The Great Rollback is here. The phrase refers to Big Tech starting to slash some of the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs that were implemented shortly after the murder of George Floyd. Most recently, Zoom announced that it laid off its DEI team. Google and Meta have started to defund their DEI programs, and funding to Black founders continues to dip. Lawsuits have been filed targeting DEI programs, forcing companies to now hide their inclusion efforts while billionaires are arguing on X about whether DEI initiatives are discriminatory or not.
It’s clear that this year will be a turning point for DEI, especially as states continue to ban affirmative action measures and with a presidential election just around the corner. Here are all the stories you need to read to stay updated on the developments regarding tech’s ongoing DEI backlash.
This list will be updated, so keep checking back.
Read about the AAER vs. Fearless Fund lawsuit
In August 2023, the American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER), founded by Edward Blum, the man who helped overturn affirmative action in education, filed a lawsuit against the venture fund Fearless Fund for offering business grants to Black women. The AAER alleged that the grant discriminates against white and Asian American founders. The Fund and AAER are battling the case in court, and currently, Fearless Fund is barred from awarding grants to any more Black women.
On Instagram, Arian Simone, the CEO of the Fund, said that the lawsuit has financially hurt the fund, as it lost millions in potential commitments and faced staff cuts, low cash run, expensive legal bills and threatening letters. The impact of the lawsuit, however, could go much deeper than just affecting one fund and could have ripple effects throughout the ecosystem.
But Fearless Fund isn’t the only one being sued. The Small Business Administration, Minority Business Development Agency and even smaller companies like Hello Alice are being targeted and sued for trying to implement diverse grant schemes.
Read what critics are saying about DEI
Anti-DEI rhetoric has dramatically increased. A lot of big names in venture, like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Y Combinator founder Paul Graham, have shared sentiments against DEI, while only a few, like Mark Cuban, have expressed support for it. This division is bound to last and only get deeper as billionaires continue wielding their power — and influence — to make their opinions heard.
At the same time, there are many who are indeed trying to change and become more inclusive. Change takes time, though, and some of the promises made haven’t been fulfilled.
Read how governments are handling DEI
California passed a bill last year that will soon require venture capital firms in the state to reveal the diversity breakdown of the founders they back. Some herald the bill as progress in a notoriously opaque industry.
However, California is not the only state looking to address diversity. Massachusetts is looking to pass a bill that would extend workplace laws to the venture industry; New York City venture firms informally got together to create an alliance to back more diversity. There is excitement surrounding these initiatives, but also some hesitation.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who is co-chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, has been trying to pass a bill in Congress that would make endowment investing more transparent. He’s hit a snag and said that a few educational institutions in the nation have been outright “nasty” toward him and his efforts.
DEI has become a hotbed issue in red states, as many have taken to banning affirmative action measures. Many tech hubs are actually just blue cities, meaning more liberal-leaning cities, within red, or more conservative-leaning, states. These include Tulsa, Atlanta, Miami and Austin, and all are at the forefront of helping to make tech more accessible to people outside of the Bay Area. But will their governing states put a dagger in all that progress?
Gov. Ron DeSantis, for example, is a leader in passing anti-DEI measures. From book banning to speech restrictions, he is also one of a few governors taking aim at ESG investing, proposing a move that could affect diverse fund managers in the state of Florida.
On a national level, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) has taken to finding out more about what is happening in tech. It recently wrote letters to OpenAI and the Department of Labor to see how the tech industry is looking to support Black talent during this time.
OpenAI actually did respond to the CBC, and we got the scoop on what happened next.
Read the latest DEI funding data
Funding to Black founders has continued to dip since 2020, and last year was no different.
Read the DEI view from abroad
Industries abroad look to the States, including when it comes to how marginalized founders are treated. Stay up-to-date on how global venture ecosystems are handling DEI and what it says about progress in the U.S.
