All posts by Editor-in-Chief

Deborah Levine founded the American Diversity Report in 2006. She is a Forbes Magazine top "Trailblazer" and award-winning author of 20 books. Her published articles span decades including: American Journal of Community Psychology, Journal of Public Management & Social Policy, The Bermuda Magazine, The Harvard Divinity School Bulletin.
Podcasts, Women in STEM, Workplace Strategies Podcasts

Sheila & Priya Boyington: Women in STEM

Sheila C. Boyington
President, Thinking Media-Learning Blade; National States Chair, Million Women Mentors

Sheila is a successful serial entrepreneur leading the creation of several products. Her company, Thinking Media is the creator of ACT’s KeyTrain® system for WorkKeys® and career readiness (acquired by ACT in 2011), PictureRx® for health literacy, and CharacterEd.Net® for K-12 character education. She is well-known for her passion, strong management, and leadership skills and has been credited for gaining high adoption of the Thinking Media tools including over 30 statewide contracts. Sheila has won numerous awards for her Entrepreneurship and Leadership and as a Professional Engineer.

Priya C. Boyington
Marketing Manager, Stitch Fix

Priya is an e-commerce marketer, passionate about the intersection of retail and technology. She currently resides in San Francisco and is a marketing manager for Stitch Fix’s newly launched men’s business and has previous experience at GoldieBlox, Bain & Company, and Fortune 500 companies. A graduate of Girls Preparatory School (GPS) in Chattanooga, she holds a BS in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Georgia Tech and an MBA from The Wharton School.

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Being Diverse, Podcasts, Race & Ethnicity, Teams & Leaders

Dr. Nika White Podcast: The Intentional Inclusionist™

Dr. Nika White is President of Nika White Consulting and the author of The Intentional Inclusionist ™ in  which she shares her strategies for becoming an inclusion-minded leader. The book features principles and philosophies that help individuals better understand diversity and inclusion and be more intentional in their practice at the individual level. Dr. White has a Ph. D. in Management in Organizational Leadership and is headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina.

CLICK for The Intentional Inclusionist podcast

Articles about Writing, Levine articles

How & Why I Became a Writer: PART 2 – by Deborah Levine

My pride, and a touch of arrogance, in having aced Advanced Placement AP English lasted about five minutes on campus. Harvard frowned on freshmen who hadn’t achieved at least 4 out 5 on the AP English exam, and I’d received only 3. Humility sank in as I sat in an ancient lecture hall with hundreds of freshman and took a required writing exam. I flunked.

Continue reading How & Why I Became a Writer: PART 2 – by Deborah Levine →

Articles about Writing, Levine articles

How & Why I Became a Writer: Part 1 – by Deborah Levine

I’m often asked how I became an award-winning writer and I finally decided to share that story. My passion for writing began as a passion for reading. Growing up in Bermuda in the 1950s there was no television and little radio. My ivy-league educated parents read to me and my brother every night. Journeys through Bookland was my favorite collection of folk tales from around the world and mythology from Thor to Zeus. I imagined mermaids in the ocean that surrounded us, goblins underneath the mini-drawbridge, faeries in the lightning-bug swarms, and trolls under my bed. We learned the alphabet early in colonial British schools, and I learned my letters faster than most. (Please forgive me Jeffrey for drawing letters in charcoal all over your parents’ house and thanks for not telling the police I was hiding under the bed with the trolls.)

Continue reading How & Why I Became a Writer: Part 1 – by Deborah Levine →

Artists, Levine articles, Of Women, Social Issues, Southern Culture, USA Culture

The Art and Civics of Publisher Ruth Holmberg: Making History — by Deborah Levine

Publisher Ruth HolmbergLong before The New York Times had its first woman Executive Editor, Ruth Holmberg was the Editor of The Chattanooga Times. Holmberg is a member of the family that founded both newspapers and she has shared her compelling life story as friends and admirers gathered to hear her speak. Holmberg is a former director of The Associated Press and of The New York Times Company, a former president of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce and of the Southern Newspaper Publisher Association and a member of the Board of Directors of the Public Education Network (PEN). 

