To celebrate my birthday, I addressed a group of Global Scholars at Chattanooga State Community College on the societal trends in this political environemnt through the lens of cultural anthropology. Chattanooga is experiencing major cultural shifts as globalization transforms the South’s demographics. We are very much in need of a new generation with global leadership skills, multicultural expertise, and political involvement.
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What Should an Aspiring Leader Know? — by Deborah Levine
Here’s what teenage leaders-in-training had to say when asked what a young leader should know. The words of wisdom come from high school and middle school students participating in the American Diversity Report Youth Global Leadership Class. Enjoy their timeless advice and then read what leadership experts said about preparing the upcoming generation of leaders.
Un-Bias Guide for Educators
The Un-Bias Guide for Educators is based on the Matrix Model Management System which embeds the storytelling principles of cultural anthropology in diversity training. The Un-Bias Guide for Educators is a combination text / workbook customized for high school students, teachers, and administrators. The Un-Bias Guide is an innovative tools for maximizing awareness, boosting sensitivity, and developing competence at a time of intensified biases, both conscious and unconscious. The Un-Bias methodology is interactive on both an individual and group level.
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WHAT IS THE UN-BIAS CHALLENGE?
“Today, high school students, more than ever before, seem to have their ‘cyber’ finger on the pulse of society. Unfortunately, the assumed superior foundation uses brick n’ mortar from all resources regardless to it’s accuracy, reliability and accountability. Ultimately, the onslaught will destroy credibility. Who does one trust? How can one vet the truth? Are we desensitized from feeling? How do we act and react when given a true or false? At such a formative and productive age to grow, can you determine and assess? Are you aware? What do you believe? Do you have the ability to communicate and ask what you want to know? Only by having factual knowledge can you process and move forward. The steps taken are a distinction from opinion. An opinion is not a fact. An implication is not an application. What you think at one phase in your life is not what you know in another. Your success depends on your skills.”
~ Honorable Samuel Verniero PhD: Appellate Board Member at Selective Service System
Brainy Biz Waves Podcast: Mary A. Moore host
Hear the business podcast from Asia, Brainy Biz Waves, hosted by Mary Angela D. Moore as she interviews Deborah Levine, award-winning author, cross-cultural coach, and Editor-in-Chief of the American Diversity Report.
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CYBERSPACE and HATE Groups- by Deborah Levine
As a favorite target of online hate groups, I sat spellbound with various movers and shakers of Chattanooga’s Jewish community as we listened to Jonathan Vick, Assistant Director of the Cyber Safety Center of the Anti-Defamation League. Founded in 1913 “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all,” ADL’s tag line is “Imagine a World Without Hate®.” ADL began reporting on digital hate groups in 1985, exposing and monitoring groups such as StormFront created by KKK leader, Don Black. StormFront was popular with white supremacists, neo-Nazis, bigots, and anti-Semites. In recent years, StormFront has moderated its language somewhat to appear more mainstream. It’s membership has grown to almost 300,000 despite reports documenting one hundred homicides committed by StormFront members (Southern Poverty Law Center). Not surprisingly, I see very little difference between hate groups and terrorists.
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Reflections of a Former Big 4 Female Partner – by Jane Malecki
The #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have been inspiring. However, outside of legal confrontations and public humiliations, little is being done to ensure this behavior will stop happening and that the glass ceiling obstacles that have been in place for the last 4 decades, are removed once and for all.
As a woman who struggled up the “ladder” while raising children, I have decided to be a catalyst for real change by serving professional women on a full-time basis as a professional business coach, trainer and speaker. As a result, I have reflected on the role of women in today’s world and have some observations and some “Mother’s Day Resolutions” to share and ask you to share these resolutions with others.
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Rev. Janet Cooper Nelson: Religious Diversity on Campus
The Reverend Janet M. Cooper Nelson is Chaplain, Director of the Office of Chaplains and Religious Life, and faculty member at Brown University where she leads a multi-faith team of 4 Associate Chaplains and 40 Religious Life Affiliates, responsibilities she assumed in 1990 after appointments at Vassar, Mount Holyoke, and The Church of Christ at Dartmouth College.
She is ordained in United Church of Christ and holds degrees from Wellesley College, Tufts University, and Harvard Divinity School where she was awarded the Billings Prize for Preaching, the Rabbi Martin Katzenstein Distinguished Alumni award, and The Peter J. Gomes Memorial Award.
CLICK to hear the podcast: Religious Diversity on Campus
Eric Kruger: Developing Cross-Cultural Intelligence
Eric Kruger is an international, multi-lingual, business and policy economist, professionally trained executive coach and a specialist in customized cross-cultural management training. He has worked on international corporate strategy in German, British and French companies and worked in Latin America and East Asia.
Kruger founded Compass Development Strategies to bring the benefits of coaching and training to employees and professionals at all organizational levels. Since 2009, he’s been the lead international management consultant for Volkswagen Chattanooga.
An economics professor at the U. of Tennessee/ Chattanooga, Kruger holds degrees in international economics from the London School of Economics, University College, London and the Graduate Faculty of the New School U. in New York.
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Letter Home from WW II Soldier – Courtesy of Deborah Levine
On special occasions, Veterans & Memorial Day, I reread this letter from a young soldier, my father, Aaron Levine to his dear wife. On the verge of being deployed to Europe during World War II, he wrote this 1944 note. He writes my pregnant mother who came to NYC to see him off, but missed him. My father didn’t see his son until he was one year old. Aaron Levine passed away at age 84 and worked on community projects even on his death bed. Literary, practical, loving, and compulsively methodical, here is his WW II good-bye letter …
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Volkswagen and Women Who Rock – by Deborah Levine
Over the years, I’ve attended press conferences, graduations, receptions, and concerts at Volkswagen Chattanooga’s conference center, but I’ve never before seen it decorated entirely in pink. The event was the first ever Volkswagen Women Who Rock Awards Brunch. After having my picture taken in the photo booth wearing a pink Volkswagen hard hat, I meandered through the crowd waiting to hear from the keynote speaker, Julie Baumgardner, CEO and Founder of Chattanooga’s family oriented nonprofit, First Things First.
We watched profiles of the award nominees on the overhead screens as we listened to each of their favorite songs. It was a musical lesson in diversity. True to Volkswagen’s techie mindset, the playlist could be downloaded on Spotify. After much munching and brunching, we were brought to attention by Shireena Avery, the Volkswagen Diversity Sponsor to the featured Employee Resource Groups (ERG). The Women Who Rock program got underway with Megan Herndon, President of Volkswagen’s Women in Motion ERG.
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