- In unit 1 we remained focused on mostly ideas regarding diversity and culture and how incorporating multiple voices and backgrounds can really add a lot of enrichment to any environment. In order to further build on the course ideas and help the class expand I would like to delve more into a topic one of the other articles already spoke on, spreading minority awareness and helping them thrive in new environments. Because we all attend the same university I would like to research more about the experiences and challenges undergone by minorities in college and how they manage to create opportunities for themselves in such new environments. Some experts and databases I would like to check up on are the rates of success within organizations designated for minority outreach and success. I would also consider using Syracuse libraries and implementing an article that is close to home and that the class might relate more too. More strictly, if minorities find themselves in leadership positions and manage to assimilate well into their university classes. I would particularly like to go through mostly reputable sources and ones that connect with their audience and use rhetorical elements in their writing.
- As we further delve ourselves into the reading of Austin and Pisano and Kaplan and Donovan, we realize that they use different techniques in order to teach us about advocating for diversity in the workplace. On the one hand A/P focuses on spreading outreach for Neurodiverse individuals and shows how they have implemented different programs and created opportunities for them to find work and excel. On the other hand the article by K/D shows us that although workspaces may strive for equity and inclusivness, they cannot do so unless all members of the community are willing to show leadership and make a change.
Prompt questions, week of 6/1 [Toni]
- I’m looking for companies that are able to show more than just figures of diversity, companies transparent about how marginalized and minority peoples feel comfortable in going to work every day. Not only producing diverse organizational percentages, but a step further in researching ways minority groups feel supported walking through the door every day; producing better because of outwardly supportive allies as leaders; perhaps feeling less like a statistic only helping a company appear diverse. I came upon Ben & Jerry’s excellent explanation of systemic racism and was off and running with what this ICE CREAM company is doing. It’s simple, it’s fairly grassroots, but it’s effective and I would love to delve more into their actual offices, if possible, to see how it operates and to see how they came upon this simple, effective, poignant, activism that’s as palatable as their ice cream flavors. I have these two inspiring sources do far:
https://www.benjerry.com/home/whats-new/2016/systemic-racism-is-real
https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2019/09/04/ben-jerrys-creates-new-flavor-to-highlight-racism-and-criminal-justice-reform/#653e2f244b47
2.While Austin and Pisano are positively exposing and representing neurodiverse peoples, emphasizing overall the advantages of having them on a team, they also look at the impact of including differently abled people and the overall challenges, mostly discussing how management and leadership is being affected and molded through this process, unfolding how important adapting leadership to the inclusion and diversity process is. Likewise, in Kaplan and Donovan’s topic of understanding Key Diversity & Inclusion Concepts they look at how conversations about unconscious bias and insider–outsider dynamics can easily be lost in the noise of the daily office grind, taking us through the day and life of “Kim”, whom represents a composite of managers they’ve interacted with over the past twenty years, and how intent frequently does not equal impact and when brought into the public light, the special facilities have an impact vastly different from the intention.
Prompts week of 6/1
- For this unit, our focus is on diversity and inclusion and we have read a number of different articles surrounding diversity in the workplace and in certain organizations. For my own research, I have been using resources such as the New York Public Library as well as the Syracuse Library where there are countless articles on diversity. They are also very credible sources and I have used these resources in the past with other assignments. However, I wanted to make it more specific so I been looking at articles that focus on diversity in sport organizations and how race and ethnicity varies so much depending on the sport. I am looking for authors and researchers who are experts in the field and are proven to show true results in their studies. In addition, I am looking for articles that are fairly new up to 5 years. That way the articles are still relevant today and don’t have data thats taken from many years ago.
- Kaplan and Donovan show that in order to go about a lack of diversity in the workplace, all levels of management have to be on the same page and will then cause a domino effect for the rest of the organization. I believe that this is really important because management plays huge role in these companies. However, the focus not the other articles we read were more about the individuals. For example, Austin and Pasino argued how neurodiverse individuals would benefit from certain programs offered and as a result improve the company. I believe both are true and should play a role in increasing the diversity surrounding companies.
