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Expectations: Leadership, Dialogue and Continuing Commitment to Diversity Promotion

Beverlee Kissick Ph.D. and Saeed Khan Ph.D. Kansas State University at Salina

Introduction:

An individual’s growth is linked to the growth of the society to which she or he belongs. As our society becomes increasingly diverse the success of each person becomes increasingly intertwined with the growth of the whole society. The following quote from George Land’s Grow or Die [1] attests to this interdependence of the individual and the collective, “In a multicellular relationship or in a cultural group, cell and Man respond in a like manner, not only extending the self, but performing acts and making products that facilitate the growth of the organism as a whole.”

For several years we have been concerned with understanding diversity, teaching diversity and developing diversity skills [2]. Even those who understand the great benefits of diversity and passionately promote it will accede to the difficulty of moving forward with diversity issues. The complexities of diversity become apparent through the differences among people. These differences include visible components such as food, clothing, language and physical features; and invisible components like values, beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, assumptions and communication styles. These latter and more subtle dimensions can be described as hidden or submerged. In order for one to truly appreciate diversity, one needs to probe deeply into the submerged portion as well as the overt. What follows is an attempt to classify promotional efforts, and to assess the coverage of diversity issues by these efforts.

In a previous effort to categorize diversity promotion activities at the College of Technology and Aviation (COTA) of Kansas State University (K-State), Kissick and Khan [3] resorted to a system of classification that addressed four different levels of concern. The areas of concern identified were as follows: (1) personal level (how do I feel about those who are different?); (2) interpersonal level (how do I behave with regard to people who are different?); (3) institutional and organizational level (what are the politics, treatment, behavior, procedures, and policies toward different groups of people?); and (4) cultural or societal level (how do we broaden our view of what is right and good?) [4]. The goal of this first classification was to study the effectiveness of the Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society of Engineering Education

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Saeed, K., & Kissick, B. (2004, June), Expectations: Leadership, Dialogue, And A Continuing Commitment To Diversity Promotion Paper presented at 2004 Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--13535