Category Archives: Make a Difference

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

Supporting Employee Diversity and Wellness – by Julia Morris

During the COVID-19 pandemic, employee diversity and wellness came under the spotlight like never before. Corporations sought to support workers both in the office and at home, and a major pre-pandemic cultural shift completed its arc. In addition, employers have been making significant strides in diversifying their workforces.

Focusing on diversity and offering innovative benefits that enhance work-life balance don’t just boost employee satisfaction. These efforts help attract new talent in a competitive market, and improve productivity no matter the size of your organization.

Continue reading Supporting Employee Diversity and Wellness – by Julia Morris

Political Commentary #1: Vernon Jones – by Terry Howard

“Black Donald Trump!”
C’mon Vernon, really? 

Terry Howard
ADR Advisor Terry Howard

Vernon Jones and I are both African American. The only other thing we have in common that I’m aware of is that we are both graduates of HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) colleges 80 miles apart in North Carolina. But it is on those two facts that our similarities end. Period, I must add!

The truth is that I’ve observed Jones over the past few years more out of curiosity turned mild amusement, turned comedic relief, than anything else. As with many politicians, when it comes to party affiliation and loyalty it is often political opportunism more than anything that explains their behavior. “Political chameleons” is one way to define them. So, it comes as no surprise to me that Jones, once a democrat is now a republican. Blind ambition can do that to a person.

Continue reading Political Commentary #1: Vernon Jones – by Terry Howard

Ukraine Makes the Headlines, Again – by Dr. Fiona Citkin

(originally published in 2019 – more relevant than ever!)

I periodically become a target of all-around questioning just because originally—more than 25 years ago—I came to the US from Ukraine as a Fulbright Scholar. Of course, this gives me the leverage to deeper understand what’s going on there, and why. But I do not hold a magic ball that predicts what the future holds in a largely unpredictable country – and even more unpredictable America under the current government. So, let me just answer some of these questions and clarify my positioning. Continue reading Ukraine Makes the Headlines, Again – by Dr. Fiona Citkin

Diversity and Speech No. 28: Teaching Diversity across Generations at Harvard – by Carlos E. Cortés and Joseph Zolner

A Co-Authored Interview

Carlos:  Joe, it’s been more than two decades since we started working together at the Harvard Summer Institutes for Higher Education.  Lots of continuities, but also lots of changes.

Joe: Yes, I first attended your sessions on diversity in higher education in the late 1990’s.

Carlos: Even through I’d been doing diversity workshops for a couple of decades, using the Harvard case study method was a brand new experience.

Joe: The Harvard Graduate School of Education’s summer programs have a distinctive leadership development structure.  Very immersive, retreat-like experiences for cohorts of a hundred or so higher education administrators.  I recall framing your early sessions as “diversity and community.”

Continue reading Diversity and Speech No. 28: Teaching Diversity across Generations at Harvard – by Carlos E. Cortés and Joseph Zolner

African American History Month: what else don’t we know? – by Terry Howard

Terry Howard
ADR Advisor Terry Howard

This piece explores another African American bit of history. It is about John Lewis and James Zwerg.

Like many, I would love to have been a proverbial “fly on the wall,” listening intently to candid conversations between those two men. Of course, we –well, most of us anyway – know about the late congressman John Lewis. But James Zwerg?

Continue reading African American History Month: what else don’t we know? – by Terry Howard

Diversity in Tech Tips – by Pearl Kasirye

The tech industry is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. We live in a digital era where technology has become an essential part of our daily lives and work processes. For this reason, we need tech companies that create software that improves our lives, cybersecurity agencies that protect our online data, and experts who develop new technologies annually.

There is a high demand for technology and people who specialize in this field. What strikes me the most is the lack of diversity in such an essential industry like tech. Are the most qualified people always white and male? Or are other groups of people intentionally underrepresented?

Continue reading Diversity in Tech Tips – by Pearl Kasirye

Hey, I’m Alive! – by Terry Howard

Terry Howard
ADR Advisor Terry Howard

Believe me, it wasn’t easy but I took a deep breath and returned to an eerie intersection, the scene of a nearby church and scene of my auto accident four years ago.

