Inclusive Leadership (Engagement Requirement)

Last Tuesday I attended a talk about Inclusive Communication by Barbara Thompson, an assistant director of the Department of Diversity Initiatives on UCF campus. Thompson has been working in education for 20 years and currently teaches many classes at the university. She spoke of how she truly loves people. I loved hearing that.

Thompson handed everyone in attendance a business card when they first entered the room. The back of the card has the information in braille. As the group began to sit down in preparation for her talk, she explained that her business card is valuable as information to more people now. I really liked this notion, for it showed that in at least one discernable way she lives what she preaches.

Thompson started off the session by asking the group “what does it mean to set up an inclusive classroom?” This question led to a discussion which can be accurately summarized as an environment where people can feel comfortable. Thompson notes that when a person talking at the front of the room is acting in a non-inclusive way (I say “acting” to note the mess of verbal and nonverbal cues present) via their word choice, topic, or body language that they can lose an audience. She also mentions that as an educator you should make sure to teach to all learning styles, and warns you to not fall into the trap of teaching solely in the same style as you learn. As an educator it is important to do what you can to make your audience feel respected, valued, and included, as opposed to worthless, meaningless, or dismissed.

An overriding theme of the talk was to have a respect for individual human dignity. To understand that people come from all walks of life, and that using stereotypical phrases (Thompson handed out a whole list of common phrases that had past cultural references, usually all negative, about many groups of people), using defensive body language, and not being culturally competent can hinder the audience’s learning and your own chance to create and teach in an inclusive environment. She stressed the importance of understanding cultural variance in your day-to-day interactions, that something unacceptable in your culture may be respected method of performing an action in another region of the world.

                I really like Barbara Thompson and all of her ideas and handouts about communication-one last thing I want to mention that she said was that teachers were expected to be perfect, infallible, never making mistakes. She began the lecture by talking about how every person she was talking to was an education major, and I held my tongue. It is true, it is easy to point at the person communicating with you and point out mistakes. The truth is that she did a wonderful job with showing the group how many ways you can unknowingly push people you are interacting with away, and I found this talk to be highly applicable and useful in any area of communication.

Weekly Activism Log for Service Learning-Week 3

3.   Activism:

This week provided an opportunity to have an “in hind sight” meeting with my group’s community partner, Professor Meredith Tweed. We were successful in pinpointing ideas to improve any future events. Firstly, spending more time to market the event (tabling, flyerng, etc.),not only would that hopefully garner more support for attendees, therefore spreading the message out to more students, but it would also grant the group more service learning hours. Secondly, having a room more enabled for discussion, being that our room was set up for a lecture, so when the discussion part of the activity came along it was a little awkward to communicate effectively. Now that this project is over, we are looking around for more things to do to help the community. I sent a letter as the representative of my group to the LEAD Scholars who hosted Leadership Week, to thank them and suggest the discussion room idea. I also asked about pictures that we can use to display for our project presentation.

2.   Reflection:

This week taught me a bit more about leadership styles, as we all sat in the room discussing the “Wallet” seminar that occurred I recalled how different women asked and answered discussion questions with a different kind of approach, and how certain women unpacked their backpacks and explained things differently, too. I feel like women seeing other women lead the seminar and discuss these issues further advanced the education of the next generation. As Eagly and Carli note, “women’s increasing education predicts their future workplace advancement,” not only in the classroom but also seeing women outside of the classroom lead (16). Once women leaders become the “norm,” I believe that it will be easier to diversify the workplace to include a fair balance of men and women of all backgrounds.

3.   Reciprocity:

I am treated to the involvement of woman's liberation on campus. Being around so many people motivated to empowering women is a gift of its own. I learn so many things that are occurring in society that can help make the labyrinth more difficult for women to navigate, in this case knowledge is power, and I feel I am more adept at stopping these events from occurring (for things like sexist jokes, answering people’s questions about women advancement who do not know the statistics, or influence on hiring trends in a job where I have a say). In this way I feel I am growing as a cultured individual who can know the sad current truths about woman’s difficulty in advancing, and help to create new truths in any way I can.