France is a notoriously tricky ecosystem for Black Founders. Learn how the country is navigating one of the most opaque venture landscapes for people of color.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
In the spirit of Pride Month and as conversations around the evolving landscape of diversity in the workplace continue, I find it crucial to utilize this moment as an opportunity to explore how workplaces can better support LGBTQ+ individuals. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community myself, I’ve experienced firsthand the challenges faced in a workplace environment. I can’t help but reflect on the countless comments that I’ve heard throughout my career – some well-intentioned, others simply insensible – that led me to think it would be easier, and perhaps better for my career, if I kept this part of my identity private. However, joining Xero changed my perception of this entirely.
As I reflect on my coming out experience, it’s safe to say it was truly one of a kind and a monumental moment in my personal and professional journey. To set the scene, picture a 26-year-old man presenting on-stage at a company-wide event, organically slipping a quote from Beyoncé into my discussion. Well, this exact scenario is what led to me spontaneously deciding to disclose to the full room about my sexuality. This light-hearted inclusion went something along the lines of, “And if you didn’t already know, I’m gay.”
Since that day, the support from my colleagues has been nothing short of incredible. This experience also taught me a valuable lesson about the impact organizations and their leaders can have in fostering environments that not only encourage authenticity and differences but actually celebrate them. At Xero, I’ve found myself in a unique position, one that allows me to embrace my sexuality and bring my full, authentic self to work. I was able to achieve this level of comfort due to the uplifting workplace environment and supportive individuals at our organization – a standard that all companies must try and achieve.
Having gone through this experience firsthand, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it takes to cultivate a truly inclusive workplace environment, one where employees don’t keep any part of their identity private and feel comfortable bringing their true selves to work.
Celebrate and embrace diversity year-round
Throughout the year, various occasions lead to heightened recognition of diverse groups — February is Black History Month, March is Women’s History Month and June is Pride Month, among others. Being part of an organization that values these moments as opportunities to celebrate progress, honor history and acknowledge the diverse individuals within an organization is extremely heartwarming.
Every year during Pride Month, I’m reminded of the significance of being part of an organization that proudly supports both my community and me. Many organizations focus solely on symbolic changes like updating social media logos, which hold importance, but efforts shouldn’t stop there. Significance for me is about recognizing the progress we’ve made, reflecting on areas of growth and opportunity and using symbolic efforts, like updating social media logos, to celebrate our achievements.
This feeling of joy and acceptance during Pride Month has led me to ponder: What more can organizations do to extend these important discussions and celebrations beyond just one month a year? Truly inclusive workplaces recognize the value of creating work environments that regularly track and celebrate diversity goals and achievements. While designated months provide great opportunities for additional engagement and recognition, leaders should strive to create a workplace culture that regularly values, acknowledges and celebrates differences.
As a leader, one of the primary ways I try to model this behavior is by broadening conversations beyond work-related topics whenever possible (and appropriate). If we want to encourage individuals to bring their authentic selves to work, we must create space for personal conversations. This includes being vulnerable and open to hearing about your colleague’s personal joys, such as wedding anniversary plans or dreams for the future, in addition to providing opportunities in team meetings or informal gatherings to share and celebrate these occasions. I vividly remember a moment when I shared details about my husband and my wedding anniversary at work and thought to myself, this feels so normal and uplifting to share such an important milestone with my colleagues. This further reaffirmed my thinking about the importance of celebrating these personal aspects of our lives to strengthen connections in the workplace.
As we’ve seen over the past few years, diversity and inclusion have been hot workplace priorities, with many companies increasing attention to these initiatives. While this heightened focus is a great step towards fostering more inclusive workplaces, the journey can’t stop there.
Despite progress made, workplace microaggressions are still a big problem, with nearly one-third of LGBTQ+ employees reporting such experiences. Recognizing the impact of microaggressions, particularly on marginalized communities, is essential both from a personal and professional perspective; in fact, a recent study indicated that 50% of affected individuals would consider leaving their jobs. As leaders, it’s crucial to refrain from treating diversity and inclusion initiatives as checkboxes or objectives with end goals – but rather understand that this landscape will require consistent education and growth to reach true inclusivity.
