activities and books that may provide additional insights into how to overcome the problems of the “isms” that we all confront.

Ms. Elliott is an internationally known teacher, lecturer, diversity trainer, and recipient of the National Mental Health Association’s Award for Excellence in Education. Her ground-breaking “Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes” discrimination exercise was designed to explore the nature of racism and prejudice in the wake of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and has since been the subject of several award-winning documentaries. Ms. Elliott has been a guest lecturer at numerous colleges and universities, and a guest on a wide variety of television shows.

203. Global Diversity: What Every Leader Needs to Know

Shannon Murphy Robinson, MA

What are the differences that make a difference in a successful global organization and, how do such organizations leverage differences to foster peak performance, increase customer satisfaction and improve bottom-line results?

This interactive workshop will address why, and how, leading organizations are making global diversity a central element of their business strategy. Participants will gain an understanding of the intersection between diversity and intercultural communications and the necessity for both in implementing a successful global diversity strategy, and will learn key factors that contribute to success or that hinder successful initiatives.

Ms. Murphy Robinson consults, speaks, and trains internationally on the globalization of diversity, cultural competency and implementing strategic diversity and inclusion initiatives. She has extensive experience in implementing large-scale, complex diversity and inclusion initiatives with Fortune 500 industry leaders, healthcare, government, small and mid-sizedcompanies and universities. Her clients have included Aetna, GlaxoSmithKline, Medtronic, Intel and the U.S. Park Service.

204. Leveraging Diversity for Student Success

Moderator: Maria Tukeva

Maria Tukeva and panelists from Bell Multicultural High School (BMHS), a public school located in Washington, DC, has established a model program that emphasizes cultural competence as an essential skill for students’ future success. All BMHS students are expected to become proficient in a second language and to participate as members of a multicultural community.

Workshop participants will hear from a panel led by BMHS’ principal, Ms. Maria Tukeva. The panel will include administrative, instructional and student leaders who will share their perspectives on how the BMHS community works to leverage diversity as a strategic asset for students’ future success.

Ms. Tukeva is principal of Bell Multicultural High School. She began her career in education in 1974 as an educational specialist for SER-Jobs for Progress, a national Hispanic organization. In 1976, she became administrative director for Andromeda Mental Health Center in Washington, DC, where she remained until 1979 when she assumed her present position. In 2000, Mrs. Tukeva received the principal of the year award from the National Association of Secondary School Principals. She holds BA degrees in Spanish literature and journalism from Penn State University and an MS in linguistics and bilingual education from Georgetown University.

1 1/2 Hour Workshops: Friday Afternoon
May 30, 2008

Workshops will be offered twice:
1:45 pm – 3:15 pm
3:30 pm – 5:15 pm

301. How can We Fight Bias When We Can’t Even See It in Ourselves?

Howard J. Ross

Based on cutting edge research from major universities including Harvard, the University of Washington and the University of Virginia, this is an informative and experiential presentation designed to expose the dynamic of unconscious bias, why it happens, and how it impacts most of our decisions on a daily basis. It also is designed to help diversity advocates understand their own bias and develop compassion for the people they are working with, and develop new ways to reach people within their organizations. It is intended to transform the way people see the subject of diversity.

Mr. Ross, Founder and Chief Learning Officer of Cook Ross, Inc., is a nationally recognized expert on diversity, leadership, and organizational change. He has successfully led large-scale organizational culture change efforts in corporations, professional services organizations, media companies, healthcare providers, educational institutions, and non-profit organizations. He is the 2007-2008 Johnetta B. Cole Institute Visiting Professor of Diversity at Bennett College for Women and can be heard on NPR the first Monday of every month on the Kojo Nnamdi Show.

302. Uncommon Threads: From the Mature to the Millenials, Managing Four Generations at Work

Joseph Gibbons, PhD and Ramon Marmolejos, MBA

Meet the newest generation coming into the workforce and explore what work will be like over the next 10 years as we face a labor shortage and the Matures stay at work on flexible schedules, the Boomers “rewire” and the Xers and Millenials make their imprint on work values, work/life, career preferences and management style.

This interactive presentation is based on The FutureWork Institute’s recent talent management research on the future workplace and four generations at work in North America, Europe and Asia. Global focus groups and surveys were conducted which helped us establish some “demo-trends” that cross generations in many countries: the new elderly, the re-wired boomers, the global nomads and the net-gens. The results will provide you with ideas on how to manage and motivate the talent from each of these generational groups.

Dr. Gibbons is a founding consultant and Director of Futures Research of The FutureWork Institute, Inc. specializing in all aspects of diversity and future studies. The author of seven books and innumerable articles, he has specialized in workforce demographics, selection, career and executive development as a human resource management and diversity consultant. He is presently writing a book on career motivations as they affect people’s attitudes toward career.

Mr. Marmolejos is a consultant for the FutureWork Institute, Inc. where he manages projects and undertakes consulting assignments for major global organizations. Previously, he led strategic initiatives for the Advertising and Marketing division of Pepsi-Cola North America. In addition, he served as the Latin American business analyst for the Eurasia Group of Deutsche Bank and as Assistant Director of the Posse Foundation, a diversity scholarship fund.

303. Religion in the Workplace: Current Challenges – Future Opportunities

Mark E. Fowler

in today’s multicultural workplace, employees increasingly bring their religious beliefs and practices to work. But traditional diversity training programs merely mention religion and then move on. This workshop will address key religious diversity issues such as attire, diet, holidays, prayer and scheduling. Attendees will also discuss the impact of globalization, the legal framework, important trends and best practices. Through skills building activities including role playing and interactive case studies, participants will receive valuable strategies and communication tools to learn to recognize and resolve religious diversity issues in their own organizations.

Mr. Fowler currently serves as the Educator/Trainer for the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, where he works across the organization’s innovative religion and education, workplace and conflict resolution programs. Previously, he worked as a Health Educator and a facilitator/trainer with the Anti-Defamation League’s “A World of Difference” Institute. Mr. Fowler earned a B.A. in English and Education at Duke University and trained as a Mediation and Conflict Resolution specialist with the New York City Department of Education.

304. Unique Challenges – Innovative Strategies: The Diversity Initiative at Girard College

Frances Smith and Maria Morukian, MA

Girard College, a private boarding school in Philadelphia, PA, has a powerful place in U.S. civil rights history and a distinguished tradition of providing exceptional educational opportunities for underprivileged students. For several years, Girard College has engaged in a strategic initiative to embrace diversity among its students, faculty and staff. With a majority African-American student population, the school faces a unique opportunity to implement a diversity initiative that will enhance the campus environment to become more diverse and culturally competent. This session will be case study of Girard College, and will explore the school’s successes and challenges in its efforts to implement its strategic diversity goal.

Ms. Smith is Vice President and Head of Schools at Girard College. Born in Germany while her father was stationed in Furth/Bayern with the U.S. Army, she earned her master’s degree in education from Temple University. Before coming to Girard in 2000, she served as vice-principal of Germantown Friends School’s lower school for 10 years. Her teaching career includes 17 years as a biology and science teacher in Philadelphia, Reading (PA) and California public school systems.

Ms. Morukian, Consulting and Training Manager at NMCI, conducts organizational needs assessments, designs training curricula, and facilitates cultural competence building workshops. Ms. Morukian also provides consultation to clients on the design and implementation of their organizational diversity strategic planning processes, and works closely with senior leadership and Diversity Councils to implement systemic culture change.