Tag Archives: diversity

Music, theater, TV, dance

Diversity of Film and TV Staff Still Lagging – by Rose Joneson

Behind the Scenes

In the film and TV industries, the lack of diversity is a crisis that stretches back decades and remains largely unresolved despite increasing demands for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). It is a multilayered issue that occurs both in front of the camera and behind it. Be that as it may, discussions on the two are disproportionate, with diversity in casting a more prevalent and publicized matter than the latter. Public awareness and criticism spell the difference, as they often spark movements like #OscarsSoWhite that push the industry to take visible strides.

The same cannot be said for diversity in production crews, where gender and racial gaps continue to persist. UCLA’s Hollywood Diversity Report reveals that women and people of color (POC) remain vastly underrepresented behind the scenes, taking up less than a third of key roles. While this is already an improvement from a few years ago, much can still be done to improve diversity among crew members.

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Advisors, Authors A-H, Music, theater, TV, dance

Diversity and Speech No. 35: Rockin’ Diversity – by Carlos E. Cortés and Teri Gerent

Carlos:  Tell me, Teri.  How did you come up with the idea of teaching history through rock and roll music?

Teri: I’ve always loved music.  From the time I became a history teacher in 1998, I thought of music whenever we reached the twentieth century.  Then it hit me.  Why not help students reconsider U.S. history by structuring a course around music?  It worked.  

Carlos:  Well, if music works for teaching high school students, why not for diversity workshops, too?    

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Advisors, Authors I-Q, Teams & Leaders, Trends 2023

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Trends: 2023 – by Soumaya Khalifa

Whether you traveled or stayed home this past holiday season, you paid attention to the news about Southwest Airlines’ struggles to get  people where they wanted to go.  Bad (really bad) weather, canceled flights, long lines, lost luggage, and exhausted and cranky passengers and airline staff all led to an operational disaster that will take Southwest a while to overcome.  

In a statement on its website, Southwest called its own performance “unacceptable.”  Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, said Southwest had not put adequate systems in place to manage operations during the storm. “The fact is: We weren’t prepared,” Murray said.

But some observers weren’t at all surprised: Southwest’s crisis was inevitable after years of prioritizing stock dividends and executive compensation over necessary investments, including improving its outdated IT and crew scheduling systems. Southwest’s own employees issued plenty of warnings about those.

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Authors I-Q, Race & Ethnicity, UTC Interns

A Thanksgiving to Remember – by Shayne Perry

A young boy, sat at a table full of people he didn’t know. A large family, all helping to make their thanksgiving dinner. Smells and laughter waft through the house. No television to distract from the face-to-face interaction. All the food is scratch made. The kitchen is littered with bits and pieces of dishes and ingredients, a messy labor of love. The smiles and plate passing keep the energy up. The boy is confused, there is no turkey, but a large plate of chitlins, and a ham. There aren’t any scalloped potatoes, but collard greens. As much as Thanksgiving is a universal experience, it differs house to house, culture to culture. This is a short story about how he came to know his neighbors.

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Academic Articles, Advisors, Authors A-H

Equity Rising: DEI Expertise in the Boardroom – by Dr. Deborah Ashton, Tracie Hall

Abstract

After the killing of George Floyd, Equity Rising, a group of Black professionals, came together to address social justice and equity in the government and in corporations. They believed that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) expertise is essential to the total sustainability strategy of corporations and, therefore, is an essential boardroom function. The DEI expertise brings both functional and demographic diversification of board members.  This article contends that since traditionally the DEI function has been populated primarily by people of color and women, DEI expertise will add to the demographic diversification of the board. With the increase in demographic diversity for other functional board positions, DEI experts will aide in establishing a critical mass of women and people of color in the boardroom. 

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Of Women

Improving Gender Diversity Hiring – by Addie Swartz

1 Comment

Returning from The Great Resignation

Recent findings from the Pew Research Center uncovered that across 34 countries, a median of 94% of respondents think it is important for women in their country to have the same rights as men, with 74% saying it is very important. Yet, women are less optimistic than men that they will achieve gender equality. How can these two diametrically opposed trends exist in the same world at the same time? It’s the sad reality for women in the world and the workplace that while their talent abounds, opportunity does not.

The numbers simply do not lie. According to the World Economic Forum, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide. Post-pandemic, there’s a dearth of women in leadership roles, estimated to be only 27 percent of all managerial positions. According to McKinsey, the gender-regressive reality of these trends might mean that global GDP growth will be $1 trillion lower in 2030; conversely, taking action to advance gender equality could add as much as $13 trillion to the global economy by the same year.

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UTC Interns

Diversity and the Media: Student Voices  

What is the future of the media and its attempts to reach a diverse audience? We can better understand the upcoming generation’s issues concerning diversity and the media with this collection of quotes from articles by Communication students at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. These issues include race, gender identification, intellectual disabilities, healthcare, cultural differences, stereotyping and discrimination of women, as well as microaggressions.
Note that some of the quotes include links to a full article. 

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Education, Inclusion

Expanding DEI in Advertising & PR Education

Landmark Project with Innovative Curriculum, Facilities, and Increase in Faculty Will Transform the Next Generation of Advertising and PR Professionals 

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, (UT) and Knoxville-based advertising agency Tombras have partnered to create a first-of-its-kind landmark program and investment plan to modernize and expand advertising and public relations education. 

Key goals for the newly named Tombras School of Advertising and Public Relations, which will be housed in UT’s College of Communication and Information, are to double the number of Black, Indigenous, and people of color entering those industries after graduating from UT and to help make advertising and public relations industry demographics more representative of state and national populations.

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Authors I-Q, Healthcare

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.

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Authors A-H, Education

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.”

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