Effectively addressing microaggressions requires proactive leadership and accountability. Organizations must provide education and awareness initiatives, such as training and workshops, to showcase to employees how to understand and prevent microaggressions. Kroger is an example of an organization that stands out for its commitment to its employees, in part demonstrated through its rigorous diversity and inclusion training programs. Recently, the company published a framework outlining its goals and focus areas for diversity and inclusion, which included diversity training for all employees and tailored programs based on organizational roles. This initiative fostered meaningful changes and helped to promote inclusivity throughout its workforce.
Organizational leaders must lead by example by actively listening and, when appropriate, intervening during uncomfortable situations to educate others. Additionally, it’s important to seek opportunities for personal education and take the time to learn from colleagues about how certain situations or statements make them feel. By doing so, leaders will have greater insights into how to be more empathetic and can better model appropriate and inclusive behavior.
While it may not always be possible (or comfortable) to directly address colleagues who use microaggressions, consider advocating for policies or reporting mechanisms that enable employees to address and report such incidents. Employee resource groups (ERGs), which are employee-led programs within organizations aimed to promote belonging and acceptance within the workforce, are also a great tool to educate and inform others; 91% of organizations with ERGs in place say they have helped to boost company culture. Consider advocating for or offering to lead such groups if they don’t already exist, as they serve as platforms for mutual support and learning.
When assessing candidates for new positions, it’s easy to get stuck in familiar hiring patterns that primarily focus on educational degrees, professional experience and tangible skill sets. But, this should not, and cannot, be the only consideration.
Inclusive hiring extends beyond just hiring people from different backgrounds to meet DEI goals. The process involves reducing biases that have no direct impact on job performance to ensure candidates are all evaluated fairly. In order to do so effectively, organizations should consider taking steps such as removing names and backgrounds from the application process to focus on screening for skills or diversifying who participates in the interview process to avoid having homogenous panels. These steps not only allow for a fairer interview process but also can help companies achieve and maintain DEI goals.
Embracing diversity can help to foster innovation and creativity, while also attracting and retaining top talent. Having a diverse workforce helps to build connection and loyalty, both internally and externally. When you’re in a meeting and take the time to look around, it’s comforting to be around individuals from similar backgrounds or who’ve gone through similar experiences or challenges as you have. Whether it’s someone who grew up in your native country or from the same non-traditional background as you are, having a wide range of diverse individuals who make up the workforce can help employees feel a stronger sense of belonging.
While organizations have undoubtedly made notable strides in strengthening diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and initiatives in recent years, the journey is far from over. There is certainly still room for growth and improvement in creating workplaces that aren’t just welcoming but truly empowering for LGBTQ+ individuals — and it starts with leadership.
The trustee board voted last week in a special meeting to approve two line-item amendments to the university’s budget: one change to divert the $2.3 million in annual DEI spending, and another to carve out the university’s athletics budget from the overall plan to allow for further review of that department’s financial standing.
Hans spoke to reporters following a UNC System Board of Governors meeting Thursday in which the board voted to repeal previous DEI requirements across all of the state’s public universities. Hans emphasized that the new policy will support “student success programs,” and money previously directed toward DEI programs and efforts will be re-prioritized to various success-oriented initiatives at the universities. Regarding what programs might benefit from the reallocated funds, Hans said he doesn’t think “the board necessarily has a specific program in mind,” though he said the efforts should help retain students and assist them as they work toward graduation.
“They’re going to trust the chancellor and their teams on campus to be able to reinvest those funds in something that is working on their campus,” Hans said. “Now, they’re all called different things on every campus and they may have slightly different points of emphasis, because there are different student populations. They’re just different campuses.”
Asked by The News & Observer whether campus safety and police would be considered part of such student-success efforts, Hans replied: “No.”
Hans said the UNC-Chapel Hill board’s action “was not in compliance with the Board of Governors’ policy” on university budgets, which tasks trustees with taking an “up or down vote” on the university chancellor’s recommended spending plan. Hans said that legal counsel for the UNC System advised UNC-Chapel Hill’s counsel that the board did not have the authority to “change line items” in the budget.
But the UNC trustees “chose to disregard that advice,” Hans said.
