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Presenters

Scene One: Patricia Digh and David Robinson, The Circle Project

Leaning Into Our Discomfort Around Inclusion
Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Patricia Digh has designed diversity initiatives and training for clients around the world for the past 20 years. She was formerly the Vice President of International and Diversity Programs for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). While there, she created the Institute for International HR, the award-winning SHRM Diversity Initiative, Diversity Train the Trainer Certificate Program, National Diversity Conference, and diversity newsletter, MOSAICS.

Her first book, Global Literacies: Lessons on Business Leadership and National Cultures (Simon & Schuster, 2000) was named a "Best Business Book for 2000" by Fortune Magazine. Her most recent book is The Global Diversity Desk Reference (Wiley, 2003)

Clients have included Achva College Israel, Amdocs Israel, the Australian Human Resources Institute, the New Zealand Institute of Personnel Management, the Government of Guyana, the U.S. Postal Service, PBS, Shell Oil, The Center for Association Leadership, The American Society for Quality, The American Psychological Association, The American Cancer Society, Equity Residential, and DaimlerChrysler, among many others.

David Robinson is a strong artistic leader with extensive experience in theatre, visual art, creativity, and education innovation. His 20 years of professional directing experience help him design programs for academic and corporate environments utilizing theatre techniques to discover the creative impulse. As a life long visual and theatre artist, he has mastered the competencies that are now being recognized by contemporary organizations as invaluable to their health and sustainability: creative, artistic, imaginative, symphonic, and mythic.

Recent clients include The Society for Humanism in Medicine, the Hudson Institute, The Fetzer Institute, Prudential Financial, and the San Lorenzo School District, in association with Dell and Microsoft.

Website: www.thecircleproject.com

Scene Two: Barbara Ceconi and Kurt Kuss, Access Umbrella, Inc.

Including and Engaging People with Disabilities: Don't "Dis" abilities, Engage Employees and Their Expertise
Thursday, March 22, 2007

Barbara Ceconi is a founding partner of Access Umbrella, Inc., Brookline, Massachusetts, an accessibility and universal design-consulting firm. She has worked extensively with corporations, museums, cultural institutions, theaters, schools, exhibit and space planners, as well as the medical and counseling professions.

Ms. Ceconi provides disability and diversity training, and she is a certified corporate trainer of the 4MAT System. Her sessions include education and skill development for working effectively with customers and co-workers who have disabilities. She provides organizational assessment of policies and group dynamics with an emphasis on how various learning styles affect leadership and departmental teams.

Ms. Ceconi has published several articles, including "Sight or Insight? Child Therapy With a Blind Clinician," in The Clinical Social Work Journal published by Human Sciences Press, Inc. (1994). Two other articles, "Connecting With Communities: Urban Teens and Museums, and Teaching Science Teachers Science," have been published online through the website of The Museum of Science, Boston (1995). Most recently she has co-authored several articles which include: "Compliance to Customer Satisfaction," and "Interact Positively With Co-workers Who Have Disabilities," in Cultural Diversity at Work Archive (1999), and "Breaking Down Barriers: Inclusion of People With Disabilities Through Creative Strategies of Universal Design," Diversity and the Recreation Profession, Venture Publishing, (2007).

She has advised many organizations and lectured at Harvard University Medical School, Boston University Medical School, Northeastern University, Boston College, and Emerson College.

Website: www.accessumbrella.com

Kurt F. Kuss is an Associate Partner of Access Umbrella, Inc., a Boston-based accessibility and diversity-consulting firm. He dedicates his professional expertise and personal experiences to advance and strengthen services to all consumers - particularly those who have disabilities. He has provided service to academic and cultural institutions, retail establishments, professional training organizations, and corporations.

His demeanor and knowledge create a comfortable environment where people are invited to ask questions, and consider their own experiences during interactions with people who are disabled. He uses a synergistic training approach designed to communicate factual information while facilitating the development of an emotional investment in disability issues. Participants are encouraged to take ownership of presented information and incorporate it into a new way of behaving.

Mr. Kuss has provided customer service training to the Chicago Mayor's Office On People With Disabilities. He is a co-author of several articles including; "Breaking Down Barriers: Inclusion of People With Disabilities Through Creative Strategies of Universal Design" in Diversity and the Recreation Profession, Venture Publishing, 2007, and "Interact Positively With Co-workers Who Have Disabilities," in Cultural Diversity at Work, 1999. He has appeared as a Subject Matter Expert on the diversity training video entitled "Service Savvy: Providing Outstanding Service in a Diverse World," Learning Journey, Inc., 2004.