Week of 6/1 discussion questions, Aaron
- For my article that I am choosing to add to the canon of diversity and inclusion I used the Syracuse library site to go through JSTOR to look for an academically peer reviewed article. There of course are many other outlets that would show a lot of results, but I wanted to make sure that I chose something that was credible in the field of academia. The subject i’m choosing to delve further into is diversity in the field of education, so I searched for articles that were published in teachers’ journals. Unlike some of my fellow classmates however, I am not limiting my search field to articles that were just recently published, and my reason for this is simple- just because something was written a while ago doesn’t make the findings any less relevant than something more recent, especially in the field of diversity and inclusion. We can get a better look at the results of questions posed in an article written years ago to see what changes (if any) occurred.
- In the 2015 article “Why Diversity Matters” we are shown graphics illustrating that companies who are more diverse have a higher percentage of productivity. While this is something that may seem to be common sense, a different article titled “The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity & Inclusion Pays Off” encourages us to look at diversity in a different way. While we can come to the agreement that diversity is good for us and our companies, we have to acknowledge that intent and impact make all the difference in the world. People may tend to claim that they are unbiased, but that is false, and this article reminds us that on a daily basis, any person can say or do things that are insensitive, no matter how honest or pure their intent was originally.
Discussion prompts for Week of 6/1
1. Overall my search for materials is focused on diversity and inclusion. We have touched on diversity in regards to topics like gender, race, ethnicity, and neurodiversity so when adding to the canon I am looking for a diverse group that we have not spoken about yet. I want to pick one similar to neurodiversity that before reading the Austin and Pisano reading I did not think of. That being said to find a topic in diversity we have not touched on yet I first started by a google search of the types of diversity. After doing that my interest was peaked in the areas of able-bodied vs disable. I also have an interest in looking at gender in the workplace, although we have already touched on that, as a woman that will be going into her senior year and going into the workplace soon I am really curious about that topic. Google Scholars and the Syracuse Library are my main sources of research because the scholarly articles from both sources are credible. The authors of these readings that I am looking for need to be an expert in the subject and the work less than 5 years old so in my filters when searching those will also be included.
2. They say/I say sentence: Introducing Summaries and Quotations
In my They say/I say sentence I utilize the verbs for summaries and quotations.
Over the last two weeks, we read texts from Austin and Pisano and Kaplan and Donovan that discussed diversity and inclusion. While Austin and Pisano endorse the inclusion of diversity in regards to neurodiverse people, Kaplan and Donovan remind us of all diversity and inclusion in the workplace and suggest how it can appear in our everyday life. I agree with Austin and Pisano’s writing educating people on what neurodiversity and advocating for their inclusion in the workplace but I complain that they lack the solution to the problem. I celebrate the fact that Kaplan and Donovan give examples of how diversity isn’t made a priority in the workplace and then give the steps to solving the issue and making the environment more inclusive. I do not deny that Austin and Pisano show examples of companies creating programs to help Neorodiverse candidates but I encourage that they add a section similar to Kaplan and Donovan where they state what is involved in creating and maintaining a diverse workforce.
Week of 6/1 – Summary K&D
From a chapter excerpt written in “The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity and Inclusion Pays Off,” managing partners Mark Kaplan and Mason Donovan bring to public light the cognitive and ever-present yet rarely discussed behavioral effects diversity and inclusion can take at the workplace. Through the day-to-day operations of the protagonist character Kim, readers are able to relate and sympathize with the perspective of a company executive as she goes about her busy work schedule. Kaplan and Donovan go on to discuss in detail the impacts Kim’s words and actions may have created or at large, contributed to a bigger crisis of mismanaged events.
The issues they present here ask one to reflect on our humanly inherent biases which commonly create unfair advantages and dividing insider-outsider work relations. Specifically addressing the need for systematic views at various scales, their argument stands to reduce micro-inequities that oftentimes goes unrealized and creates obstacles for underrepresented people. Kaplan and Donovan reinforce the idea that an individual’s good intent, while it may as well be in everybody’s agenda, is not enough to create lasting impacts a company should learn in order to move themselves forward. The goal of inclusion, as they put it, “should be apart of our daily decision.”
