Category Archives: Advisors

Advisory Council

Advisors, Trends 2024: Divisive World

2024 Trends, Predictions, Actions We Must Take – by Mauricio Velásquez.

2024 is going to be a very tumultuous year.  It is an election year, divisiveness, hate, polarized manipulation will be the name of the game.  Pitting people, groups against each other will be attempted, fight these forces.  Take the high road – call for calm, unity, understanding, and Peace.

As a global backdrop, a constant reminder of division and hate – Ukraine-Russia, and the Israel-Hamas wars will be a contributing factor in the churning of hate.  Hate opportunists will take advantage of these wars as a backdrop to foment division, suspicion, and outright hate and violence.  Watch the hate on social media and call it out.  I am constantly “Calling for Respect, Dignity, Understanding for All.”

Continue reading 2024 Trends, Predictions, Actions We Must Take – by Mauricio Velásquez. →

Advisors

Diversity & Speech Part 43: How 3 College Presidents Flunked Their Speech Midterm Exam – by Carlos Cortés

Since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, the world has been convulsed by the carnage emanating from the Middle East.  That convulsion has migrated to the United States, where it is expressed daily in protests, demands, threats, and moral-grandstanding often reeking of dehumanizing language. 

The carnage has claimed the lives of thousands in Gaza and Israel.  It has also claimed other kinds of victims in the United States.   This includes three college presidents, whose December 5, 2023, testimony before the Education and Workforce Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives brought them instant public infamy because of the way that they positioned themselves in regard to speech. 

Continue reading Diversity & Speech Part 43: How 3 College Presidents Flunked Their Speech Midterm Exam – by Carlos Cortés →

Advisors, Authors A-H, Authors I-Q, Race & Ethnicity

Jewish Allies in African-American History – by Terry Howard

2 Comments

Dr. Martin L. King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers and Fannie Lou Hamer are some of the many leaders who paved the way through the rocky history of the Civil Rights movement in the United States. But the movement would not have succeeded without the contributions of people from all races, among them philanthropist Julius P. Rosenwald, whose name is associated with hundreds of schools for Black students throughout the south.

But first, we should remember the many largely unreported Black/Jewish American partnerships in that history. Case in point is the relationship between Dr. King and close friend and advisor Stanley Levinson, a Jewish American.

Continue reading Jewish Allies in African-American History – by Terry Howard →

Academic Articles, Advisors, Authors A-H, Religious Diversity

DEI, Religion, and Hate Crimes – by Deborah Ashton, Ph.D.

Introduction

Deborah Levine requested that I join her group on Black and Jewish Dialogue in 2021. Given today’s atmosphere, dialogue is crucial. Levine is the editor-in-chief of the American Diversity Report (ADR). She is a Holocaust documentarian (Courter, 2023; Levine, Untold Stories of a World War II Liberator, 2023), whom I am sure when she launched ADR never anticipated that diversity and DEI would be equated with anti-Semitism. Yet the cry has been aimed at academia and business (Cohen, 2023; Notheis, 2024) I am baffled by the cry to silence and dismantle DEI. 

Through my DEI journey and practice since 1991 in corporate America, DEI has been inclusive and provides respect and dignity to all across religion, race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, physical and mental ability, and other demographics. I will provide some examples later in the article.

Continue reading DEI, Religion, and Hate Crimes – by Deborah Ashton, Ph.D. →

Advisors, Authors A-H

The Power of Words: the “said” and the “unsaid” – by Terry Howard

I came across the following quote in the Writers & Poets magazine recently:
                               “Where words prevail not, violence prevails.”

Please pause and sit on that one momentarily. In case you’re wondering, it’s a phrase from Thomas Kyd, a playwright and contemporary of William Shakespeare.

I then squared that quote against another familiar one, “words have power,” meaning that words have energy and power with the ability to help, motivate, demotivate, heal, harm, humiliate and devastate.

With all that said, I also thought about the title of this narrative and its message about the undeniable power of words within the context of the dangers of silence and how silence is sometimes complicit in the spread of hate and violence.