Board chair asked about compliance in meeting
UNC Board of Trustees Chair John Preyer told The N&O Thursday that the board “always wants to follow system policy.”
“But it’s a shame that the system does not want to redirect the savings on DEI to public safety when our university police department has worked so tirelessly to protect our students,” Preyer said.
The board’s vote last week came weeks after tensions escalated on campus over a pro-Palestinian encampment, resulting in police using force to disband protesters on at least two separate occasions. Trustee Marty Kotis cited the protests as a reason for diverting the DEI funds to police, though fellow board member Dave Boliek told The N&O the policy was under consideration before the protests began.
At the Board of Trustees’ special meeting, Preyer seemed to anticipate that the trustees’ vote might raise questions, asking UNC-Chapel Hill General Counsel Charles Marshall prior to the action: “Is someone going to come back and say, ‘Sorry, you couldn’t have done that’?” Preyer appeared to be referencing the board’s decision to decouple the university’s athletics budget from the rest of the budget, not the decision to divert DEI funding.
Marshall replied to Preyer’s question: “Very possibly.”
“We had conversations last year about whether this is an up or down vote. My understanding is it was,” Marshall said.
Marshall noted that the university system in recent years has adopted a new budget-approval process. The “all-funds budget process,” which considers the entirety of a university’s spending instead of department-level plans, is used to “improve financial efficiency and to make targeted investments in institutional and system strategic goals,” per a system description.
“This is a new process, alright? I don’t think any campus has ever tried to line-item,” Marshall said. “I don’t think that’s what the Board of Governors is looking for, but I did not call them before I came in here.”
Still, Marshall said he was “comfortable” with the board’s action, given that any issues would “get resolved” at the UNC System level.
UNC System policy states that trustees “shall advise the chancellor with respect to the development, execution, and administration of the budget of the constituent institution, consistent with actions by the General Assembly and the Board of Governors” and approve the plans on an annual basis.
With the trustees’ actions being out of compliance with system budget policies, Hans said the committee subsequently considered interim Chancellor Lee Roberts’ original budget proposal in the committee meeting. Meeting materials contained a spending plan labeled as the chancellor’s budget. However, an accompanying letter from UNC-Chapel Hill Chief Financial Officer Nate Knuffman noted the two amendments approved by the trustees.
UNC-Chapel Hill Interim Chancellor Lee Roberts addresses the media prior to a closed session portion of a meeting of the board of trustees in Chapel Hill, N.C. on Thursday, May 16, 2024. Kaitlin McKeown kmckeown@newsobserver.com
Trustee voiced opposition to diverting funds
While the trustees’ vote to divert DEI funding originally appeared unanimous, trustee Ralph Meekins later clarified at the board’s May 16 meeting that he did not vote and that he did not support the board’s action. Meekins said he was not informed of the motion to divert the funds until the meeting, and noted that the vote to approve the “meticulously crafted” budget is generally taken as an up or down vote.
Meekins said he remained confident in Roberts’ actions on the budget and any potential changes to DEI efforts at the university.
“Fortunately, in spite of the actions this board has taken, the issue of how UNC-Chapel Hill handles its efforts on diversity will ultimately be determined by our interim chancellor. I trust that he will await clarification from the BOG regarding its DEI policy and will adhere to its directives while thoroughly examining the matter, listening to all perspectives, and ultimately making an informed decision,” Meekins said. “It’s undoubtedly a challenging task, but I pray he approaches the changes to our DEI program with precision, using a scalpel, not a machete. Given his track record so far, I am optimistic that this will indeed be the approach that he takes.”
Roberts told reporters at the board’s May 16 meeting that he would wait for the Board of Governors’ new policy to become finalized to determine how the university’s DEI spending and programming would change.
“We’re going to have to wait for the implementation guidelines to understand exactly how to how to redirect our funding,” Roberts said.
UNC System legal staff is expected to issue guidance to campuses on how they should comply with the policy “in the coming weeks,” per a printed handout provided to media Thursday. The changes, which could result in DEI-related jobs being changed or eliminated, are expected to be in-place by the beginning of the upcoming academic year.
