Diversity Leadership Council Third Annual Diversity Conference

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

8:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Homewood Campus

WORKSHOP SESSION I – Please select one. (9:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.)

 

1.  Communication Competence Imperatives in Diverse-Cultural Environments

Bagher Fardanesh, JHU SPSBE

Communication competence is essential to the competitiveness of multinational corporations (MNC).  This session will explore
the nature of communication breakdowns and their potential consequences. 
In addition, major barriers to effective communication will be identified

and several guidelines minimizing misunderstanding will be offered.

 

2.   Digital Storytelling:  A Personal History

Joan Friedman, JHU Homewood Student Affairs

Adriene Breckenridge, JHU School of Arts & Sciences

Patricia Kain, JHU School of Arts & Sciences

Rosemary Varner Gaskins, JHU Homewood Student Affairs

In January 2006, students from the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs Student Success Series
participated in a unique collaboration between the Expository writing Program and the Digital Media Center. 

The stories the students wrote were recorded and paired with images and sounds, creating compelling video

portraits of multicultural families.  You will hear about the class experience from both faculty and student point of view.

 

3.   Vision 2020:  2006 Report of the JHU Committee on the Status of Women

Linda Fried, M.D., M.P.H., Professor and Chair, University Committee on the Status of Women

Cathy J. Lebo, Ph.D., Assistant Provost for Institutional Research

Lindsay Thompson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Management and Director of Business Transitions and Leadership Ethics

Francesca Dominici, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Chair of UCSW Subcommittee on Faculty

Provost Knapp empanelled an institution-wide University Committee on the Status of Women, which has just submitted its final report to the Provost, President Brody and Vice President McGill.  This session reports on the findings from that report as to the persistent gender-based obstacles for women faculty, staff and students across the University, and presents recommendations for short and long-term interventions to correct these inequities.   Significant cultural change, as well as corrections of policies and practices, will be required.  Both approaches and outcomes will be beneficial to women of all backgrounds, as well as to the University community at large.   The approaches also mirror the recently published report of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and offer the next generation
approaches to establishing gender equity that the NAS has called for.    The proposed interventions would place Johns Hopkins at the forefront of innovation on equity for women, and may provide new models for correction of discriminatory practices and experiences
for all groups.

 

4.  The Diversity Pipeline:  Achieving and Maintaining Diversity in the Workplace

Ashley J. Llorens, JHU Applied Physics Lab

Andre Smith, JHU Applied Physics Lab

What happens when the demographics in the workplace do not match that of the population at large? 

What can organizations do to achieve and maintain the appropriate ethnic and gender balance? 

Learn a holistic, “pipeline” approach that involves community outreach, diversity hiring practices and staff development.

 

5.  Hidden Immigrants and Cultural Chameleons:  Exploring Characteristics of the Global Nomad Community and the
Dynamics of a Childhood Abroad
Norma McCaig, Chair, Global Nomads International

Global nomads (aka Third-Culture Kids or TCK’s)

are individuals who have lived abroad because of a parent’s occupational choice where their arena of acculturation is the global corridor. 

This session will explore their experiences and ways their early-acquired global awareness and cross-cultural skills can be applied.

 

6.  Conflict Resolution:  Looking at the Facts

David R. Thomas, JHU SPSBE

Do you act differently in times of conflict and non-conflict times?  Upon what assumptions is your style of interaction based? 

Participants in this session will be challenged to think a situation through thoroughly, obtain the facts before reacting and understand

their assumptions. 

 

7.  Diversity – Inclusion Improves Your Organization’s Bottom Line

Paul Lawrence Vann, CEO, Laurel Wreath Communications Incorporated

Diversity is a corporate asset that that provides competitive advantage to the organization.  Learn five key benefits of an inclusive
organization. This session will also examine the stereotypes that exist in the workplace and how to breakdown the taboos of talking
about them.

 

8.  Courageous Leadership:  Advancing a Diversity Initiative (for Senior Managers)

 

ABSTRACT FORTHCOMING

 

9.  When Does Speech Become Harassment?  The Intersection Between the Law of Harassment and Speech Rights on Campus

Gerard St. Ours, JHU Homewood Campus

How do you balance the obligation to maintain a campus that is free of racial, sexual, religious and other forms of harassment
and the need to protect free speech and foster the robust exchange of ideas in an academic environment? 