Pink Art II (Engagement Requirement)

For my engagement this week I attended the Pink Art II show at the Orlando City Arts Factory. The event was sponsored by the UCF Women Studies department. Dr. Maria Santana of the Women Studies department introduced the event, encouraging participants to purchase the donated pieces of art on the walls. Proceeds go to a UCF Women Studies scholarship program and the YSC (Young Survival Coalition) organization. Guests were gifted with specialty reusable bags with information about self-breast exams. The speaker of the evening was Linda Schoulte, a breast cancer survivor. Linda began by speaking about how she felt so young and healthy at 37, and did not think much when she noticed an odd shape to one of her breasts. She waited for her appointment to get a mammogram, and then almost allowed herself to wait another two months due to work having to be rescheduled. She notes that the day she discovered she had breast cancer (January 27^th) marked the beginning of a different phase in her life. If she were to draw a line in the sand marking one of the pivotal moments in her life, it would separate life before breast cancer and life after.

                She spoke about how important having a support group is, and how a lot of times young women who are diagnosed with breast cancer get treated and then move on with their lives, not staying around to support the next generation of diagnosed. Thankfully she was able to find a supportive friend, and together they overcame the cancer. Linda mentioned a few startling statistics: that 1 in 8 women are diagnosed with cancer, and how 1 in 35 die from the disease. She shared how much she hoped she reached everyone, scared them, or at least let them know a little of how life changing it is to be diagnosed. Overall Linda promoted being aware of your health and any changes to your breasts, to not feel completely invincible like she did just because you are young. She wrapped up her discussion by telling everyone in the crowd to “check your boobies once a month!”

                I liked how Linda shared her story with such detail (mentioning exact dates, her supportive friend’s names, and statistics) because I feel like that raises the chance of embedding the chance of contracting breast cancer in people’s minds. However, as I thanked her for her participation and complimented the art after her talk, she mentioned how one of the art pieces on the wall looked “freaky.” I was disheartened by the fact that she would criticize a piece of art that was donated to help the cause. The piece was one of the highest priced pieces of art on the wall, a framed photo of a woman, partially abstract, with her lungs showing. If that portrait was to bring in a substantial donation to the cause, I would hope the woman encouraging the event (with a vested interest) would not discriminate.

"After years of analysing what makes leaders effective, management gurus have figured out how to boost the odds of hiring a great executive: Hire a female"

-Sharpe, 2002, in BusinessWeek

Weekly Activism Log for Service Learning- Week 2

1. Activism

This week consisted of three different service learning events.
Saturday I attended part of a Young Women Leaders Program research day-incorporating both time for the younger girls to interact one-on-one with their respective older mentors, and many group activities. 

On Wednesday I helped to orchestrate and carry out the planned "What's In Your Wallet" UCF Leadership week seminar. This event was held by our community partner and professor Meredith Tweed. Not only did each involved member get to actively lead a certain part of the seminar, but there was a great group of interested students who attended and deeply discussed the topic of privilege and how it interacts with leading.

Later in the day I volunteered with the LEAD Scholars department at UCF to help facilitate a seminar called "Become a super hero through research." The seminar brought forth a handful of undergraduate freshmen and sophomore students who were interested in finding a mentor and leading through researching topics in their major. The instructor (Doctor Schneider of the Undergraduate Research Office at UCF) was helpful in sharing information with students about how to begin their research, and what events happened to encourage their garnering of support, and how to plan ahead for grants and timing.

 2. Reflection

While attending the Young Women Leaders Program event and observing the women in attendance I realized that each big was respectful and assumed mature attitudes from their littles- therefore enabling the younger women to act as they see fit-encouraging their growth and learning process throughout the day's activities. When a research student would lead the entire group they would in different styles-some slightly more agentic, some communal. I got to see how having strong women mentors can be very important for women of the next generation to see and grow accustomed to-blazing a trail to make the labyrinth a little bit easier to navigate.
With the “What’s In Your Wallet” seminar, I was not only able to analyze more of my own leading style (I tended to want to be kinder, more stereotypically “feminine” with the group of attendees)—I also was able to analyze all types of students who chose to attend this seminar and discuss issues involving race, sex, and gender-and ingrained and given privileges- and then linking those topics to leadership.

3. Reciprocity

Of the events I participated in this week, I either observed women leaders or was a woman leader. Both gave me some unique insight-I was inspired by women who were speaking out in the discussion about people with privileges and how that can hinder the vision of the leader-simply the ignorance of not knowing how different people’s level of privilege can be. I felt supported in the group to lead, and felt privileged with the encouragement I received. It opened my eyes to how difficult it must be to lead when there is not support-or especially outright disapproval of a woman leading.