In the past few years, more and more businesses, organizations and government agencies have hired diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) managers or directors. It’s still a new enough trend that it’s fair to wonder, what do those professionals actually do day to day, and why are companies creating these roles?
In cooperation with our NEW News Lab partners of the USA Today Network, FoxValley365 hosted a discussion between four of the people doing that work in the Fox Valley area. The panel was streamed live on Facebook and more than 600 people watched. The panel is the first of several events that will complement the “Home is Here” series produced by USA Today Network.
Hosted by 365 Media CEO Henry Sanders, the panel included:
- Damira Grady, associate vice chancellor of Academic Support for Inclusive Excellence and university diversity officer at UW-Oshkosh. Grady is a first-generation college graduate with a doctorate in the advancement of learning and service in higher education from Cardinal Stritch University, a master’s in educational psychology with an emphasis in community counseling from UW-Milwaukee and a bachelor’s in educational studies from UW-Milwaukee.
- Jessica Franco-Morales, DEI career coach, Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. Franco-Morales has a bachelor’s in political science and is a master’s in education leadership and policy analysis candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
- Nick Ivory, equity mentor, Menasha High School. Ivory has a bachelor’s in elementary education from Augsburg College, a master’s from Marian University and a master’s in education-professional and school counseling from Concordia University. He has previously worked as a counselor and school administrator, as well as a cultural support specialist in Appleton public schools.
- Raiya Sankari-Diaz, diversity coordinator, City of Green Bay. Raiya is originally from the Fox Valley area, but has also lived in northern New Mexico and Omaha, Nebraska where she had the opportunity to study and work in multicultural and diverse environments.
Asked to describe the focus of his job, Ivory said, “Diversity, equity and inclusion work to me in my arena means making our staff and students feel like they belong in each of our buildings.”
Grady called herself “an essential worker in higher education.”
“Without true equity, meaning that there is equitable distribution of opportunities, access and some power and privilege in education, we’re being predatory when we recruit people and assure (them) that they’re going to have a sense of belonging at our institutions when they’re really not,” she said.
The panelists said DEI work is important for the workplace culture as well as productivity and the overall success of the organization.
“If you can’t adjust, you can’t advance,” Ivory said. “So if you can’t adjust to the change in climate in your buildings or in your line of work, then you can’t advance your product that you have, or the levels of education that your students are receiving from your staff.”
“If there’s diversity of thought in the room, then innovation starts happening and it completely has a huge effect on a business outcome,” Sankari-Diaz said.
“We want to adjust our product essentially to the changing demographics of our customers. So from a business side of things and how I’ve seen DE&I rationalize on the business side, it’s just producing a better product for changing customers,” Franco-Morales added.
Ivory cautioned that taking on DEI work has to come with the understanding that people of color are very diverse even within their own races and ethnicities.
“We talk about culture. Culture is not our skin color,” he said. “Culture is the environment in which we’ve grown. So different people have different cultures. Same skin complexion can have completely different cultures.”
Grady said younger people especially want DEI to be embedded across the organizational culture.
“The data shows that (young people) don’t want to come to institutions and have to go to cultural centers. They don’t want that experience anymore,” she said. “And it was great that it existed for me, for other people who have gone through higher education, but they want that experience embedded. They want to be immersed. They want to learn alongside allies and advocates. They don’t want to have to be segregated anymore in spaces. They want to be integrated.”
Organizations have to be ready to take the work on, Sankari-Diaz said.
“People have to be interested in education. People have to be interested in this continuous learning approach, this growth culture,” she said.
Grady said organizations don’t have to wait to get started.
“One thing I’ve been telling people is that representation matters, but we can’t wait for representation to be there or be in place for us to act. Oftentimes what I hear from people that consult with me, or even sometimes different departments in my institution, well, we don’t have the representation or we don’t have the resources to build what you’re asking, so we have to wait. You don’t have to wait to act,” she said. “It does not have to take a crisis for us to position ourselves and be ready. So I want you to … think about, how do you get ready for the people who are thinking about moving to our region, who are finishing their degrees at any of the schools in our region in the Fox Valley, and are ready to come and be a contributing member to our society. How do we make sure that they come here and can thrive here?”
Franco-Morales also said it’s not always necessary to hire external help to do DEI work.
“A lot of times when it comes to DEI, organizations want to look outward, bring the experts in, but there’s a lot of collective knowledge and experience from the current employees or even just the community,” she said.
The full transcript of the hour long session is below.
Henry Sanders:
Okay. Hi, this is Henry Sanders, CEO of Fox Valley 365 and 365 Media. We thank you for joining us today. As some of you who might know who we are, our mission is to really make sure that we amplify the voices of color in the State of Wisconsin. And we are just excited to have this panel. And we want to thank our partners at USA Today Network, thank you for joining us. And I want to thank all of our wonderful panelists who we’re talking with offline and getting to know some of the wonderful talented people that are already up in Northeast Wisconsin.
Henry Sanders:
And I have to say this, for people who are in Milwaukee, in Madison watching this right now, there are people of color in that region. Yes, there are people of color outside of Madison, Milwaukee who are doing real things. So we’re laughing, but I’m telling you, I travel a lot where people don’t think there’s people of color outside of Madison and Milwaukee, and there really is. So before I start, why don’t each of you introduce yourselves and what you do, and then we’ll go from there. Why don’t we start with you, Nick?
Nick Ivory:
Oh, I’m Nick Ivory. I’m an equity mentor Menasha High School.
Henry Sanders:
You want to go next, Raiya?
Raiya Sankari-Diaz:
Sure. I’m Raiya Sankari-Diaz, and I’m the diversity and inclusion coordinator for the City of Green Bay.
Henry Sanders:
Jessica.
Jessica Franco-Morales:
Yes. Hi everyone. My name is Jessica Franco-Morales and I am a DEI career coach for Northeast Wisconsin Technical College here in the Green Bay area
Henry Sanders:
And Damira.