This session will explore those two tensions and the challenges and opportunities they present.

 

 

 

WORKSHOP SESSION II – Please select one. (11:15 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.)

 

1.  Communication Competence Imperatives in Diverse Cultural Environments

Bagher Fardanesh, JHU SPSBE

Communication competence is essential to the competitiveness of multinational corporations (MNC).  This session will explore the nature
of communication breakdowns and their potential consequences.  In addition, major barriers to effective communication

 will be identified and several guidelines minimizing misunderstanding will be offered.

 

2.   Identity Development in a Multicultural Environment

Liliana Meneses, Research Associate, The George Washington University

How does growing up in a multicultural environment influence one’s identity development?  Using the Human development lens of

Erikson (1980) and Marcia (1980), where each stage of development is associated with tasks that lead to the development of the

next stage,

Ms. Meneses will discuss her research on individuals who experienced the “third culture” phenomenon, and how they describe their sense

of personal and professional identity among the different cultures in which they lived.

 

3.  Talking About It:  Starting Easy, Comfortable Dialogue about GLBT Issues

Mark Shields, Director, Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Coming Out Project

Last fall the HRC conducted a dual tracked research project that examined the barriers that keep gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender

and straight people from speaking openly with one another about GLBT issues at home, at work, and in their communities. 

Based on the findings, this session will provide people resources, tools and strategies for starting conversations in a way that

puts people at ease, and creates respectful open dialogue.

 

4.  Conflict Resolution:  Looking at the Facts

David R. Thomas, JHU SPSBE

Do you act differently in times of conflict and non-conflict times?  Upon what assumptions is your style of interaction based? 

Participants in this session will be challenged to think a situation through thoroughly, obtain the facts before reacting and understand

their assumptions. 

 

5.  Diversity – Inclusion Improves Your Organization’s Bottom Line

Paul Lawrence Vann, CEO, Laurel Wreath Communications Incorporated

Diversity is a corporate asset that that provides competitive advantage to the organization.  Learn five key benefits of an inclusive

organization.  This session will also examine the stereotypes that exist in the workplace and how to breakdown the taboos of

talking about them.

 

6.  Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation:  Natural Enemies to Successful Diversity Initiatives

     Caroline Laguerre-Brown, Associate Director for Compliance & Conflict Resolution, JHU

Discrimination, harassment, and retaliation can violate civil rights laws by creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive environment. These issues greatly undermine positive efforts to promote diversity and inclusion. This workshop will help participants understand legal definitions, explore specific behaviors that could be volatile to civil rights laws, review the special responsibility of supervisors, and discuss resources available at JHU. In this session, special coverage will be given to a June 2006 United States Supreme Court case on retaliation. 

 

7.  Disability as a Multicultural and Diversity Component

Shonda McLaughlin, Programs Manager, American Association of People with Disabilities

Too often topics like disability are perceived as “special interest” topic.  Though there are many ways to develop multicultural

competency skills, participants in this session will learn three primary ways, according to research, to develop multicultural

competency skills, regardless of disciplines.  Furthermore, this session will provide an overview of disability awareness

and its importance and discuss disability as a culture.

 

8.  DLC Diversity Climate Survey

James Calvin, Associate Professor, Dept. of Management, JHU School of Professional Studies

The Johns Hopkins Institutions Diversity Leadership Council (DLC), in seeking to fulfill its charter from President Brody, initiated a

broad and long consultative process to construct and implement a survey for the purpose of collecting data that would shed light on

issues related to perceptions about diversity and workplace climate across the Johns Hopkins Institutions. 

At this session there will be a short presentation of data indicators, gleaned insights and impressions, and a discussion about

considerations and potential next steps to be taken by the Johns Hopkins Institutions as follow-up from the survey.

 

9.  Women, Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans in Science and Engineering: Why so Few

Jeffrey P. Jarosz, JHU Whiting School of Engineering

Engineering is an exciting and profitable career choice, but women and minorities (Blacks, Hispanics and Natives) are severely
underrepresented.  There are ways to address this through traditional ways and through curriculum reform. 

This session will explore how to include curricular innovations with a traditional engineering curriculum.