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?
Category Archives: Inclusion
Diversity and Inclusion
What to do in those moments of rage: Part 1 – by Terry Howard
RAGE SERIES – PART 1
So here we are, and not in some far-flung foreign country either. We’re in America 2016, and hate and rage are popping up across the nation. And as incidents of racist, sexist and Islamophobia harassment continue in the wake of the election, many are asking, ‘what should I do when (not “if”) acts of hate are directed at me or others?’
“God Bless You,” was her seemingly choreographed response to this question I asked my friend and her young black son “Mark”:
“Given the documented cases of hate crimes since the election, how would you respond if haters drove by you and yelled ‘Hey N—-r”, go back to Africa. We’re taking our country back!”
Continue reading What to do in those moments of rage: Part 1 – by Terry Howard
Five Diversity and Inclusion Moves to Make Now – by Simma Lieberman
or… Why There is No Room for Naysayers and Negative Viber
A long-term client recently called me worried that Diversity and Inclusion would be put on the business back burner. “What will happen to support for Diversity and Inclusion now that Trump is president,” he asked.
Continue reading Five Diversity and Inclusion Moves to Make Now – by Simma Lieberman
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.
Continue reading The Women March … AGAIN – by Deborah Levine
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.
Continue reading Cross-Cultural Skills, Leadership, and Marketing in the Future — by Deborah Levine
STEM Woman Pioneer – ALICE AUGUSTA BALL
ALICE AUGUSTA BALL (1892-1916)
Alice Ball was an American chemist who invented a chemical extraction process called the Ball Method. She was born in Seattle Washington and is the granddaughter of a slavery abolitionist, J.P. Ball. Alice graduated from the University of Washington in 1912 with a pharmaceutical chemistry degree and a bachelor’s degree in 1914. She went on to complete a master’s degree, during which she researched how to extract active ingredients from the root of the Kava plant, now used for its sedative and tranquilizing qualities.
STEM WOMEN Pioneers- ADA LOVELACE
Ada Lovelace (1815-1852)
Ada Lovelace was an English mathematician and the writer of the first published computer program. She was originally named Augusta Ada Byron and was the daughter of the famous poet, Lord Byron, and his wife, Annabella. In 1835, Ada married William King, ten years her senior, and when King inherited a noble title in 1838, they became the Earl and Countess of Lovelace. Most women in her position at that time were not encouraged in their education or intellect. Known as “the first programmer,” Ada was assisted in her learned by a mathematician-logician, Augustus De Morgan, who taught Mathematics at the University of London.
While working for an English mathematician, Charles Babbage, Ada developed an interest in his machines which later proved to be the forerunners of the modern computer. In 1843, Ada succeeded in translating and annotating an article written by mathematician Luigi Federico Menabrea on one of Babbage’s machines. Using what she called, “Poetical Science”, Ada also made detailed description of how an “Analytical Machine” could be programmed to calculate a sequence of rational numbers. Babbage referred to Ada as an “enchantress of numbers.” Today the Ada computer programming language developed in the 1980s for the U.S. Department of Defense is named in her honor.
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Ada Lovelace is one of the biographies in the STEM Women Study Guide. The Guide is a classroom tool that encourages & educates women in Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics (STEM)
The Spiral Notebook, including discussion questions, was created in coordination with womengroundbreakers.com
Special thanks for their support of the project:
Platinum Sponsors:
Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, Humanities Tennessee
Gold Sponsors:
American Diversity Report, Chattanooga Writers Guild, EPB Fiber Optics, excellerate!, Million Women Mentors, Nashville Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Foundation, Southern Adventist University, The HR Shop, ThreeTwelve Creative, UTC College of Engineering and Computer Science, Volkswagen Chattanooga.
Special Thanks Southern Adventist University Intern Abigail White
Interfaith Panel in the South: A Community Responds – By Gay Morgan Moore
In a time when racial, political, economic and religious divisions in the United States are increasingly obvious, the people of one southern city, Chattanooga, Tennessee, are attempting, through dialogue, to understand the religious beliefs of one another. On a chilly November Monday evening a group of over fifty people gathered at a Hindu temple for the Sixth Interfaith Panel Discussion. The attendees and panelists were ordinary people, with extra-ordinary beliefs concerning the value of gaining knowledge and understanding of the faith traditions of one another.
Continue reading Interfaith Panel in the South: A Community Responds – By Gay Morgan Moore
My Contra-cultural Marriage and Religious Chaos — by Micki Pelusi
It’s 1959. I’m a Southern religious teenage girl raised on the fire and brimstone of the Baptist Church. My boyfriend is a second generation Italian Catholic. My mother, recently divorced from my step-father, transforms from a “Betty Crocker’ housewife into a bird set free from a gilded cage. This turn of events leads to her elopement with one of her many men friends to Elkton, Maryland. Butch and I go along as witnesses. After spending the night in her Buick at the A&P parking lot, waiting for the courthouse to open, we finally walk out of the wide court doors—married—all four of us. Mom and Sal drive off to Florida, I move in with a girlfriend and Butch goes back to his home, as if nothing stupendous happened.
Continue reading My Contra-cultural Marriage and Religious Chaos — by Micki Pelusi
What to do in those moments of rage! EXPEDIENCY on the Streets – by Terry Howard
(Article is Part 1 of a series) So here we are, and not in some far-flung foreign country either. We’re in America 2016, and hate is popping up across the nation. And as incidents of racist, sexist and Islamophobia harassment continue in the wake of the election, many are asking, ‘what should I do when (not “if”) acts of hate are directed at me or others?’
“God Bless You,” was her seemingly choreographed response to this question I asked my friend and her young black son “Mark”:
“Given the documented cases of hate crimes since the election, how would you respond if haters drove by you and yelled ‘Hey N—-r”, go back to Africa. We’re taking our country back!”
“Uh, uh! If that happens to me, I’m ready to rumble!” said “Mark,” at hearing mom’s response.
Continue reading What to do in those moments of rage! EXPEDIENCY on the Streets – by Terry Howard