Damira Grady:
Hello, my name is Damira Grady and I serve as the associate vice chancellor of academic support for inclusive excellence. And as the university of diversity officer at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. It’s a long exhausting title, relates to how exhausting some days my job can be.
Henry Sanders:
That is a big title, but I’m sure you can handle it.
Damira Grady:
Yes.
Henry Sanders:
So also, let people know that you can ask… if you asked a question, we will try to get to your questions. We have a limited time here, but we will take questions from the audience. And if you have questions, I can’t promise I’ll get to all of them, but we will try to get to the ones that we can. And I want to also say thanks to everyone at NEW News Lab who is a partnership up in that area. And I love the title of the series as Home is Here series.
Henry Sanders:
And I love that because as people of color, a lot of times we travel, especially in predominantly white areas, you feel like you’re on their away team. And so this is a good time to make sure that we can make everyone feel like they’re at home. So let’s just jump in here and I want to start with… Let me see what I want to start with here. I’m going to stick with Raiya because she looks so serious. I’m going to stick with her. There you go. She’s smiling. First question, let’s define what diversity, equity and inclusion mean in your work and if it’s different, how do you define it in your life?
Raiya Sankari-Diaz:
Sure. Henry, that’s an amazing question. So the way I would define it, as far as work goes, would really be examining the different populations around me. So really keeping my finger on the pulse of the community that we’re serving from a city standpoint, both internally and externally, and then creating and maintaining those spaces for populations. And so what that might look like from a specific standpoint is examining our hiring processes, looking at how we [inaudible 00:03:40] our neighborhood associations, continuing to understand how our population is growing. And then also assessing from a program’s perspective, both internally and externally, what it is that we have to offer in regards to DE&I. And then on a personal note, that looks like being active within the school systems. I have children. And so part of that is understanding the programming that goes on for my own children in my personal life. And then from an organizational standpoint, understanding places that my friends work, understanding places that my family works and looking at the different opportunities and programming that those institutions have as well.
Henry Sanders:
Thank you. Nick, why don’t you go next? That was a powerful… Can you follow that up?
Nick Ivory:
I’ll try. So me working in the school district at the high school at Menasha High School, like I said, so this kind of work, diversity equity and inclusion work to me and my arena means making our staff and students feel like they belong in each of our buildings. They have their true histories represented in our lessons, and also they have folks like themselves represented from our leadership down to our classrooms, to our after school programs, to our sporting events and things of that nature. So trying to wrap it all in one, but have representation at every level that we serve. As far as life goes, I’m an open book, man. I’ll meet people where they are, meet them for who they are and I develop my relationships from there. So it just bleeds in with everything that I do.
Henry Sanders:
Yeah. And I love that saying; make sure the students feel like they belong. I love that and that’s a challenge for everyone. Jessica, what about you?
Jessica Franco-Morales:
Yeah. So for me, diversity, equity and inclusion, as far as my line of work, what it means to me is working to ensure that all students have access to quality education, particularly by focusing on equity and leveraging policy. I am really interested and attuned to the policies and practices adopted by different institutions and how they have a differential impact on customers, in this case students. I really think that that is how we make actionable change is by re-looking at the way that things are done. So that’s what it looks like in my line of work.
Jessica Franco-Morales:
As far as in my personal life, I try to live by upholding the principles of not only diversity, equity and inclusion, but also social justice and try to practice that in everything that I do, and the relationships that I have with community members and the organizations that I am aligned with. I’m a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. We are a service organization and social action is a big part of what we do. So just try to live the principles of social justice in everything that I do.
Henry Sanders:
Shout out to your sorority out there.
Jessica Franco-Morales:
Yes. Okay. Shout out to the deltas.
Henry Sanders:
All the AKAs and everyone is going bring their heads down right now. My mom’s AK, so she’s mad at me right now. But I just gave a shout out of mom AKA so it’s all even.
Jessica Franco-Morales:
It’s all love.
Henry Sanders:
It’s all love. Damira, what about you?
Damira Grady:
Yeah. I would amplify and echo some of the things that have already been said. For me in this work, I consider myself an essential worker working in higher education. And I think to some of the comments that were made about how do we move the conversation from a personal one to an institutional and then a structural view? So we are dismantling, interrogating policies and procedures that exist that have structurally excluded students from higher education. And so that’s one of my biggest focus. And I put my energy there before I even go out and recruit students. Because for me, without true equity, meaning that there is equitable distribution of opportunities, access and some power and privilege in education, we’re being predatory when we recruit people and assure (them) that they’re going to have a sense of belonging at our institutions when they’re really not.
Damira Grady:
And so I want to ensure that I’m building the infrastructure for everybody to come to UW Oshkosh or to Oshkosh in general and feel a sense of belonging and community, one, but have that experience of EDI embedded into everything. They don’t have to go to a separate program. They don’t have to go to a training. They don’t have to go to a special class because they’re other in a sense, but it’s embedded. Everybody has a shared responsibility and it’s inescapable in a sense. And so I spend a lot of my time… I always joke. I don’t want to do Ted Talks. I don’t want to write a book. I don’t want to do research. I want to be on the front line, understanding the needs of the people I’m wanting to serve and figuring out how do I create the opportunity for them to raise their hand and say, they want to go to higher education.
Damira Grady:
And I’ve implemented programming that has made that a reality. We’ve put resources in the school, or we’ve done pre-college programming to bridge that gap or had conversations with community members and families. So we can dismantle some of the myths around higher education or even living in Oshkosh community. And so having those relationships has been important for me in my work. And how I bridge that personally is I say this, I am not an expert in DEI. If anyone tells you they’re an expert, do not hire them, do not listen to them. Nobody can be an expert in this work. It is a discipline. I have a lot of lived experience, not growing up in Wisconsin. And then when I did come to Wisconsin, I lived in Milwaukee. So I have a lot of lived experience that informs my work and has taught me to have boundaries.