Mr. Kuss has conducted training on issues of access and universal design for the FleetCenter, Boston; the U.S. Mint, Philadelphia; the Smithsonian Institution; the American Museum of Natural History; and the Greater Boston Convention and Visitor's Bureau. He has developed a program for describing live performances of opera for patrons of the Opera Company of Philadelphia.

Website: www.accessumbrella.com

Scene Three: Evangelina Holvino, Chaos Management, Ltd.

Including and Engaging people of all socio-economic levels:
Working with the Unmentionable Difference - Class
Thursday, May 10, 2006

Evangelina Holvino is President of Chaos Management, Ltd. and Senior Research Faculty at the Center for Gender in Organizations at the Simmons College School of Management.

Evangelina has over twenty-five years of experience as an organizational consultant and educator both in the United States and internationally. Her expertise lies in the areas of diversity and leadership development with a focus on Latinos and organizational change.

She has a doctorate in organizational development from the University of Massachusetts and is a 2005 recipient of the Anna Maria Arias award for Latina entrepreneurship.

Some of her current and past clients are Verizon, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, TJX Companies, Kraft Foods, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lucent Technologies, the Carnegie Corporation, and the World Bank.

Maureen Scully studies change programs in the workplace. She is on the faculty at the University of Massachusetts in Boston and is an affiliated faculty member with the Center for Gender in Organizations at the Simmons School of Management in Boston. She is a research consultant for the Aspen Institute's Business and Society Program. She received her PhD in organizational behavior from Stanford.

Prof. Scully has been studying employee affinity groups since 1993, looking both at the range of employee groups within a particular company and the networks of employee groups across companies. Most recently, she has examined alliances among employees with different social identities - and the challenges to building those alliances even among seemingly natural allies. She has conducted research and done consultations on labor / management relations, particular in the context of self-managing teams.

Prof. Scully is the co-author of two texts used in MBA programs: Managing for the Future: Organizational Behavior and Processes (Southwestern) and The Reader in Gender, Work, and Organization (Blackwell). She is at work on a book about how the promises of a meritocracy have not opened up the opportunity structure, but have given growing inequality a false sheen of legitimacy. She encourages you to contact her if you would like to see any of her research papers.

maureen.scully@umb.edu

Scene Four: Jillian Weiss, Ph.D., J.D., Professor of Law and Society, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Mahwah, NJ

Including and Engaging people who are transgender and bisexual
Thursday, July 12 2007

Dr. Jillian T. Weiss is the principal consultant for Jillian T. Weiss & Associates, a consulting firm that works with organizations on transgender workplace diversity issues. She consults with private companies and governmental organizations regarding training, policy development and communications strategies in the area of gender transition. Dr. Weiss has worked successfully with Fortune 500 companies and large public agencies during the past few years. Her work has been featured in news stories by the Knight-Ridder News Service, the Society for Human Resource Management and Workforce Management Magazine.

Dr. Weiss has a J.D., and a Ph.D. in Law. Currently assistant professor of Law Society at Ramapo College of New Jersey, she has conducted research involving hundreds of companies and public agencies that have adopted "gender identity" policies. She publishes a blog on the subject of Transgender Workplace Diversity, and has published several articles on the subject of gender identity, which may be found at her website, http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~jweiss.

Robyn Ochs, Ed.M., (http://www.robynochs.com/) is a professional speaker and workshop leader. She is the editor of The Bisexual Resource Guide, and Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, an international anthology with authors from 32 countries.

She speaks primarily to university and community groups, has keynoted several international conferences on bisexuality, and has spoken recently at IBM and the Corning Corporation. She has taught at MIT, Tufts University and at Johnson State College in Vermont. Her fields of interest include bisexual identity; identity and labels; GLBT history and politics in the United States and Canada; same-sex marriage; and the experiences of those who transgress the binary categories of gay/straight, masculine/feminine, black/white and/or male/female.

She co-founded and serves currently on the steering committees of the LGBT Faculty and Staff Group and the Trans Task Force at her place of employment, Harvard University, and she has served as a director of the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus.