In the Spotlight designates ongoing topics of high interest that are driven by The News & Observer’s focus on accountability reporting.
This story was originally published May 23, 2024, 4:45 PM.
Related stories from Charlotte Observer
Korie Dean covers higher education in the Triangle and North Carolina for The News & Observer. She was previously part of the paper’s service journalism team. She is a graduate of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC-Chapel Hill and a lifelong North Carolinian.
Editorials and other Opinion content offer perspectives on issues important to our community and are independent from the work of our newsroom reporters.
Andrew Tripp, General Counsel for the UNC System, speaks during a meeting of the UNC System Board of Governors’ University Governance committee on Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Kaitlin McKeown
kmckeown@newsobserver.com
The UNC System Board of Governors will vote Thursday on a policy that would gut diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at public universities across North Carolina. It’s a move that’s necessary, they say, in order to uphold a deep-rooted commitment to diversity of thought.
“Our universities will support intellectual freedom, not promote a particular ideology … North Carolina is a diverse state, and our public universities belong to everyone,” Ramsey wrote in a statement following last month’s initial committee vote.
But as the board weighs important decisions about diversity-related matters, it’s also holding up a mirror to itself. The governing board of North Carolina’s public university system is woefully lacking in ideological diversity, and its members are far more reflective of the Republican leaders who appoint them than of the state and system they ought to represent.
The Board of Governors, which oversees all 17 UNC System campuses, has 24 members. The General Assembly appoints all 24 members. Of the 23 current members, just two are registered Democrats. Sixteen members — two-thirds of the board — are registered Republicans. The remaining five members are registered as unaffiliated, though several of them have donated significant sums to Republican candidates. The board has one vacancy, as Lee Roberts resigned from his role in January to serve as UNC-Chapel Hill’s interim chancellor.
Many members also have political backgrounds. Harry Brown, who was appointed in 2023, is a former Republican lawmaker who served as Senate majority leader for a decade. Also appointed in 2023: Woody White, another former Republican senator. And in 2020, the General Assembly appointed Art Pope, one of the most influential Republican donors in North Carolina, to the board.
Chris Marsicano, assistant professor of educational studies at Davidson College, noted that North Carolina is one of only two states that has the legislature appoint the governing board. In most cases, the governor makes the appointments.
He said that in 2005, the BOG had eight Republicans and 22 Democrats, but by 2013 there was not a single Democrat. Now there are two.
“They went from having some Republicans to almost exclusively Republican and Republican-leaning members within 15 years,” he said.
That’s not for lack of trying by Democrats. State Sen. Gladys Robinson, a Greensboro Democrat and former member of the Board of Governors, said that nominees she has proposed have not been considered by the Senate. Even when Democrats were in the majority, Robinson said, they were committed to having diversity by having the minority party appoint members. She noted that House Speaker Tim Moore was appointed to the Board of Governors in 1997 when he was chairman of the Cleveland County Republican Party.
“Very seldom have we gotten any support, regardless of the caliber of nominees,” she said. “We’ve put forward some of the best leaders that North Carolina has, but the Senate refuses to appoint them.”
State Sen. Dan Blue, a Wake County Democrat and the Senate’s minority leader, said people who could make strong contributions to the board don’t want to enter the nominating process.
“Multiple people told me, ‘Why go through all this knowing it’s not going anywhere?’” he said.
Instead, Robinson said, Republican lawmakers are appointing people “who are their friends and who have made contributions to their campaigns. It has nothing to do with the resumes of these people.”
Indeed, many members of the Board of Governors have made hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to Republican candidates for state and federal office, including Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger.
Diversity among UNC-Chapel Hill trustees
The UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees, which recently voted to shift UNC’s DEI funding to public safety and police, is similarly homogeneous. There are 14 voting members, and more than 75% of them are registered Republicans. There is not a single registered Democrat on the board. There are three former lawmakers on the board, one of whom is now a registered lobbyist. Also on the board is Jim Blaine, Berger’s former chief of staff and one of the state’s most prominent political consultants. The board’s former chair, Dave Boliek, who still sits on the board, is the Republican nominee for state auditor in November’s general election.
Trustees, however, have spoken at length about the importance of diversity of thought, and how conservative voices are stifled in favor of liberal ones in Chapel Hill. That commitment to ideological diversity was the purported motivation for fast-tracking the development of a School of Civic Life and Leadership, intended to be a haven of sorts for conservative thought on campus. Boliek, for instance, told Fox News that the school is an “effort to remedy” the lack of right-of-center views on campus.
Roger Perry, a Chapel Hill developer who chaired the Board of Trustees from 2007 to 2009, said the makeup of the board has become more political.
During his era, the governor and Board of Governors appointed trustees. Since then, the governor has been cut out and trustees are appointed by the Board of Governors, the speaker of the House and the Senate president pro tempore.
To be appointed now, Perry said, “I’m sure there’s a political litmus test, or you have holy water put on you by the Senate president pro tem or the speaker.”
Before Republicans took control of the legislature, Perry said, trustees would recommend new members based on their volunteer service to the university, regardless of their political affiliations.
“The qualifications that were necessary 15 years ago are totally different from the qualifications today,” Perry said. “On my board, I couldn’t tell you who was registered one way or the other.”
“That is not to say all 12 members on the Board of Trustees haven’t paid their dues in terms of service. There are several who have, but most have not,” he said.
Perry said the tight political control reflects Republican lawmakers’ desire to alter the university’s prevailing progressive culture and its effect on students.
“I think they do fear that the university turns out people who vote against them,” Perry said. “That’s true, but it’s not because they get indoctrinated, it’s because they get educated.”
Little appetite for change
The boards don’t appear eager for people to know much about them. A list is available on the Board of Governors website, but the page doesn’t appear with a simple Google search and can be difficult to navigate. On the Board of Trustees website, some biographies appear incomplete. For example, one member’s biography does not mention the term he served as a state lawmaker, and Blaine’s biography greatly understates the extent of his ties to Berger and the legislature. Yet these people are tasked with making significant decisions about North Carolina’s prized university system, a massive public expenditure and one of the state’s largest employers.
Former UNC System President Tom Ross served as co-chairman of the Governor’s Commission on the Governance of Higher Education in North Carolina, which Gov. Roy Cooper created in 2022 to assess and recommend changes to the governance structure of the UNC System. In 2015, a Republican-dominated Board of Governors pushed Ross out of office. No reason was given, but Ross was apparently removed because he is a Democrat.
His co-chair on the commission was the Republican who replaced him as the UNC System president: former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. The commission, Ross said, “tried to set out areas where we felt having people representative of North Carolina is important. The university is for everybody.”
Republican state lawmakers say they — and by extension, their appointees — are representative of North Carolina because voters have put them in power.
But Ross said Republicans “didn’t get 100 percent of the vote and they don’t have 100 percent of the legislature.”
Republican legislative leaders opposed the creation of the governor’s commission and ignored its recommendations on how to make the university’s governing boards more representative of the state’s political racial and geographic diversity.
“I’m disappointed there wasn’t more willingness to engage and discuss. [The commission] was a bipartisan group,” Ross said. “Most of us realized it wasn’t going to be embraced with open arms by the legislature, but we did hope they would pay some attention to it.”
Ultimately, the insular political makeup of UNC’s governing boards makes its purported commitments to ideological diversity appear hollow and hypocritical. But it also hurts the strength of the entire UNC System and the institutions that are a part of it.
“I worry that a lack of diversity on these boards is reducing the possibility of true game-changing academic initiatives,” Marsicano, the Davidson professor who co-authored a brief for the Governor’s Commission on the boards’ diversity, said. “Having a diversity of viewpoints allows for a greater ability to maximize the strengths of the university.”
Most critically, though, it jeopardizes the long-held principle that North Carolina’s universities belong to everyone. System leaders say they want more ideological diversity on campus, but without a commitment to diversity within their own ranks, it appears as if the only ideology they really want on campus is their own.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
It’s no secret that working mothers still face discrimination in the workplace. With few legal protections in place, many moms are pushed out of workplaces (laid off or fired) and subjected to stereotypes about their competency. I’ve faced discrimination as a working mother several times since 1997. I’ve been passed over for a promotion and stepped down from a leadership role because of the discrimination I faced.
From the moment I saw that little blue plus sign, I’ve been fighting for equality at work and home. A lack of paid leave, exorbitant childcare costs and discrimination made my early career difficult at best, and for the majority of Americans, makes it nearly impossible to have a family.
I was just 24 years old when I became a mom for the first time. I was new at many things then: adulthood, marriage, and home ownership. I had no idea that the statistics were so stacked against me. Gender disparity didn’t cross my mind—that’s just the way it was. Little did I know that I was stepping into an entirely new world—one that would continually discount me.
As it turns out, new mothers who take fewer than eight weeks of paid maternity leave are at higher risk for depression and experience poorer overall health. My husband and I were a young couple starting out, so while I desperately wanted more time with my newborn, my mind reasoned that the six weeks of paid maternity leave my employer offered me would be enough — we couldn’t afford for me to take additional time away from work without pay. We weren’t alone. Two-thirds of workers don’t take needed leave because they cannot afford it.They’re also unable to afford daycare. For infants, the average cost of center-based childcare is more than in-state public college tuition in 34 states.
On my first day back from maternity leave, I learned that the young man hired a few months prior had been promoted over me. When I asked my boss why I’d been overlooked for the promotion, she told me she disagreed with it, but it was out of her hands. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, 16% of working parents have been passed over for promotion because they have children, and mothers are more likely than fathers to report this experience.
My company’s office hours were 8:30 am to 5:30 pm. I had to walk out the door at exactly 5:30 pm every day to pick up my son by 6 pm or pay $1 for every minute I was late. Still, I was pulled aside and talked to about always leaving on time when other employees were staying late, as though it spoke to a lack of work ethic or drive to succeed on my part. I wasn’t alone. Mothers are 40% more likely than fathers to report that childcare issues harmed their careers.
There are so many lessons I learned during those early years. Looking back now, it’s easy to see where the bias was and what changes were needed to create equality. My only recourse was to take matters into my own hands. Here are six tips for recognizing and navigating adversity to build a thriving career.
If you carried a baby for nine months and gave birth, you’ve done 100% of the parenting work so far; don’t let your partner assume you’ll continue to do so.
Like most infants, ours didn’t sleep through the night for many months. So, I went to work exhausted every day. One day, a few weeks after returning from maternity leave, I fell asleep at my desk. The owner of the company walked by, saw me and sent me home. When I told my husband about it and asked him to help, he responded, “I can’t. I have a job.” Not only was I devalued at work, but I was also devalued at home by the one person who mattered most.
When a couple is deciding who will take more time away after the birth of a baby, it makes financial sense for the one who makes less money to take more time away. That means maternity leave typically falls to mothers because women make less than men. If companies paid men and women equally, this conversation would be eliminated as part of the decision, and it would make more financial sense for each partner to take equal time off work. That would, in turn, change the perception at home.
Tip 2: Take matters into your own hands
When my son was about eight months old, my husband and I decided to move closer to family. When we found our new home, I began searching for childcare. Daycare centers were insurmountably expensive, so I interviewed several moms who provided daycare in their homes. I walked away from every meeting deflated.
I couldn’t find trusted care for my son, and I continued to be overlooked and undervalued at work. That’s when I decided to join the 43% of women who leave the workforce after having children. I quit my job and started my own in-home daycare. I used my marketing background to get the word out, and within two weeks, I was caring for three toddlers and an infant full-time with an expectant couple on a waitlist. I spent the next six years taking care of little ones and raising my own.
Tip 3: Think long-term, act short-term
By 2005, I’d earned my writing degree and was freelancing as a copywriter. Two years later, in the midst of a recession, my husband and I separated. With two school-aged boys and a two-year-old daughter at home, I was forced to go back to work full-time.