Week of 6/1 Discussion Post
- In order to find a valuable source that can be added to our resources, I have decided to look further into neurodiversity. This topic is important to me because my major is inclusive elementary and special education teaching. When I become a teacher, it will be extremely important for me to create an accepting and inclusive environment for each student in my class. I am looking for articles that are professional, but not difficult to understand. I want an article that will get an important message across to the reader. I think that in order to have a meaningful and informational article about neurodiversity, it would be important to hear from someone who has a disability because someone without a disability cannot fully understand what someone who has a disability goes through on a daily basis. I have been using the SU Library website to research articles. I also filter them so that they meet the requirements. For example, I put a filter on that will only show articles that are 5 years old or less. This just helps me to ensure that I am meeting the expectations, and makes it easier to find valuable articles.
- According to Harris, in order to “come to terms” with a specific text, there are three things that someone needs to do: “Define the project of the writer in your own terms…Note keywords or passages in the text… Assess the uses and limits of this approach” (Harris n.d., p. 15). Some of the key words in this article that helps the reader to understand the main purpose are, “bias”, “behavior/actions”, “outsider”, etc. These are just a few key words that are essential to understand. In the Kaplan and Donavan article, the project of the authors is finding out more about inclusive settings and diversity in the workplace. In order to do this, Kaplan and Donavan decide to explain a typical workday to display their main concepts in the “real world”. They also show the reader how small changes to actions and biases in a company/business. This article helps the reader to understand that minor changes can allow for major differences, and it is extremely important to promote an inclusive environment.
Summary 6/1
The article by Austin and Pasino focuses on the problem that many people with neurological conditions are not well represented in the workforce. However they should because these people often show skills such as pattern recognition, great memory and high level mathematics that people without these conditions sometimes lack. The cause of all this is because organizations often in their hiring process disregard these skills and put a greater emphasis on the things that may be harder for these individuals. The behaviors of a lot of neurodiverse people may run counter to what most companies look for in an employee. While some companies have implemented some type of change in their hiring process to make it easier for these individuals to get hired, many more companies should follow and use the skills of these people to their advantage. In the long run it will help the company and individual achieve goals that they might not have thought would be possible.
6/3 Summary
Authors Robert D. Austin and Gary P. Pisano advocate for a more diverse representation amongst organization’s employees, specifically focusing on expanding their workforce to be inclusive to those with neurological conditions. Throughout the article, the authors aim to provide reasons for neurodiversity as these individuals are extraordinary in their own way, with talents and traits that could bring prosperity to a company. While strengthening their article with the wise words and input of credible doctors and scholars, the authors present reasons as to why some companies may feel hesitant to jump onto the inclusivity bandwagon for those who suffer from neurological conditions. In addition, they also advocate for more inclusion by providing those who may be hesitant with ways on how to incorporate more neurological diversity, while also changing the current stigma against those who suffer.
week 6/1 Isaac haseltine prompts
- While reading the assigned articles for this class I’ve noticed the main piece of information we are not focusing on is the true perspective from people in minority groups in an organizational culture. Most of the articles address minorities and subgroups that are excluded in some way, although none of the articles actually come from these subgroups. I believe our canon needs a source of information that is less about who and what these subgroups and are more about the perspective from these groups and what they believe is necessary. Using the SU Library and typical research practices I plan on finding an article from that disadvantageous side of the same central topic: How inclusion and diversity are necessary for an organization. I have not started my search yet, but an article written by someone who is part of a minority group facing challenges will stand out to me more since they have firsthand knowledge of how the issue can have negative effects on the people and the organization.
- In the article “The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity & Inclusion Pays Off” there is a central example situation that the authors configured to help the reader comprehend their key points and how small variations can bring a larger impact than what is intended. The project that Kaplan and Donovan address is the importance of inclusion and diversity in a work environment, but it gets more complex than that. The standard level of inclusion and diversity is shared by the majority of organizational cultures; everyone with the qualifications should have an equal opportunity and prejudice in the workplace should be combated. Even though this statement is correct, there is a much deeper side to the idea of inclusion and diversity. The amount of actual focus that is given to this matter can be quite low, and the unconscious bias that takes place typically goes unspoken because the majority of workers are included. The articles main purpose is not to tell you why diversity is important, but to share with you the simple mistakes that go unnoticed that can have a devastating impact on the morale and performance of a company.