Damira Grady:
So my boundary is that I’m not an expert, I relate to the discourse and I don’t get in the arena to debate my own oppression. And through that lens, I’m also a licensed professional counselor. So I’m able to have grounded conversations with people and give grace, give education and have opportunities for healthy conflict and the discussion of this is great, let’s do programming, let’s do training. But how do we collectively to the point made earlier, start looking at the systems that continue to oppress us all and put our resources together to start dismantling those policies and procedures and structures.
Henry Sanders:
You all gave really powerful answers. Actually, I want to step back because I know there’s people who are probably watching saying, why even do DE&I at all? Why does that even help? How does that help my organization? How does that help my school? How does that help my business? How does that help my non-profit organization? Why do DE&I? I want to judge everyone fair. Why do it? So two questions I want to ask, why do DE&I? Why is it important? It’s just about representation, but why does it matter? And then the second thing is, what are some important questions for organizations to ask themselves once they decide that they want to do DE&I? I’m going to start with you, Jessica. She goes, oh no.
Jessica Franco-Morales:
Ooh, lucky me. I have to think about that for a little bit, but I’ll do my best. How I have heard businesses and institutions rationalize the need for diversity, equity and inclusion is primarily in the line of the demographics of our population are changing. We want to adjust our product essentially to the changing demographics of our customers. So from a business side of things and how I’ve seen DE&I rationalize on the business side, it’s just producing a better product for changing customers. How I would respond to that question personally is, as a community, we have to be committed to social justice. And what that requires also is restorative justice.
Jessica Franco-Morales:
I think it’s easy for people to want to get to a better place while skipping the really, really tough conversations, the heavy lifting, the really uncomfortable process that restorative justice requires. And so for me, I think DE&I is necessary because that’s how we all get to a better place. And without really interrogating and interrupting, again, systems of oppression, we are just going to be putting a bandaid on the problem and it won’t allow us to move forward collectively in a genuine, sustainable way. So that’s how I would respond to that personally and why I think it’s important
Henry Sanders:
And just a follow up on that. If your organization, Jessica, think about doing DE&I? What are some important questions for organization to ask themselves when they’re thinking about beginning in this process?
Jessica Franco-Morales:
Yeah. I think the first question should be, what is the commitment level? Are you committed to putting resources, money behind these efforts? How are you leveraging the talent that you already have? A lot of times when it comes to DEI, organizations want to look outward, bring the experts in, but there’s a lot of collective knowledge and experience from the current employees or even just the community. Even just leveraging the knowledge of community members. So what is the commitment level? What are some of the assets that you already have, whether it’s in your organization or in your community? And then what’s been really important to me as of late is, are you ready to support the people that are going to be doing this work on behalf of the organization? That support is extremely important because it’s not fair for professionals of color to be used as collateral in this fight for social justice.
Henry Sanders:
Yeah. I love that, commitment and helping support the people who are actually doing the work. Because they usually take the brunt of all the expectations. A lot of people tend to think that DE&I work can happen overnight. And it’s a journey. It’s a process. But Nick, what about you? Why DE&I? Why is that important? And then the second question part of that is, if your organization or even a school district, think about doing some of this DE&I work, what some questions should they ask themselves?
Nick Ivory:
Well, from a business standpoint, even an organization standpoint as a school district, I think it’s pretty simple. If you can’t adjust, you can’t advance. So if you can’t adjust to the change in climate in your buildings or in your line of work, then you can’t advance your product that you have, or the levels of education that your students are receiving from your staff. So that’s as simple as I can put it with that. But some of the questions, are you prepared to do this work? And do you have the manpower to really dig into the work? Because it’s a lot that goes into this type of work. I mean, you can’t listen to one point of view and build things off of that. You got to have a team of people because you got to have the lived experiences from different people.
Nick Ivory:
I mean, We talk about culture. Culture is not our skin color. Culture is the environment in which we’ve grown. So different people have different cultures. Same skin complexion can have completely different cultures. So those are the things you got to be prepared for as far as digging. Are you ready to dig? Do you have the manpower to dig? And is this work real to you, or are you just doing this work for your numbers?
Henry Sanders:
Yeah. What I love about that is you’re right, people of color are not a monolithic. We all do not think alike and act alike. And it’s always interesting when people assume that we do, but why would we all think alike? And it’s an interesting concept. Raiya, same question to you, why is DE&I important? And then if your organization think about starting DE&I, what questions should they ask themselves?
Raiya Sankari-Diaz:
So DE&I is important to me on many different levels. On a personal note, it’s important to me because I want to see people succeed in my community, within my home structure, within my family. It’s extremely important to me. I also want to see people know and feel like there are spaces if they belong. And so perpetuating that. I know we talk a lot, especially in the last couple of years about work life integration. And that is real. We have so much going on from life that comes into work with us. It follows us in. Just because we’re sitting at a desk does not mean our phones stop buzzing with information going on in the world around us. So we have to be extremely cognizant of our environment so it really crosses over.
Raiya Sankari-Diaz:
And then of course from a business standpoint, when we look at revenue, we know that revenue can go up anywhere from 19 to 80%. If there’s diversity of thought in the room, then innovation starts happening and it completely has a huge effect on a business outcome, and so there’s more innovation happening, there’s conversations happening that weren’t happening even a month ago when you have diversity of thought in room. On top of that, there’s an opportunity to look through different lenses and examine different possibilities. So there’s buzz that’s created surrounding DE&I in the workplace. And then there’s also this factor of trust that happens, if it’s done well for inclusion and belonging. And so there’s this space that’s held over time and that space grows in order to retain those people.
Raiya Sankari-Diaz:
So to speak to the other part of the question, retention is a huge piece of this. We know that this is really a point of interest for different organizations right now, DE&I, DE&I. But what are we going to be doing to retain these populations we’re trying to bring in? What are we doing to educate ourselves about the population [inaudible 00:19:48] education that self-awareness, checking our own biases, using the resources that are put out. Harvard has an excellent implicit bias quiz that people can take to just understand theirselves a little bit more as they prepare to hire different populations coming in. So examining programming, do you have employee resource groups? How strong are those employee resource groups at this point? Is there a budget for those employee resource groups?