Like back then, a motor cyclist pulled out in front of me, this time from a nearby gas station and thankfully with an entirely different result. He sped off and I, shaken by the coincidence, pulled into that church parking lot to catch my breath and reflect on what just happened, what could have happened and what happened back then.
Continue reading Hey, I’m Alive! – by Terry Howard

Challenges of Teaching about Diversity and Health Equity – by Carlos E. Cortés

A Difficult Conversation about Difficult Conversations forDeveloping Medical Educators of the 21st Century:
New Ideas and Skills
for Adaptable and Inclusive
Learning Environments Conference

February 4, 2022 (Revised, February 6, 2022)

 Let’s start with today’s ground rules.  None.  No rules; no powerpoints.

But three hopes.  That you speak honestly without obsessing about maybe saying the wrong thing, a bane to diversity discussions.  That you contemplate divergent ideas.  And that you reflect openly on your own perspectives by posting comments and questions in the chatbox as we go along.   

So let’s turn to our theme, difficult conversations about diversity and health equity.  Health equity conversations necessarily involve discomfort because they address the idea of group diversity, not just random individual differences.

Continue reading Challenges of Teaching about Diversity and Health Equity – by Carlos E. Cortés

ANDREW FEILER PODCAST: The Rosenwald Schools

Rosenwald schools
Andrew Feiler (Photo by Paul Perdue)

Andrew Feiler is a fifth generation Georgian. Having grown up Jewish in Savannah, he has been shaped by the rich complexities of the American South.  Feiler has long been active in civic life. He has helped create over a dozen community initiatives, serves on multiple not-for-profit boards, and is an active advisor to numerous elected officials and political candidates. His art is an extension of his civic values.

Feiler’s photographs have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian, Architect, Preservation, The Forward as well as on CBS This Morning and NPR. His work has been displayed in galleries and museums including solo exhibitions at such venues as the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, NC, and Octagon Museum in Washington, D.C.

Rosenwald SchoolsAndrew documents the history of the Rosenwald schools program which transformed education for African Americans in the first half of the twentieth century. The founders were Julius Rosenwald, born to Jewish immigrants, who rose to lead Sears, Roebuck & Company and Booker T. Washington , born into slavery, who became the founding principal of Tuskegee Institute. In 1912 the two men launched an ambitious program to partner with Black communities to build public schools for African American children. Andrew examines the role of education as the onramp to the American middle class as well as  the past, present and future of the Black/Jewish progressive alliance.

Hear Andrew discuss:

  1.  What was most innovative about how Rosenwald and Washington structured the schoolhouse construction program?
  2. What was the impact of the Rosenwald schools program?
  3. How he developed his approach for telling this story visually.

    CLICK for PODCAST

Black-Jewish Dialogue: February 2022

History R Us!

Hear this very personal look at history from both an African-American and Jewish perspective. Don’t miss this amazing online discussion.
Scroll down for the link.  

Gr

KEN GRANDERSON

In 1992, Ken Granderson, a graduate of MIT, launched his first software development company Inner-City Software, Brains in the Hood. He was committed to closing the Digital Divide by creating technology products and solutions by & for people of African descent. For a decade, he introduced Boston’s communities of color to computers and the Internet, giving local organizations and Boston’s Black newspaper an online world-class presence. Moving back to New York City, he was born in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, his achievements in technical design, education, and empowerment are nationally and internationally impressive.  His website, BLACKFACTS, is an affiliate of the ADR. (CLICK to access)

DEBORAH LEVINE
Editor-in-Chief Deborah J. Levine

DEBORAH LEVINE

Deborah coordinated the 1990 National Workshop on Christian Jewish RelationsIn  and created her first Holocaust video in Rockford, Illinois, where she served as of the Jewish Federation’s  executive director . She went on to become the Community & Media Liaison of the Tulsa Jewish Federation shortly after the OK City bombing and is the former exec. director of Chattanooga’s Jewish Federation.  She carries on the work of her father who became the CFO of the American Jewish Archives. He served as a US military intelligence officer during World War II assigned to interrogate Nazi prisoners of war. CLICK for more information about her memoir, The Liberator’s Daughter, and to hear an interview with her father about his wartime experiences.

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.