Scene Five: Donna Stringer, President, Executive Diversity Services, Seattle, WA, and Jamie Barber, corporate employee, Seattle, WA

Including and Engaging People with Body Modifications
Thursday, September 27, 2007

Donna M. Stringer, Ph.D., is co-founder and President of Executive Diversity Services, an organizational development firm in Seattle, Washington. Following many years as an executive in public organizations, Donna now applies her experience to developing and implementing solutions that help organizations fully value and benefit from the diversity of both their employees and clients.

Donna combines her education and experience to design practical, innovative solutions to organizational challenges that increase the cultural competency of the organization and its executives, managers and employees. She developed the Inclusive Circles Process™ that has benefited her diverse clients including United Airlines and Alaska Airlines, the University of California and Evergreen School District, United States Gypsum, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, American Red Cross, Exelon, Mobil Oil, PepsiCo and the Catherine T. and John D. MacArthur Foundation.

Donna has published professional articles and books in the areas of diversity training, cross cultural communication, gender differences, values, cultural competency and organizational development. She is a faculty member at the Intercultural Institute and an adjunct faculty member at three universities. Her most recent book is 52 Activities for Exploring Value Differences published by Intercultural Press.

Donna is a social psychologist with specialized training in administration from Harvard University and cross-cultural communication from leading interculturalists at several universities in Europe and the United States. Her favorite activities include traveling, reading, needle/fabric art, and spending time with friends and family.

I was born and raised in Seattle, the middle child of three. I was always taught to speak my truth. I never realized how much I would take those lessons to heart in my life. My public speaking experience started with the American Friends Service Committee at 15. AFSC would organize speaking engagements with schools, public service agencies, and corporations. They would present panels of young people sharing their stories about growing up gay. I found that I enjoyed the dialog that happens between individuals regarding topics that challenge political, spiritual, and personal views and ideology.

My mentors quickly realized that I had the desire to take it to the next level. I was recruited at 17 to work for the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force as their first executive youth intern for six months in Washington DC. During my tenure I organized with other national queer youth activities for the first all day youth intensive at NGLTF national lobbying conference, Creating Change.

For the past seven years I have worked for a Seattle-based company at the corporate office. I have personal experience with balancing my personal choice to wear body piercings and tattoos with my company's cultural norms.

Scene Six: Deepali Bagati, Ph.D. and Anika K. Warren, Ph.D., both Directors of Research, Catalyst, New York, NY

Including and Engaging Women of Color
Friday, November 9, 2007

Deepali Bagati is a Director in Catalyst's Research department and a member of the Women of Color Issue Specialty Team. She leads research on women of color, designing and implementing studies on the specific challenges women of color face in the workplace and developing solutions that build more inclusive environments.

Previously, Dr. Bagati served as the Program Director at South Asian Youth Action (SAYA!), a community-based organization in New York City and as Associate Professor at Yeshiva University, teaching data analysis, program evaluation, and social policy.

Dr. Bagati also has several years of experience in the nonprofit sector, where she worked on program development and policy advocacy for women's empowerment and advancement in New Delhi, India. She received her Ph.D. in Social Work and Social Research from Bryn Mawr College in 2002, with a doctoral dissertation focusing on the impact of microcredit loans on gender relations at the household level for low-income women in New Delhi. Dr. Bagati earned a M.S. in Social Work and a B.A. in Economics, with honors, from Delhi University.

As a Director in Research at Catalyst and a member of the Women of Color Issue Specialty Team, Anika Warren leads and supports research projects focused on organizational change and effectiveness, women of color, and women in leadership. Dr. Warren has expertise in the areas of diversity consulting, multicultural training, people of color, work-life effectiveness, career coaching, and performance management.

Prior to joining Catalyst, Dr. Warren was an Assistant Professor at Teachers College of Columbia University. She also consulted to telecommunication and financial service companies, provided career coaching, and published research articles and book chapters on issues related to diversity and inclusion. She has served as an educator, consultant, and counselor to several Fortune 500 companies, universities, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and community health organizations.

Dr. Warren also developed training videos catering to the unique needs of multicultural clients and their organizational challenges. Before graduate school, Dr. Warren worked in finance at the Gap and Charles Schwab and was involved in recruitment and career development efforts at both corporations. She received her B.B.A. in Finance from Howard University, and earned her M.A. and M.Ed. in Psychological Counseling at Columbia University, focusing on organizational and cultural psychology. She completed her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology at Boston College.