Continue reading The Power of Words: the “said” and the “unsaid” – by Terry Howard →

Advisors, Authors A-H, Healthcare, Politics, Trends 2024: Divisive World

2024 Trends: Healthcare at Risk – by David Grinberg

Despite its overwhelming success, Obamacare remains the target of relentless partisan attacks. Donald Trump is again vowing to end the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, during a potential second term as president.

“Obamacare is a catastrophe,” Trump recently said at a campaign event in Iowa. The twice impeached former president also wrote on his social media platform: “The cost of Obamacare is out of control, plus, it’s not good Healthcare.”

But terminating Obamacare, assuming Trump wins the presidency again, would decimate healthcare for about 40 million Americans for no good reason. These citizens in need of affordable healthcare had been locked out of the private insurance system for decades based on discriminatory reasons — including socioeconomic status and preexisting conditions, which disproportionately hurt minority groups the most.

Continue reading 2024 Trends: Healthcare at Risk – by David Grinberg →

DL Opinion columns, Religious Diversity

Finally, diversity programming is beginning to include faith – by Deborah Levine

Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

I could barely contain my excitement a few days ago when the Chattanooga Times Free Press published this article, “Businesses face calls to include faith in diversity program”. Do you know how many years I’ve been promoting the idea of competence in religious diversity? It began over 30 years ago when I created the DuPage/Chicago Interfaith Resource Network and got a call from the county’s police chief. DuPage County had acquired an amazingly diverse population as it developed into Chicago’s technology corridor. And law enforcement officers were struggling, especially when there was a death, like someone run over on the highway. Apparently they were asking all the loved ones if they should call a priest and were offending everyone who was not Catholic. Would I please wear a pager 24/7 so that they could call on me to help them with the correct language?   

Continue reading Finally, diversity programming is beginning to include faith – by Deborah Levine →

Advisors, Authors I-Q, Go Green, Trends 2024: Divisive World

New Climate Inflection Point in our Axial Age – by The Rev. Dr. John Pawlikowski

In my contribution to American Diversity Report at the beginning of 2023, I argued that we are living in an axial era where fundamental structures of human society are undergoing profound change. As we enter 2024, I would maintain with others such as former Senator John Kerry, now the U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Issues, that the final communique from the recent COP 28 conference in Dubai may represent an axial moment.

Special Envoy Kerry believes the Dubai decision to commit to a movement to eliminate the reliance on fossil fuels by the global community (as well as methane gas) signals a  fundamental shift in the way we provide power for the human community. Such a wholesale shift in the generation of necessary power throughout the world, if successful, would represent a fundamental reordering of our life together as a global community. It would insure the sustainability of our planet and firmly implant the right to a the right to a healthy environment for all living creatures proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2023.    

Continue reading New Climate Inflection Point in our Axial Age – by The Rev. Dr. John Pawlikowski →

Levine articles, Race & Ethnicity, Religious Diversity

A Jewish Perspective on MLK – by Deborah Levine

2 Comments

raceIt was an honor to share my perspective as a Jew and diversity professional at Chattanooga’s MLK interfaith service commemorating The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  That event was years ago but my passion for diversity is a lifelong  legacy from my father, a US World War II military intelligence officer whose letters describing Naziism reside in Cincinnati’s American Jewish Archives. Having dedicated decades to tikkun olam, Hebrew for ‘repair of the world,’ I resonate to this day to Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s words, “Racism is man’s gravest threat to man – the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.”

Continue reading A Jewish Perspective on MLK – by Deborah Levine →

Advisors, Authors A-H

Diversity and Speech No. 42: Neuroscience of Team-Building – by Carlos Cortés, Angela Antenore

A Co-Authored Interview

Carlos:  Angela, what drives you as a national and international organizational development specialist, particularly where it comes to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging?

Angela: I’m excited about helping people lead, build effective teams, and create a sense of community.  One of my roles is to support the mission of organizations.  What drives me is to help people feel valued and recognized for their accomplishments.

Carlos: You’ve talked to me about how an understanding of neuroscience can help in reaching these goals.  Could you elaborate? 

Continue reading Diversity and Speech No. 42: Neuroscience of Team-Building – by Carlos Cortés, Angela Antenore →