Hi everyone! Welcome to the prep video for our in-person meeting next week on implicit bias training.
So, a little background: in Extension we actually have some diversity and inclusion goals that you may or may not be aware of.
The four goals: Access and Representation;
we really are interested in building a workforce that reflects the diversity of the population of the state.
This includes members of diverse groups in all aspects of Extension,
which includes decision-making, policy bodies that shape the organization, volunteers, etc.
The Environment & Climate is
in regards to our organizational climate. You want to create, promote, and sustain the ideals of
diversity, equity and inclusion throughout Extension. We want to eliminate harassment and discrimination at all levels.
Our Programs & Products will ensure that new, diverse, and historically underserved audiences have equitable access
and participate
in our events, our programs, and activities. And our Special Initiatives,
hopefully are innovative, they're addressing current issues that will help us reach new, diverse, and historically underserved folks.
So, how are we meeting these goals? Well, back in
2016, I put together a group of folks, about 20 folks, to develop this logic map
to help guide my work. And we focused on this one big objective. The objective being
Extension will address equity, diversity and inclusion issues
through developing mindset and skills and by eliminating
institutional barriers.
And through this process of this map, and I'll bring it next week, we have five big areas that we're focusing on - well
I'm actually focusing on - that's about institutionalizing and accountability, human capital,
leveraging resources,
training, and creating a space for open communication.
So, I'm using this logic map just to guide my work in my annual plan of work.
For access and representation,
we're working hard on diversifying our advisory councils, our advisory boards, our Extension committees.
We're hiring
staff in new positions, we are improving our diversity in management positions,
the faculty positions, etc.
For Environment and Climate,
we have a variety of Community of Practices where people can learn and share information about working in Indian country as well as
Latino communities. We've changed our promotion guidelines to incorporate people's work
building relationships with
traditionally and historically underserved audiences. Our Foundations for Success program of professional development
has an underlying theme of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Our programs and products are varied. There's so much going on that
It's really hard to list. We know that we have our Global Initiatives program where there's work in Morocco, Kenya, and Guatemala.
With the idea that our work efforts abroad will be improved, as well as our ability to work domestically as our populations are
diversifying here in the state of Minnesota and nationally. We have programs that focus on mental illness, the
LGBTQ community, Hmong population, Latino, so forth. A lot of work is going on across Extension.
Special Initiatives Implicit Bias training is one of them.
But let me first talk about our impact collaborative, our civil rights training, as well as our issue areas.
So our impact collaborative - we have eight programs that
participated in this eXtension event in Ohio where we were part of a design-a-thon. Where we're focusing on programs and
issues about the middle-aged white women in leadership and family development.
How are we going to change that? How are we going to do a better job in our
recruitment, hiring, interview process in Extension overall? Leslee Mason is leading this process through the human resources department
here. How are we going to diversify our volunteer groups? How are we going to work better with our sovereign nations?
How are we going to make sure that our youth are better represented across demographics?
So we have these eight projects going on across Extension, across the center's. And my role is to just
help coordinate them and find ways to kind of leverage resources and learn from each other.
Many of you have participated in the Civil Rights training.
I'm not sure if you know about our program review Beyond Civil Rights
process. Every year we take a region of the states,
and we look at the current demographics and the projected demographics. We compare that with the audience's we're serving today,
that we're working with today. We identify that gap and come up with action plans to minimize that gap.
What do we need to do differently to make sure that people know about our programs in Extension?
What do we need to do differently to design our programs
with the cultural lens and culturally driven?
So, we're working hard on that. And the online training
we have five sessions or five topical areas that you can see here
as well as three different forums. And every night
I get an email of the conversation that's going on in the online training. And if you haven't been in there in a while,
I highly encourage you to go look at the discussion.
It's very insightful and very encouraging.
You can actually set it up where you're getting to automatic email. So, the Civil-Rights online training
is something that we expect everyone to complete by the end of this calendar year.
But this training will continue throughout all years because we believe in this and this is something that we want to surpass.
This is the lowest common denominator in our mind.
The Issue Areas, we have three: clean energy, food systems, and promoting youth educational success.
The common thread within each of these issue areas is
to reach new and/or underserved audiences.
Besides this contributing to some sort of cross-center work.
The reason here is because these issues are big. They're wicked. They're complicated.
They require multiple disciplines,
multiple approaches, and multiple lenses to be successful. The leaders of these issue areas are starting a new Community of Practice:
Equity Lens.
How do you use an equity lens when you're programming? When you're developing? When you're evaluating? and so on.
Also our professional development, this is not a new initiative, but I did want to highlight
what's going on in the professional development area. From our program conference and staff conference to our monthly webinars to monthly
professional development newsletter.
You'll see that
there's this underlying thread all the way through no matter what from equity, justice,
diversity and inclusion, and that's a big
thanks to Mary Ann Hennen to make sure that this is happening. And
finally, the next new initiative is Implicit Bias, and that's all of you.