The petite, soft-voiced woman is also a member of one of the nation’s most prominent publishing families.

Editor’s note: Publishing icon and Chattanooga civic leader Ruth Holmberg passed away at age 96. In her honor, here is the ADR interview with Ms. Holmberg several years ago.

Continue reading The Art and Civics of Publisher Ruth Holmberg: Making History — by Deborah Levine →

Interfaith Podcasts, Podcasts, Religious Diversity Kit

Rev. Dr. John Pawlikowski: Interfaith Pioneer

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The Rev. Dr. John T. PawlikowskiThe Rev. Dr. John T. Pawlikowski is a Servite Friar priest, Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics, and Former Director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies Program, part of The Bernardin Center for Theology and Ministry, at Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union (CTU). Pawlikowski was appointed to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council by several presidents, chaired the council’s Subcommittee on Church Relations, served on its executive committee, the Committee on Conscience, and academic committee. He also served as president of the International Council of Christians and Jews (ICCJ) and its Abrahamic Forum and currently holds the title of Honorary Life President. Pawlikowski is a member 3 key committees of the Parliament of the World’s Religions (Global Ethic, Peace and Justice, and Climate Action Task Force).  He has authored/edited 15 books on Christian-Jewish Relations as well as on social issues such as economic justice, war and peace, and ecological sustainability. He is the former editor of New Theology Review and a member of the editorial board of the Journal for Ecumenical Studies.

CLICK for Pawlikowski’s PODCAST

Authors A-H, Levine articles, Race & Ethnicity, Religious Diversity Kit

Counteracting Hate with Positive Diversity Stories – by Deborah Levine & Terry Howard

Deborah: ​​Sadly, I’m watching yet another evacuation of a Jewish center on TV. I know what it’s like to oversee an evacuation during a bomb threat. I was in charge of security at a Jewish agency in Chicago, was trained by the FBI in security after the Oklahoma City bombing, and oversaw the design for a secure Jewish Community Center in Chattanooga.

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Levine articles

Is Women’s History Still Relevant? – by Deborah Levine

Is women’s history and Women’s History Month still relevant today? Is the need for sisterhood activism over as some say? We look back at the first group to advocate for women’s right to vote nationally and see that it was ultimately successful. The Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights Convention was held long ago in1848. But the words of its organizer Elizabeth Cady Stanton still hold true and yet are still controversial, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.”

That right was opposed for decades by a well-funded anti-suffrage movement that argued most women really didn’t want the vote, and most were unqualified to exercise it. It took 70 years of women activists to convince the country on women’s right to vote.

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Podcasts, Teams & Leaders, Workplace Strategies Podcasts

Mauricio Velasquez- Diversity Training Group

Mauricio Velasquez is the President & Founder of Diversity Training Group (DTG). In this interview he shares his observations of current trends in Diversity & Inclusion. With more than 25 years experience in diversity field, Mauricio is a mover & shaker in the business, government, and education sectors. Check out his analysis of the diversity issues in the workplace and hear his strategies for dealing with their increasing intensity.

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Commerce, Education, Levine articles

Volkswagen, E week, and Engineering the Future – by Deborah Levine

The Future of Electric Mobility:
Volkswagen’s North American Market

Engineers from regional corporations, agencies, universities, schools, and professional associations, came together to kick off Engineers Week 2017 at The Chattanoogan conference center.  Planning for the future was the theme of the Kick-Off Lunch featuring Dr. Burkhard Huhnke, Senior Vice President of e-mobility at Volkswagen America, Inc. Chattanooga is home to Volkswagen’s USA manufacturing plant and it was fitting that Dr. Huhnke shared Volkswagen’s transformation into the era of digitalization. Dr. Huhnke initiated and implemented Europe’s largest test laboratory for automative battery packages and components, worked on Volkswagen’s e-traction projects, e-Golf and e-Up, and currently oversees the product line of Volkswagen’s electrical cars in North American.

Continue reading Volkswagen, E week, and Engineering the Future – by Deborah Levine →