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.
Category Archives: Levine articles
Editor-in-Chief Deborah 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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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.
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The Politics of Political Correctness – by Deborah Levine
I sat in the audience of a university theater and listened to elected officials and professors ruminate on inclusion in the upcoming political election. It was Chicago in the 1990s and as in-your-face then as it is now. The discussion over race was loud and raucous as the candidates, Caucasian and African American, went toe to toe. As the debate turned to women, the all-male stage veered into the surreal. It turned into a shouting match as to who was more popular with the ladies. They gestured wildly about the numbers of women who called them, trying to prove that who was the more politically correct and more popular among the ladies.
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Managing Religious Differences When Demonizing Drowns Out Listening – by Deborah Levine
Anyone listening can hear the loud, raucous controversies surrounding religion and our religious differences. The conversation is rife with words such as terrorism, hate, threatening, ungodly, illegal, and inhumane. The effect of this volcanic environment is to make our adrenalin run so high and long that we are virtually unable to hear the human beings involved. As hyperbole and exaggeration are added, we are witnessing a vicious cycle of protests and counter-protests, threats and counter-threats. Can this cycle be broken, or at least interrupted long enough for us to stop yelling, listen effectively, and initiate some major problem solving?
The Women March … AGAIN – by Deborah Levine
The 2017 Million Women March on Washington approaches, along with about 30 sister marches around the country, including in New York City. It’s been forty-seven years since I marched down 5th Ave. for the Women’s Movement. Why did I go when my goal for that trip to Manhattan was to find a job? Entering an employment agency, I insisted on sitting at the men’s table rather than with the women who were required to take a typing test. When my persistence was met with a threat to call the police to eject me, I made my way to 5th Ave. and joined the March.
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Cross-Cultural Skills, Leadership, and Marketing in the Future — by Deborah Levine
Cross Cultural Expertise is the marketing leadership tool of a future that’s coming for us like a high speed train. While that train may go through tunnels and across challenging terrain with a new administration, technology is shrinking our world and that train is gathering speed. Our workforce, our suppliers, and, above all, our marketing professionals need the skill set of cross-cultural communication, cultural competence, conflict management, and problem solving. They are the fuel to compete in the future and without them, the train may miss its target destination and risk derailment.
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Legacy of a Chemical Engineering Professor: Dr. Frank Jones – by Deborah Levine
The room was packed at the College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) as faculty, students, and graduates gathered to celebrate the life of one of their own and mourn his passing. Dr. Francis Joseph Jones (1951-2016) was a UC Foundation Professor and the Chemical Program Coordinator at CECS at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The CECS memorial was like an old-fashioned wake with shared stories and heartfelt testimonials for the man that colleagues and family knew as “Frank.”
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Expats and their Families – by Deborah Levine
Expats Chattanooga Style
The attendees at the International Business Council (IBC) of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce were a diverse mix of nationalities, professions, expats, and industries. The annual meeting of the IBC, the Chamber’s newest council, attracted students, family members, colleagues, and executives. The diverse crowd illustrated the broad participation in Chattanooga’s national and international booming growth. (Photo by Suzanne Ocsai)
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Interfaith Response to Violence – by Deborah Levine
A few years ago, Chattanooga was traumatized by Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez. After shooting at a recruiting center, he drove to a U.S. Navy Reserve Center and opened fire again. Before he was killed by police in a gunfight, four marines and a navy sailor were killed. The FBI determined that the shootings were inspired by terrorist propaganda. Chattanooga responded with memorials across the area and an interfaith service that was memorable, inclusive, and high-profile in a city with little interfaith infrastructure.
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