Raiya Sankari-Diaz:
And then oftentimes we see organizations that have a large volunteer base when it comes to supporting DE&I spaces. And so putting some dollars behind that and actually creating the positions in order to support the foundations that we’re creating to retain the populations that we’re trying to bring in is a large piece of this. So it’s kind of twofold. We have to have the energy behind it. We have to have the education that goes along with the programming, and then the budget to help impact that growth in the long run.
Henry Sanders:
Yeah. So I hear commitment again, really about commitment and true commitment, putting some dollars behind it. But actually what I think we don’t talk about enough when it comes to diversity and inclusion is innovation.
Raiya Sankari-Diaz:
Absolutely.
Henry Sanders:
If you really want to be innovative, and this data backs itself. This is not like someone just saying it. There’s data to back it up. The more diverse you are in your business organization, the more innovation goes up, the more creativity goes up. So it really makes sense if you think about it, people have more different backgrounds, they’re going to bring in different ideas. I love that you brought that up, because I think innovation is something we don’t talk enough about when it comes to diversity and inclusion. So coming to my friend over in Oshkosh, what do you think Damira?
Damira Grady:
Yeah. I’m going to say yes and, because I don’t want to just reiterate what’s already been said. But I like to be a little bit of provocative, so I’m going to throw some other things into this conversation. I think DEI inclusive excellence, EDI, EDIJ, however you want to say it, the trend of it is a little oftentimes concerning to me because it’s based on capitalism. There’s a lot of money out there invested into this work that oftentimes it’s not given to minoritized or structurally excluded people to be centered and to be given resources to do the work. I often tease that there are communities in Wisconsin that don’t need our input. They don’t need us to try to recruit them. They need our resources, they need our power and privilege.
Damira Grady:
They don’t want to come to our affinity group meetings. They don’t want to come and see us building a playground in their neighborhoods. That’s not what they need. And so it’s great that we all take the personal responsibility to educate ourselves, refresh our browsers, understand there is confirmation bias if we only listen to certain news channels or radio broad cast, or read certain books that we need to continue to challenge ourselves and how we even view this, even when we feel like we are experts and immersed into the teaching, the training, the understanding of what this says. And so one thing I would ask institutions is really what you just asked us, why. I would also ask them what would need to change or exist for it to work. It’s fine. You can throw all the money at me, the buy-in. You can give me deputy officers and a whole division, but unless the preconditions are met for me to be able to move within a dominant culture when I am a minoritized woman to make changes, it’s not going to work. It’s going to be polarizing, and I’m going to have to figure out how to protect myself professionally and protect the initiatives that I’m trying to implement.
Damira Grady:
And so I think EDI is important for us to continue to understand that it’s not just one training, it’s not a diversity statement, it’s not a recruitment plan, it’s not a DEI plan. If your strategic plan and your DEI plan are not one of the same, and you have DEI initiatives or EDI initiatives, they are not going to work. You need to really embed this and make it inescapable for every employee. You don’t hire people and put them in the office in the corner, or give them the smallest budget or expect them to address a hundred plus years of racism in one position in one year to change process and procedures by themselves when there’s governing bodies or legislators that’s going to combat anything they try to put forward.
Damira Grady:
And so we need to be realistic about the conditions that need to exist for it to work. And we also need to stop taking practices from institutions and organizations that don’t mirror the very thing we’re trying to achieve and trying to scale them up and operationalize them as best practices when they’re not. We need to find strategies that respond to the situation. And everybody’s situation is not the same. And so you need to be able to spend time doing an appreciative inquiry on what it is in the landscape of your organization, and then spend time designing what you want and implement, and then put together the conditions for you to be able to implement it. And that’s what I would say.
Damira Grady:
So it’s important, but it does scare me, the amount of just misinformation and how people take EDI initiatives and weaponize them, and sometimes sell people their oppression. That is not equity, diversity and inclusion. That is not inclusive excellence. I don’t want to be sold my oppression. I want to be able to come to work. I don’t want to come to the black people meeting. I don’t want to do that. I want to just come to work, be able to exist and be able to have the same resources and opportunity everybody else has, and that’s what I push for.
Henry Sanders:
Woo, mic drop. I love what you said. And a couple of things really stood out to me. So one, I hope people are really listening to this because all the panelists said some really powerful stuff that you would pay a consultant a lot of money to go to learn that they’re giving you for free here. But what you just said, I love about being… protecting the persons in a dominant environment. I think that is really key for people that are doing this work. You could be seen as a troublemaker or the person who’s just a token. And so I love how you say protecting that person. I think that’s so powerful what you said. And also, I think when you said that, you don’t want to come and be just the black group. You were like, “This is about excellence.” And I think that’s really powerful stuff and I hope people are really getting into this.
Henry Sanders:
We have two questions here from the audience. I want to come to Nick first. And this one, it says, I wonder how students of color and those who have been marginalized would describe their experience.
Nick Ivory:
Well, that question, whew, tough. So I do this thing I call who am I? I’ve done that with my students in the past. And I have my students sit down, not in one session, but take the time to just speak about who they see themselves as, and then how other people view them. And when I have them do that, you come out with a lot of students that’ll tell you that they don’t feel like they belong in any one of these classrooms they’re in, walking down any one of these streets that they walk down every day. I mean, you got the kids that feel tokenized by their own folks and by folks outside of their race as well. So they’re fighting this constant battle of where do I belong? Especially when you have mixed race kids, they have to choose a side per se, or the other side won’t accept them.
Nick Ivory:
So it’s these constant battles and these fights that these students have. And it takes mentors, it takes teachers in the building, different staff to really get these kids to understand who they are, who they want to be, and help them to get to those points in their lives. Because you don’t have to pick a race because you’re a mixed race. You don’t have to pick a side to be on. You be who you are. So giving the kids that confidence is having those, as people say, difficult conversations. But I don’t call them difficult. It’s just sitting down and talking and getting to know. It’s building a relationship. And when you build that relationship with those students, that bleeds outside of that office when they come in and sit in the office and talk to me. It bleeds outside of that, out into their everyday life, into their community, into their work, into their school work, it bleeds into everything.
