Going the Wrong Way
By Rosalyn Taylor O’Neale
A recent article in USA Today (“Roommate Concerns Fed By Facebook”) is the kind of article that necessitates a response. It describes parents requesting roommate selection changes for their dormitory-bound offspring before they set foot on the campus.
Parents are petitioning roommate changes based on Facebook profiles, which include some personal information and potential roommate photographs. Robin Berkowitz-Smith of Syracuse University says, “Racism, religion and sexual orientation are the top three concerns...”
At the core is a fear of the impact of diversity—the notion that an eighteen-year-old who rooms with someone of a different race, religion or sexual orientation will be harmed by the experience, the intimate interpersonal contact.
Looking at the dearth of homogenous experiences many young people encounter in the first eighteen years—including residential demographics with ethnic and religious segregation and exclusion—combined with the socio-economically and racially homogenous school systems (especially prevalent in college prep education) and it's obvious we're going in the wrong direction.
Instead of preparing the incoming workforce for the global and diverse realities of future colleagues who come from every religious, racial, ethnic and class background imaginable, we’re preparing them to learn how to become comfortable with people they’re already comfortable with. And to the mother concerned about the psychological and sanitary consequences I say, “Good luck finding an environment – military, sports, corporate or collegiate without LGBT individuals!”
The real tragedy is the fact that:
a) We know that the more personally familiar we become with members of groups we view as 'different' the more tolerant and ultimately inclusive we become. The student who is immersed in the daily activity of addressing diversity develops strength, character and leadership skills.
b) And the true value of diversity “[is the] opportunity for everyone in an organization to learn from each other”. This skill - the ability to see value in what others know translates directly into productivity increases and more creative outcomes.
College officials and professors often ask what changes to make to their curriculum in order to prepare students for our world. Well it's time to tell them that one of the most critical skills needed in every industry is Cultural Competence. We need a future workforce that is adaptive and able to identify, understand, appreciate and integrate diversity. It will be a tragedy if the class of 2011 is less comfortable with others in these times of true globalization.
Maybe our institutions of higher learning should be encouraged to create diverse real-world experiences as early as possible in their students’ academic life, because we're recruiting for high GPA's secondarily to high DIA’s (diversity and inclusion aptitude).
I am convinced that as global workforce leaders we have a fiscal and moral responsibility to intervene and educate college and university personnel (as well as our neighbors and family members) about what we 'really' need in tomorrow’s workforce.
We must:
- Recognize and examine mental modes, biases and prejudices (denying or ignoring them will not help).
- View the university as one of our children’s primary diversity/inclusion educators. Teaching them to fear, misunderstand or marginalize others will be a costly mistake in the global workplace.
- Help our corporate leaders share diversity and Inclusion knowledge with university leaders as routinely as they have contributed R&D and technology information.
- Insure that government leaders partner with educational institutions to develop global and local diversity/inclusion internships.
- Talk with college-bound family and friends about the importance of growing intellectually, technically, socially and culturally. Model the behaviors of developing cultural competency skills (See Miller’s)
Whether we believer parents have the right to select their children’s playmates or college dorm-mates is not the issue. Don’t we have a responsibility to prepare our future workforce for the future or, are we content to continue going the wrong way?
Conference panelist Rosalyn Taylor O’Neale is an internationally acclaimed speaker, author, and consultant. She recently released her first business book, 7Keys 2Success: Unlocking The Passion For Diversity.
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