Category Archives: Make a Difference

Projects that are making a difference, improving lives, and building communities.

Authors A-H, Inclusion, Trends 2022

Diversity and Speech No. 26: Trends in Student Speech – by Carlos E. Cortés, Steven Petkas

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A Co-Authored Interview

Carlos: Steve, now that you’ve retired as Associate Director of Residence Life at the University of Maryland, College Park, I would love to get your thoughts about the changing nature of student speech.  In the twenty-five years that I worked with your department, I saw many changes.

Steve: You’re right.  The two of us certainly had fun designing our Common Ground program back in the 1990s.  That program would bring together diverse groups of students – sometimes more than a dozen – to discuss current equity dilemmas.  A series of four, 90-minute dialogue sessions, all framed around a single provocative question.  Should laws governing abortion be changed?  Should universities use intentional methods to diversify their student populations?  Rousing and illuminating conversations.

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Trends 2022

Business Speech in 2022- by Katie Schwartz

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It’s very expensive to recruit, hire and train a new employee. The exact  Return on Investment (ROI) depends on the industry, the position, and your location. This year, as so many people have quit their jobs, employers are very concerned about employee engagement and employee retention.

One action some employers are taking is asking employees about how they are doing in their work, and what they need to be more effective. For example, they may be giving employees the heavily researched Gallup Q12 Survey. They are acting on the results to help employees be more involved and happier.

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Black-Jewish Dialogue

Black-Jewish Dialogue – January 2022

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Media and Community

Hear the online dialogue between two television / media experts discuss their ties to their respective communities, how they’re shaped by them, and how they report stories about them.
                               * Scroll down for the link. *

LaTriceLaTrice Currie  is a native Tennessean who  graduated from Hampton U. LaTrice joined Chattanooga’s Channel 3 Eyewitness News in 1995. She now co-anchors news at noon and 5:30 and also serves as Eye On Health Reporter and host of Trends on 3.

LaTrice’s awards include Chattanooga Woman of Distinction, Hamilton County Outstanding Citizen, Black Excellence Chattanooga “Best Media Personality,” Times Free Press “Best Chattanoogan, and NAACP Image Awards. She serves as ambassador for Go Red For Women and  on various boards:  Moccasin Bend Girl Scout Council, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Chattanooga, advisory board for Volunteers in Medicine, and Partnership for Families, Children, and Adults. 

Ilene Gould Ilene Gould is a photographer, writer, illustrator and full time news producer for NewsChannel9 in Chattanooga where she has produced every show from mornings, to dayside evening shows, to nightside. She also co-produced an hour long Town Hall called “Changing Chattanooga”. Ilene is a Michigan State Graduate with a degree in Media and Information, a concentration in Film and Video Production, and minors in Fiction Filmmaking and Music.

Ilene also works part-time as Community Manager at Better Sax, where saxophonist Jay Metcalf teaches and creates online lessons to learn to play the saxophone by ear.

CLICK TO HEAR DIALOGUE

Dialogue Partners:
American Diversity Report,  Chattanooga News Chronicle, Mizpah Congregation, Jewish Federation of Greater Chattanooga, C.U.R.B. – Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda

 

Black-Jewish Dialogue

Black-Jewish Dialogue December 2021

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Let there be music!

Be inspired! Hear these two creative souls who share a love of music from their respective religions.
Scroll down for the link to the recording.

music

 

Melvin Kindall Myles is a Mississippi native, born and raised in the Delta area of Clarksdale, MS; known as the birthplace of the blues. He is a Soulful Christian and Jazz Vocalist now based in Atlanta, GA where you will find him regularly serving in the Worship and Arts Ministry of the Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, the former pulpit of MLK Jr.

Rabbii

 

Rabbi Micah Lapidu works at The Alfred & Adele Davis Academy, a Reform Jewish Day School. He’s also a songwriter and composer of Jewish and spiritual music including four albums: Be a Blessing (2013), A Palace in Time (2015), Eit HaZamir (2016), and Menschology (2017). His music has been sung & performed at Jewish organizations around North America and Israel and in several churches including  Atlanta’s Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church.

CLICK to hear December Black-Jewish Dialogue

Dialogue Partners:
American Diversity Report,  Chattanooga News Chronicle, Mizpah Congregation, Jewish Federation of Greater Chattanooga, C.U.R.B. – Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda.

Religious Diversity, UTC Interns

Religious Diversity In Corporate America – by Meg Eslinger, Vivian Schlabritz

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Editor’s Note: Article from DEI in Communications class at the University of TN / Chattanooga where I spoke on religious diversity.

Corporate America makes up nearly 45 percent of American employees. Each of those employees represent diversity in some form or fashion, representing an array of languages, cultures, classes, and religions. With these diverse aspects comes considering dealing with differences between employers, co-workers, CEO’s, etc. Religious Diversity seems to have the most significance when it comes to conflict or dealing with strategic communication. Religious Diversity plays an essential role in Corporate America, especially today in the age of Social Media and the public seeing what corporations are “all about.”

How a big corporation such as Delta, Nike, Target, Verizon, etc promotes being accepting of religion, no matter what religion, is essential from a Public Relations standpoint. Yes, they might look good on the outside to the public for consumer satisfaction and revenue, but it’s not always equally reflected within these corporations. Religion is defined by Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) by saying; “Religion is not limited to traditional, organized religions, but also includes religious beliefs that are practiced by a small group of people and are not part of a formal church or sect.” (SHRM 2008) Religious diversity really shows itself with respect in how employers handle accommodating time off for religious holidays. According to most corporate Human Resource Managers, they report they work with ”most” religious holidays meaning Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas etc- and not including holidays such as Diwali, Yom Kippur, Ramadan, etc.

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Religious Diversity, UTC Interns

The New Business of Church – by Justin Glover

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Editor’s Note: Article from DEI in Communications class at the University of TN / Chattanooga where I spoke on religious diversity.

When discussing the idea of someone’s religious ideals and upbringings, it is important to treat these topics with the utmost respect. However, the church you may attend is much more than a business than you might expect. Religion is a $1.2 trillion dollar industry, and yes that is trillion. This can ultimately bring into question the character of those who operate these businesses. Does this mean that these establishments are ultimately trying to trick or confuse those who attend? Not necessarily, but it is shallow to operate behind closed curtains much like many church business markets.

It is also important to break down the similarities with a business and a church. The church offers a public speaking attendance for its viewers and does things such as play music. These things are often services that require payment to attend. Concerts and motivational speakers do not often offer the contents within their acts to the public for free. According to the Theology of Business Institute, annual collections for churches averaging 162 attendees is just south of $215,000. It is important to note as well that a church is a legal entity. They employ a group of people at each general location across the country and strive to ignite the community. If a church is operating for a long period of time, it is safe to assume that they are generating a profit.

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Religious Diversity, UTC Interns

Are Advertising Companies Making Changes – by Jessalee West, Taralyn Wiley, Caroline Coppock

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Editor’s Note: Article from DEI in Communications class at the University of TN / Chattanooga where I spoke on religious diversity.

Many aspects of communication have changed over the years to become for the most part more inclusive. However, one part that seems to be falling a bit behind all the others is the inclusion of religious diversity. This topic is not one that is discussed a great deal when thinking about advertising, branding, or marketing. There is a lot of discussion about racial inclusion as well as gender inclusion, but the religious aspect does not get as much attention. This idea seems to be changing a bit at a time, especially with companies such as Apple, Facebook, and Google.

Advertising is a big part of media and communications, however there is not a lot of religious talk in regard to what is included in advertisements. It is not one of their main focuses within many companies when researching and determining what will generate the most success for their advertisements. When dealing with religious holidays it is taken into consideration that some things should be included, such as when dealing with Easter and Christmas, however there is rarely any research done into how best to reach those religious minorities. It is considered a general rule in advertising to not use generic religious symbols that could somehow offend a person of that religious affiliation. And while this is a good step there is work to be done in regards to making advertising a religiously inclusive part of marketing and communications. There are some companies who are making good progress in the right direction, such as Facebook.

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Religious Diversity, UTC Interns

Christianity in 2021 – by Cole Fischer, Sydney Hermann, and Liv Ellis

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Editor’s Note: Article from DEI in Communications class at the University of TN / Chattanooga where I spoke on religious diversity.

As we get older and merge into the world, we are often faced with meeting increasingly more diverse people. It is important to listen to each other with open minds to understand others and how they have lived their lives. Learning and understanding new points of view is the best way to be an active member of a diverse community. Generalizing religious people groups can be dangerous as everyone has different experiences even within the same religion. As Christians, we have different walks of faith and yet, we have had our own experiences in life. The following three testimonies are from college students who identify themselves as members of the Christian faith.

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Black-Jewish Dialogue, Race & Ethnicity, Religious Diversity

A Personal History of Blacks and Jews Part 2 – by Marceline Donaldson

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Today, United Fruit is a huge corporation, but that Black/Jewish beginning is almost lost in history. In today’s world it would be seen very differently from what it actually was. It was beginning to lose that history when I was growing up because Jews were beginning to call themselves “white” and the general U. S. society could not see such an alliance and friendship as one amongst equals as existed between the man who founded United Fruit and the man who was responsible for a serious part of its early growth. But when I was a small child, the stories and the talk were about how United Fruit would not have existed or grown as it did without the friendship and working together of those two men – the Jew and the Black. Back then Jews were not hired to work regular jobs. In fact, it is within my lifetime that banks went from hiring no Jews to now hiring Jews for jobs up and down the bank ladder. Jews back then had to either start their own company or find some other independent way to make a living. That is what Mr. Zemurray was doing. Looking back into that history from today, it is easy to re-write it so that its real beginnings are “cleaned-up”.

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Black-Jewish Dialogue, Race & Ethnicity

A Personal History of Blacks and Jews Part 1- by Marceline Donaldson

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Racism, when it has become “structured” into a society and into its institutions, is a very complex thing. We like to think it is an “unfortunate incident” which happened because the person to whom it happened was complicit in some way. It is not. Every action you take is governed by the bigotry structured into the society in which you live which has successfully structured that bigotry into every core and every cell of its existence. The experience of bigotry is not a one time experience. It is all day everyday for those who are the “minority.” It is also an all day everyday experience for those who are “white.” Their lives move ahead beyond their talents and contributions to this society because of the fact that they are in the “better than” group.

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