Nick Ivory:
So it’s just about building up that confidence and getting to know those students. So giving them the platform to speak. So a lot of the stuff that I try and do, I try to be in the background. I try to push all of this confidence in the students to speak it out so our staff and our community can hear it from our students and not from me or not from our other staff, but having the students speak it, I think it has a bigger impact, a greater impact on people when they hear it coming directly from the students and not the third party. So just giving them that space and that opportunity. Building that confidence and letting them know you can speak exactly how you feel without worrying about repercussions coming from anywhere.
Henry Sanders:
And I love what you said, who am I? Is that what you said was who am I?
Nick Ivory:
Yeah.
Henry Sanders:
Right. That’s powerful because it’s all about identity and who you are. And we were actually having this conversation offline about identity and multiculture. And when I was growing up, I’m showing my age here, but if you had any black in you at all, you were black. I don’t care if you are black and Latina or black and white, whatever, but if you are black, the country considers you black. That has changed drastically, and how do the people have access to understand that they’re more than just the black person? Well, my dad might be black, but my mom is whatever. How do you let people do that?
Damira Grady:
I think we have to remember too now even structurally… I always joke, until 2000, I could only pick I was black wherever I went. And then when I saw the option, pick all that apply, I’m like, hmm. But I think it is culturally too, because when you are black in anything, you are black, but if you are some other… If you are white and Asian, you are Asian. If you are Hispanic and white, you’re usually Hispanic. So I think unfortunate part federally, even how we click our students is there’s a hierarchy to it.
Henry Sanders:
Yeah. Jessica or Raiya, do you want to get onto the question that the person that you want to…
Jessica Franco-Morales:
Yeah. Can I add to this one too?
Henry Sanders:
Yeah, of course.
Jessica Franco-Morales:
I think I have a unique experience. One, I’ll start with just my observations in my profession. So I have the privilege of working with high school aged students and helping them transition to post-secondary. I have the privilege of working in the local school district here, which I am a graduate of. Both of my parents are educators. So very tied to the community and the district. And just from my observations, I think students might have a difficult time explaining or expressing how they feel as a student of color, because I don’t think we enough to help students develop their social consciousness. And I think that’s key. I mean, it starts from telling students about their culture, their history. The books that we read or that we implement in the school start to dismantle these damaging stereotypes that we often perpetuate in the media, in our reading materials, in our conversations about people from different cultures.
Jessica Franco-Morales:
If a student is… if that’s all they see and hear and learn about out in that environment, they are going to struggle to see themselves in a different light or to really, truly talk about their identity and their social consciousness. And so I think that’s a piece that’s critically missing in our schools. We need more people like Nick who are mentors, who are committed to giving students a voice, committed to letting students express themselves, letting students ask questions about identity and what it means to them. And we have great people working in the schools. Unfortunately going back to the conversation regarding resources, these also tend to be the folks that anybody with behavior issues, go talk to this person. It’s not just limited to student with behavior issues. We need everyone. We need teachers of color. We need staff of color. We need leadership of color. We need mentors, coaches, everything so our students are able to see themselves and ask those questions and learn about things that they’re not learning in their educational materials.
Jessica Franco-Morales:
And just the last thing too. I mean, that’s from observation, but then also from experience. Having grown up in the area, gone through the school system, being designated as the one, because I was good academically in sports and all of those things, but I saw a lot of the students that looked like me and students of color left behind. One of my biggest things is you don’t have to be extraordinary to be given equal access to opportunities. And I feel like we need to start to interrogate that a little bit more.
Henry Sanders:
You don’t have to be extraordinary to get access to opportunities. That’s powerful. I hope people are really listening to this because we have Jessica, Raiya here, Nick, Damira, who are really, really giving us lots of words of wisdom here. I’m enjoying this conversation so much. Raiya, do you want to talk to this part, to this question?
Raiya Sankari-Diaz:
I would like to absolutely. So I know in my current role, I serve the City of Green Bay. A few roles past, I worked for Omaha Public Schools, the largest district in the State of Nebraska, working as a bilingual liaison, really honing in on some of the issues with students, specifically middle and high school age students. And so I was working with refugee populations and asylum seekers coming in from all corners of the world. More specifically, I worked with populations coming in from Central America, as well as the Middle East. And during that time, what I honed in on was these students and families all need support. And so when we think about how they’re feeling, I think the best word I would use to describe how my students were feeling was caught, caught in subcultures that they’re leaning into coming into this regional space, feeling underrepresented, feeling alone, and then really looking for those subgroups to click in with, in order to find their identities in these spaces.
Raiya Sankari-Diaz:
And so part of what we need is relationship building, and having that representation in those buildings. Or if students are in a virtual space, I still know some refugee students who are doing virtual learning at this time in the State of Wisconsin. And so what we need is that representation, the linguistic ability to connect with the students and the families. I can’t tell you how many times I used to have the parents come into my office just to speak about what they were going through trying to support their students and trying to connect with the staff in the school systems. And Omaha Public Schools does an excellent job of staffing for these roles and retaining people for these roles. And so that was a huge blessing for these families. And with that, we can always add staff. We can always continue to bring more linguistic abilities into our buildings and into our communities. Looking at recruiting, bringing people in.
Raiya Sankari-Diaz:
Right now, this is such an imperative time to have that representation and to really work with our kids. We’re going through several different types of challenges right now. We have the pandemic going on and then we also have these incredible challenges with racism going on right now. And so this is not over. And I think that’s part of the conversation that has to be had, especially in this state and in this space. This is not over. The pandemic continues. Although it appears that it’s over for many people, this is still happening. This is still a concern in many people’s homes. And in addition to that, people want to protect themselves. People, especially students are going through mental health issues like crazy right now, and their parents or their caregivers are looking to figure out how can they best support them.