Thank you so much for being involved, for your commitment, to putting in your time, your energy, your expertise in this process.
Just a reminder our charge
is that we're going to be contributing to that logic map, to that overall
objective statement:
How Extension will address diversity, equity and inclusion issues through developing mindset and skills and by eliminating
institutional barriers? Our work is
contributing to that. We want to make sure in our work that we have a local voice.
That our staff, our educators, our faculty are driving the training.
So, if you speak to two people, and they speak to two people, and so on and so on,
there's gonna be so many more people that are part of this process and that reach out to others in
Extension that will help this program, this training be successful.
We also want to make sure that this training has some online and on-the-ground
components as we know that our challenge is, since we're across the state, some has to be online. And
on-the-ground in-person training has a much greater impact and potential for change.
So once again, this is us.
Different roles, different degrees of commitment different degrees of time availability, different degrees of freedom in your work schedule.
My goal is that
when you develop your plan of work this coming here, that
you'll be able to include this in your plan of work and talk to your supervisor about this.
And if I need to talk to anyone, just let me know, but we all believe in this work.
We all value this work. So thank you.
Based upon the past couple calls and our planning meaning, folks have agreed to
these ways of being for our process.
Doesn't mean we can't add more next week,
but we really want to make sure we respect and honor our differences, that our conversations are confidential,
that were paying attention, we're patient, we're learning, we're listening, assume that we all have good intentions here,
acknowledge the impact of what we say. Basically think before you speak and
speak from your own experiences, your own truth. We're not interested in secondhand information.
And we want to be
honest and very productive about making mistakes. We know that when we make a mistake that's when learning can happen.
We also know when there's some sort of emotional reaction,
learning can happen.
So, our current topics that we're gonna focus on is we're gonna focus on the program
process: design, implementation, evaluation; a hiring process:
how implicit bias play into that? Onboarding: when we're working with newer employees.
We tend to hire for diversity, or we want to hire for diversity, yet
how do we onboard for diversity rather than onboard for conformity? I don't have that answer.
Hopefully we will be able to help Mary Ann in this process.
We also have a section that we want to focus on our own self-awareness and re-education. And then finally, feedback. I
really think the feedback, the difficult conversations, the active
bystander component is a common thread throughout everything we do. If we can create a culture of feedback,
I think we can actually have some change. If I ask all of you to call me on my biases,
I think that's where change can happen.
So these are our buckets - we could add more, we could take them away, we can clump them, it's up to us.
Just a reminder we do have a Google site with a whole bunch of resources. Feel free to add your own up there,
but I encourage you to preview,
peruse,
get lost in these resources, because we really want to take advantage of
information, activities that are there that are working already,
rather than recreating the wheel. We will customize and develop where it makes sense.
So, we want to be on the same page in regards to
definitions so here's a definition that we are currently using for Implicit Bias. It really is about our attitudes, our
stereotype that affect our understanding, our actions, and our decisions in an unconscious way.
You know it can be positive, or it can be negative.
But it really is something that's done
involuntarily, and it's done without your awareness or your intentional control.
It's really hard cognitively to catch yourself when you're in the middle of a bias, but someone else can catch you on that and
that's where that feedback culture becomes imperative, I believe, in this work.
What about a mindset?
What do I mean by a mindset? Here's a quick little Google search. It really is the established set of attitudes found by someone.
It's kind of your fixed mental attitude. Your disposition that
predetermines your responses or your interpretations of a situation.
Right? We're both gonna interpret
the same situation a little differently.
So, that mindset affects how we interpret things.
Kind of an inclination, a habit. I think what's important, though, is do you have a growth mindset or fixed mindset?
We're looking for a growth mindset. This is the opportunity for us to change.
And then micro-aggressions. This is really a tough thing for folks, right? It's everyday.
It's regular.
It just becomes something that you expect. And it really is behavior,
comments,
things you see in the environment, or not see in the environment, that really have this negative
message. It's derogatory.
There's these
insults or flavor of insult. You may not think that you're being insulting to someone,
but the person who's interpreting it is.
And so I think this is something that we want to keep in mind.
And micro-aggressions really stem from racial micro-aggressions.
People are talking more about micro-aggressions in regards to
gender, weight,
religion and so forth. There's a great website,
I think it's called microaggressions.com, where people are sharing their aggressions that they experience.
So, by next week I'm going to ask each of you to think of these questions. So reflect on your own bias.
How has it affected your work?
Think about the ways you have experienced bias from others, and how did you manage that?
This is a real important one: if you could take a moment, today,
when did your mindset about equity, justice and inclusion start to form?
Is this something new, or is this something that's been a part of your life? And who influenced your mindset?
So, with that I'd like to say thank you, and I look forward to seeing you all next week. Have a super duper day! Bye.
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét