Diversity
Human Diversity in Education for a Sustainable and Secure Future

Chairs: Dan Durett, National Council for Science and the Environment; Annemarie Versfeld, Principle, Versfeld & Nkosi, Johannesburg, South Africa;

Presenter:  Kristie King, Diversity Manager, Environmental Careers Organization

This breakout session will explore strategies for increasing ethnic, cultural, gender, geographic and disciplinary diversity in the environmental enterprise.  The session will use a variety of facilitation methods to engage and sustain participant s interaction with one another and the subject matter of diversity. Discussion will center on identifying successful strategies. Parallel presentations and dialogue will be tasked with ascertaining answers to the question: "Why are certain efforts successful?" Co-Chairs envision a lively, yet focused 3.5 hours.

A key outcome is the development of a set of recommendations for building on local successes in increasing diversity. Participants, working in a collegial collaborative session format, will also use the recommendations they develop as the basis for framing a national strategy with significant international aspects. Substantive refinement of the national strategy will occur in post-conference communication using e-mail, conference calls, and posting of session results on the NCSE web site. As needed during this process, it is envisioned that a limited number of face-to-face meetings may take place at the NCSE Washington office.

In approaching the design of this session, the Co-Chairs were guided by the perspective that: "The expertise is in the room and not at the head of the table." This statement of led to a number of important questions such as: Why are you participating in the session? What are your expectations? Related questions, designed to connect participant s involvement include exploring answers to the following general set of questions:

1. What would you like to get out of the session?  
2. How does the international perspective comport with this dimension on diversity in America.  
3. How can the session serve as an opportunity to synthesize relatively quickly the recommendations and then give strong focus on how to move forward toward their implementation?  
4. How can the various contexts of the education enterprise (K-12, College & University, Public, K-Grey,) serve as a fertile field for advancing diversity?

How can the session best capitalize upon the extended dialogue on diversity while simultaneously recognizing the goals and ideals of all that are involved and/or affected?

Visit the diversity pages of Our 2003 Conference Sponsors:

American Chemistry Council

AT&T

The DOW Chemical Company

Environmental Literacy Council

National Environmental Education & Training Foundation

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

National Park Service 

Progress Energy

3M

USDA Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service

USDA Forest Service

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development

U.S. Geological Survey

Walt Disney World

Resources:

• Discussion and Attendees
  Click here to join the online discussion and view the list of attendees registered for this breakout session.   
  
  Important resources for studying diversity are numerous. These include many international declarations, reports and other documents issued by such organizations as the United National.
  
  Kroeber, Albert L., & Clyde Kluckhohn. 1952/1963. Culture: a critical review of concepts and definitions. New York: Vintage/Random House, p. 311.
  
  Parla, JoAnn, Educating Teachers For Cultural And Linguistic Diversity: A Model For All Teachers. New York State Association for Bilingual Education Journal v9 p1-6, Summer 1994
  
  Saville-Troike, M. (1992). "Cultural maintenance and "vanishing" languages." In C. Kramsch & S. McConnell-Ginet (Eds.), (pp. 148-155). Boston: D. C. Heath.   

• 
  The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
  http://www.unesco.org/culture/pluralism/diversity/html_eng/index_en.shtml

  The Culture in the Neighborhood Project http://www.unesco.org/culture/pluralism/neighbourhood/html_eng/index_en.shtml

  Weidman, H.H. "The transcultural view: Prerequisite to interethnic (intercultural) communication in medicine " Social Science and Medicine 13B(2), 85-87, 1979.
  

  COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

  Adelphi University Honors College Diversity http://academics.adelphi.edu/honcol/diversity.shtml

  Alabama A & M University HR Handbook 

  www.aamu.edu/Hr/hr_handbook.html

  Cornell University Diversity & Inclusiveness, Statement on www.ohr.cornell.edu/policies/policiesAlpha.html

  Florida A&M University

  Spelman College

  Teaching Diversity at a Historically Black College By Beverly Guy-Sheftall
  Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women's Studies, Spelman College.

  Exploring diversity at historically black institutions may seem to be an oxymoron, but only because of the way in which curriculum transformation projects have traditionally been conceptualized. These projects frequently assume an institution whose students and faculty of color constitute a minority on campus. A fundamental premise of these efforts to bring about a more inclusive curriculum is that white students and faculty have not been prepared to deal adequately with an increasingly multicultural world. http://www.diversityweb.org/Digest/W97/HBCU.html

  University System of Maryland

  The Diversity Initiative (DI) is a comprehensive, campus-wide endeavor devoted to enhancing and promoting diversity at the University of Maryland via the development and implementation of campus-wide programs related to diversity, broadly conceptualized. The Initiative has an Advisory Committee that is comprised of faculty, staff, and students from across the campus, as well as sub-committees (with the same diverse composition of members), that focus the Initiative's diversity programming efforts on particular populations or issues as is deemed necessary and/or otherwise important to the campus community. 

  Current sub-committees include: Faculty Relations, Staff Relations, Student Relations,public relations/marketing, research and evaluation, Multicultural Educational Technology, and ad hoc. These bodies meet periodically to decide whether or not to continue existing and/or to create new diversity programming that showcases the benefits of diversity in higher education and beyond. 

  OTHER RESOURCES
  American Chemical Society

• • Diversity Prme  
  • ACS Scholars Program  
  • Committee on MA  
  • MA Program  
  • Women Chemists Committee  
  • Younger Chemists Committee

   

  Consider the following conferences later this year& .

  25-29 July 2004, São Paulo, Brazil
  IAU/University of São Paulo 
  12th General Conference
  The Wealth of Diversity 

  The Role of Universities in Promoting Dialogue and Development

   

  http://www.unesco.org/iau