Raiya Sankari-Diaz:
Part of that is having that staff in place in schools and looking to invest more in mental health workers that can support our students. And then having those conversations on a regular basis to assess the new needs that people have. So it’s going to be an ongoing process, but part of what we can do to help address it is put positions in these buildings to support the community at a much more, I would say, I don’t know, to perpetuate that in a stronger sense for the community.
Henry Sanders:
Yeah. Thank you. That’s powerful. Representation, representation, representation. Damira, I’m going to come to you with this next question, but do you want answer this question at all? I know you chimed a little bit earlier on the… I wonder how you see [crosstalk 00:38:30].
Damira Grady:
I’ll just add because I’m last. Yes, and I have to. I don’t want to repeat anything that’s been said.
Henry Sanders:
But for the record, I’m about to come to you again first [crosstalk 00:38:38].
Damira Grady:
I’m teasing. And I don’t want to seem like I don’t agree with what you said. I’d say, yes. And then I just want to add an additional thing. But I want to tie up the representation piece. One thing I’ve been telling people is that representation matters, but we can’t wait for representation to be there or be in place for us to act. Oftentimes what I hear from people that consult with me, or even sometimes different departments in my institution, well, we don’t have the representation or we don’t have the resources to build what you’re asking, so we have to wait. You don’t have to wait to act. You can start building for equity, diversity and inclusion now while we wait for it to come. So we can have it here. So we are culturally responsive. Once we get someone who is Hispanic and speaks only Spanish, we want to make sure our whole orientation and our mission process is bilingual.
Damira Grady:
We can build that, and when it’s needed, it’s there. And so I always push people, representation matters, but you don’t have to wait. And I also want to say in terms of just how we think about our students and what our students say, I will share. I worked at Milwaukee Area Technical College before coming here, and so it was a majority-minority serving institution. Honestly, some of the same that are prevalent at a predominantly white institution. But one difference I’ve noticed right away is this idea of who comes to our door underrepresented and marginalized. And we oftentimes in spaces where there isn’t representation, we sell people who are othered their oppression, unintentionally with good intentions, oftentimes, but it’s very violently inflicted on people. And I’ll give an example.
Damira Grady:
When I started here, I had a friend who worked with me in Milwaukee, whose daughter was at UW Oshkosh. And she was a junior here. I wanted to hire her to be a research assistant for me. And I asked her, have you ever heard of my division? And she’s like, I’ve never heard of your division. So Academic Support of Inclusive Excellence. And I said, well, you would find us under the diversity button. And she said, “Why would I be looking for diversity?” And I was like, “Yes, why would she be looking for diversity?”
Damira Grady:
We make these assumptions that students who come to us who are racialized, marginalized, underrepresented, we need to center those aspects of their identity, teach them about it, help them understand so they can learn how to advocate for themselves. Yes. But I also want us to ensure that they thrive in either our institutions or their place of work, and that if they come to us marginalized, they don’t leave further marginalized. And so that’s one thing I would say is that, yes, I hear some of the same things that have been said about what students say, but also this idea of, I feel othered in a space because it’s predominantly white and people want me to make a bigger issue out of it than I want to.
Henry Sanders:
Or you’re the person of color and they come asking [crosstalk 00:41:41].
Damira Grady:
Or you tokenized. We like to put students on panels and have them teach us about their identities and they don’t know. These babies don’t know. So it’s traumatizing. I’ve seen a lot of real time, I call it trauma voyeurism of it. Yes. I’ve seen it happening. And I’m a disrupter, so of course I shut it down. But it’s a real thing that happens in spaces.
Henry Sanders:
And I love that because you have to educate sometimes our allies and our friends that yes, we care about these issues, but I’m black, but it’s not my only thing. I’m more than just a black guy. I understand that you’re learning about this, but I don’t want to answer these questions every day about what you’re going through. That’s not my job.
Damira Grady:
Yes. And I have a 19 year old and a 17 year old. And Gen Z, the data shows that they don’t want to come to institutions and have to go to cultural centers. They don’t want that experience anymore. And it was great that it existed for me, for other people who have gone through higher education, but they want that experience embedded. They want to be immersed. They want to learn alongside allies and advocates. They don’t want to have to be segregated anymore in spaces. They want to be integrated.
Henry Sanders:
So now I’m going to start with you with this question that I asked. I’m starting with you. Are we good now?
Damira Grady:
Yes.
Henry Sanders:
But it actually deals with representation. So I think this is a really good question for you. How do you push back against comments from leadership staff, et cetera, who might say, we just hire or promote the best person for the job, regardless of race or gender. Meaning representation’s not a big deal. They look for the best person. How would you answer that question?
Damira Grady:
Well, I will say first this, that at UW Oshkosh, I stopped using the word people of color and I say structurally excluded, because I want to highlight just even in academia, especially this idea of how the structure is built, how disciplines have been built, how the idea of research, the whole structure. And I constantly interrogate it. And I have been in spaces where I have started to ask… the same way we critique someone’s CV, their research, I want to critique their immersion into DEI. I want them to be able to use language that’s equitable. I want us to be able to understand that someone’s lived experience can have the same weight as someone’s degree. Oftentimes, I will tell you, I’d rather have someone with a lived experience than someone who has a PhD, went for two weeks, did some research in a community and then came back and wrote a book about it.
Damira Grady:
I don’t want that person. I want the person that has that lived experience and figured out a way to get through higher education while they took care of their three kids, wasn’t able to find a mentor to do research, but was able to get a PhD. It took them seven years and now they’re applying for a job and we can say there was an opportunity gap. And that’s what I challenge people. And I want people to think about the opportunity gap. And if we know representation matters in terms of how students interact with our institution, and we have a mission of making students global citizens. To give representation here, we are going to have to rethink and interrogate the opportunity gap that has not only existed for our students, but for our faculty and employees.
Damira Grady:
How do we tool and skill people up? How do we make our places of employment, regardless of your higher education or not, accessible to people? An example of this is, as a licensed counselor in the State of Wisconsin, you have to go get a master’s degree. You have to do a practicum while you’re in school, then you have to take a test and do 3000 hours. Oftentimes, you have to pay someone to supervise you to get your 3000 hours to become licensed as a counselor. And one thing I’ve heard over and over in Oshkosh community, not just our institution is, we don’t have diverse counselors. We don’t have black counselors in our pipeline and that’s not true. We need to build a pipeline. So that’s where I put my energy. And I’ve worked with our HR to actually put money aside to just respond to that, respond to the opportunity gap. If we have candidates who we know are in our pipeline, who we could recruit, we’ve put money behind holding salary lines for faculty addressing inequities and pay.
Damira Grady:
I have accountability measures where I use to provide professional development dollars for faculty and staff to have those same opportunities they weren’t afforded in their educational experience. And so I will tell you, as you can tell, I can sometimes be a lot. People have stopped saying that to me, they don’t because I have a response and I have an actionable thing and strategy we can deploy right away to address the very thing that they’re saying. And so my pushback is then, I would go back to your why. So if you’re pushing back on… even looking at the structure of how you hire people, why do you even want to do EDI, DEI? Why is it important to you? If you’re not even setting the pre-conditions for there to be equal opportunity? And if you’re not even understanding who’s your most vulnerable population in terms of either racialized identity, gender, sexuality, et cetera, then you’re not even positioning yourself to respond in real time to what representation needs to look like and building for your pipeline.
Damira Grady:
In our community, in Oshkosh, we have seen an increase in Hispanic and Hmong families. So how are we building a pipeline for students to UW Oshkosh, but also for employment. On our position descriptions for my division, I make everybody put bilingual Spanish and Hmong as a requirement. Let’s start putting things that are going to give opportunity to individuals who are in our pipeline and address the very thing I’m wanting to address in terms of getting representation here to serve the students. So that’s one thing. And I’ve also worked with our system to include some language about what lived experience could mean in terms of someone’s professional experience. And so we’ve added a caveat around professional experience and included some lived experience verbiage, and components of professional development that people can put on their CV when they apply for positions.
Henry Sanders:
Yeah. Again, I’m really enjoying this conversation. And I always have this debate with my friends and actually Rob on my team, we have this debate sometimes too. And I will say, if I’m going to hire a lawyer, I want to actually have a lawyer who’s actually been in the courtroom, not someone that just taught a law class. So the degree means something, but at the end of the day, it’s about, have you had the experience with the job? So I love what you’re are saying. I want to let people know, they’ve asked a lot of good questions. We have about 12 minutes here. So it shows that we should be doing these panels more often that this is needed. And I will try to get to where we can, but if we can’t get to you, email us and we’ll try to get the answers if we can from the team, this panel at some other time. But Jessica, do you want to answer the same question?
Jessica Franco-Morales:
Yeah. I mean, I’ll just add to what’s already been said. I think lived experience is critical. However, it’s not necessarily something that’s valued, at least from my professional experience in the professional world. I think what is valued and this may offend some people, but I think what is valued is oftentimes we give a lot of leverage to mediocrity, to be honest. The idea that someone who is doing an okay job and it sticks around long enough is the person who is looked to for promotion opportunities, leadership opportunities. While someone who may not have as much professional experience, but has done an amazing job in the short time that they’ve been there or brings endless amount of lived experiences as we’ve discussed is really important. How those, in this case, those two candidates are looked at… Again, I feel like just the way that the structure is built and the hiring structure is built, there’s more weight given to these values that don’t, in my opinion, really give a great idea of a person’s potential or what a person can bring to the table.
Jessica Franco-Morales:
It’s more so this person has done all right, they’ve been here long enough. Why don’t we go ahead and just offer them the position. So that I’ve really struggled with. And then also the next thing aside from the lived experiences, representation is important. We shouldn’t stop there. Like Dr. Grady said, we shouldn’t wait for representation to act. And we also need to understand that representation does not equal inclusivity and belonging. Adding more people of color to a predominantly white institution, predominantly white businesses without changing the environment, without changing the structure, without making it livable really only creates further oppression for the people of color that in this case, the organization has hired.
Jessica Franco-Morales:
Again, kind of tying it back to the original question, what are some of the questions that organizations should ask as they embark on the DEI journey is what is your commitment level? What are you willing to change about the policies, practices, and procedures? And how are you willing to support the folks doing this work? We have to think beyond representation and really interrogate how we are going to change the environment and systems to make this a good experience for the people that we’re bring in
Henry Sanders:
I’m laughing and taking notes at the same time. I’m laughing because you’re saying stuff that just should be common sense, but I know it’s not. And so it’s just powerful stuff to hear this. And I’m really enjoying this conversation. I hope-
Jessica Franco-Morales:
I’m just keeping it real.
Henry Sanders:
I love that. And you know what, people who are watching need that because they can rarely go somewhere where they can get information that’s real that they can actually act on. And these are all practical things that you all are saying. Do you want to answer the same question Raiya, about this?
Raiya Sankari-Diaz:
What I’d like to add to this, I think everything has been so well said. But hiring for passion and potential is imperative. So we have so many opportunities to do on the job training and to really assess the life work and the life experience piece of things. And so when we examine this, and this is part of what the City of Green Bay is doing as well, really looking at passion and potential and honing in on where people can learn. And I know this has been said in so many different spaces over and over, but skills can be taught. Is the passion there? Are the soft skills there? Are people communicators? Are people ready to learn what that means? Are people prepared to walk into a space with a continuous learning perspective? And so that has to come from all sides of the board. That has to come from the hiring committees down to the people walking into the roles.
Raiya Sankari-Diaz:
People have to be interested in education. People have to be interested in this continuous learning approach, this growth culture. It needs to be part of the mentality as we walk through these different instances, and pulling apart some of those processes, really digging in. I know so many different organizations have not revamped or are just starting to examine. Ask yourself, why are we doing it like this? Does this really make sense? Does this fit 2022? Are we being agile, I think, is the question. Are we being agile to the needs of our organization and the needs of our community? And so agility has a lot to do with it when it comes to processes and policy, I think.
Henry Sanders:
Yeah. I love the agility. I love that. We have five minutes here. Do you want to answer this question, Nick, if not, I’m going to get to on the…
Nick Ivory:
Oh, I can just speak to in my profession, I think the lived experience is what gets me further with kids. And I may have more time on my hands outside of a classroom teacher, but the lived experience, because I can have those conversations with those youngsters. But it gives me the upper hand on getting questions answered, or kids feeling comfortable enough to come to me to talk about certain things that they wouldn’t talk about outside of that relationship. So that’s why I think relationships are extremely important when it comes to this work. But the only way that I could get into this work as a black man is to attain degree after degree, after degree, because I didn’t have enough of this to be able to get here has always been the thing. So I knew I had to push through with more education in order to get in that space. But the lived experience, I think, and I know just from me being in these positions gets me a lot further than what my degrees will with our students.
Henry Sanders:
Okay. So I’m going to go through this quick. So I’m just going to get one question to each of you then try to move on. So I’m not picking any favorites, so I don’t want Dr. Grady getting mad at me already, so I just want to make sure-
Damira Grady:
I’m fine going last. I like being the competition.
Henry Sanders:
I’m just picking on you. What can businesses do to support their people of color? Who was talking earlier about protecting? That was you Damira, right? Protecting people.
Damira Grady:
Yeah. Again, I think the strategy needs to match the situation. I don’t think there’s one silver bullet for every organization to attempt to duplicate what’s happening and call it best practices. I would say what I’ve seen work in Milwaukee, and I sit on a couple boards still in Milwaukee and what will work here is drastically different. And so one thing I try to do is, remember that nobody wants to feel like they’re the affirmative action hire or singled out because of their race. So be very mindful, intentional about that. And I also tell people that affinity groups that don’t happen organically is work. So if you would like to provide opportunity for people to gather break bread, and share resources, give money, give time, give course release if you work in higher education for people to gather and have community and find support. Find mentors for people, meet with them, even if they’re not in your direct line and ask them, where do they see themselves 5, 10 years? Help them professional develop. Figure out what questions they don’t know to ask and tell them the information.
Damira Grady:
Also, I encourage people to continue to do climate surveys, but be intentional. Do intentional sampling with your minorities or structurally excluded folks.
Henry Sanders:
So we have two minutes here. So I’m going to go around and let each of you just say your parting words so we can wrap this up. This has been a fabulous, fabulous panel. We need to do this again, because it was so insightful and I was having fun. It’s like a family conversation. So Raiya, do you want to have the parting words for the group, for the audience?
Raiya Sankari-Diaz:
Well, I just want to say how much I appreciate the opportunity to join everybody today. And I appreciate the audience being here and really spending some time digging through some of these huge concepts with us. This is extremely important work that we’re doing. And as organizations continue to muddle through some of this and learn the ropes of this, I guess my advice would be, please lean into resources, continue to ask questions, have those crucial conversations. I don’t want to call them difficult, but they certainly are crucial. So continue to have those crucial conversations. Do not be afraid to roll up your sleeves and get the work done and to bring in key stakeholders and players in order to do this right. Instead of doing it fast, I can’t say enough for that. So Henry, thank you for having me here. And I appreciate this opportunity to join everybody on the panel today.
Henry Sanders:
Yeah. News Lab and USA Today Network, we all appreciate you being here. We really do. Nick, do you want to… final words, my friend?
Nick Ivory:
Thank you guys for having me on this panel. It was wonderful for me. I really appreciate it. But I’ll just say, in this work, be open, honest, vulnerable, and ready to listen without defending.
Henry Sanders:
I like that. Jessica.
Jessica Franco-Morales:
Yeah. Again, thank you for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity. The Northeast Wisconsin region is changing and it’s changing drastically and it’s not going to stop. The Latino community is changing. We have refugee, asylum seekers, folks moving from neighboring states up. And so we have no choice, but to be responsive, respond to these changing needs of the community. For educational institutions and businesses, my charge to you all is to embrace your disruptors, as Dr. Grady previously called them. We’re gifts to the organization, to the community. Don’t embrace people of color just when they fit that respectable box that oftentimes folks try to put us in. Embrace all of who we are, because that is the only way that we will make actionable, sustainable and impactful change. So that is my charge for members of the Northeast Wisconsin community. Thank you for having me.
Henry Sanders:
Thank you for being here. Damira, you.
Damira Grady:
Yeah, real quick. I want to thank the panelists and you for this family conversation. And I just want to remind people that I think of this work as a mile race. I used to be a runner, and I could run a mile. I won’t brag, but under six minutes. I was really good. But now I probably run a mile around 13 plus minutes and have to walk some of it. And it really comes down to my stamina sometimes. And I think when flash points happens in our communities and our country, we position ourselves to respond or we respond by giving money and resources towards these initiatives to start.
Damira Grady:
But again, I want to remind people, it does not have to take a crisis for us to position ourselves and be ready. So I want you to walk away and think about how do you get ready for the people who are thinking about moving to our region, who are finishing their degrees at any of the schools in our region in the Fox Valley, and are ready to come and be a contributing member to our society. How do we make sure that they come here and can thrive here?
Henry Sanders:
So I want to thank you all of our wonderful panelist. I hope you enjoyed this. And again, we apologize for not getting to all your wonderful questions. Again, you can email us and we’ll try to answer them the best we can. Also, I want to thank our partners at USA Today Network, News Lab, and hopefully we can do more of these Home is Here series more. And if you want more of this content for Fox Valley 365, we also have our men’s leadership summit coming up in April. It’s a virtual all people of color talking about these type of issues. So if you get the chance come check us out. But again, we thank all of you for joining us. Again, thank you all the panelists. You were absolutely fabulous, and we hope you all have a good week and stay safe.
Raiya Sankari-Diaz:
Thank you.
Nick Ivory:
Thank you.
Damira Grady:
Thank you.