Finding work in a recession is difficult enough, but having a nine-year lapse on my resume didn’t help. It was virtually impossible to land an interview and, much less be offered a job that paid enough to afford childcare. Unsurprisingly, women who took just one year off from work earn 39% less than women who did not. Desperate for a full-time job with health benefits, I took an account manager position. The salary wasn’t enough to cover daycare costs, so I held onto my freelance clients. I’d work all day, and then after tucking my kids in at night, I’d tuck into my freelance writing projects. It wasn’t something I wanted to do forever, but short-term, it paid the bills, and long-term, it would set me up to start my own business.
Tip 4: Look for opportunities
In 2011, the recession hit the marketing industry, and companies dropped their ad agencies in favor of working with freelancers to ease budgets. My number of freelance clients more than doubled, while at the same time, our agency’s roster of clients was cut in half. That allowed me to negotiate to work on my freelance projects during business hours in exchange for a percentage of my freelance revenue. I was able to take on more clients without giving up all my evening hours so that I could still be a present parent to my kids and get enough sleep at night to face the day ahead.
By 2013, my freelance business was thriving, and on August 1, 2013, I quit my job to work for myself full-time. That decision changed my life and our home. It’s not surprising that a whopping 75% of self-employed women love their job. Working for myself allowed me to put my priorities in order and plan my working hours around my family, not the other way around. I worked late into the night but also took hours off for after-school trips to the park, family dinners and homework time.
Tip 5: Be open
In 2015, I was offered the role of content marketing director for a freelance client. While I loved the flexibility of working for myself, it was an incredible opportunity to build and manage a content writing department from the ground up. I accepted the role and learned all I could. A year later, traveling and late nights became too much, and I needed to be more available to my kids. I gave my notice and negotiated a 12-month freelance writing contract in exchange for hiring my replacement. Within a few months, I launched a marketing agency.
Tip 6: Remember that actions speak louder than words
In 2021, my previous employer offered me another role. This time, it was a C-suite position and a stake in the business for bringing my agency into his company as the social media arm of the business. I said yes, knowing that, at the very least, I’d learn something, and at best, I’d grow the agency much quicker than I could on my own. While I enjoyed the stable income and benefits, I was drowning in work, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t change the culture. I began looking for support through networking groups and was invited to join CHIEF, a powerful network of women executives. This was an incredible opportunity to learn from other female executives, network with peers and get in front of potential clients; all things my male peers had in spades. I laid out the benefits and requested that my company sponsor the membership. They declined.
Deciding it was well worth the investment, I paid the fee myself. When I published a LinkedIn post announcing my membership, the CEO expressed disappointment that I hadn’t mentioned his company in my post. That’s when I decided I could no longer work with or for companies that refused to invest equally in male and female executives. In June 2022, I gave my notice and pulled my agency out of the merger.
On Mother’s Day, we celebrate moms — and companies do, too. It’s no secret that brands are increasingly jumping on the bandwagon of social causes, but consumers aren’t fooled by the many that pay it lip service. They want to see real change.
Want to celebrate moms? Offer paid maternity, paternity and family leave so that working parents can take the time they need to give their children and their families a healthy start. Normalize paternity leave so that fathers can be equally responsible for and able to bond with their children.
More than 120 countries, including most industrialized nations, provide paid maternity leave and health benefits by law, according to an International Labour Office (ILO) report. The United States’ failure to do so leaves 80% of the workforce without any paid time off after the birth of a child. Nearly half are not even guaranteed unpaid, job-protected leave through the Family and Medical Leave Act.
The answer isn’t to leave the workforce. The answer is for the government to join nearly every other nation in offering paid family leave. Until then, taking matters into our own hands is the only answer.
Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.” The same is true for companies. Work-life balance issues cause conflict for an astonishing 72% of women. Don’t share your time and talents with a company that doesn’t support you.
NEW YORK, May 7, 2024 (Newswire.com)
– Castle Connolly today announced the release of Castle Connolly 2024 Top Asian American and Pacific Islander Doctors (AAPI), recognizing exceptional AAPI doctors from the Castle Connolly Top Doctor list. There are 722 doctors represented on this year’s list — more than double the doctors on the 2023 Top AAPI Doctor list — across 38 states and 73 specialties.
The distinction is part of Castle Connolly’s Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiative, designed to honor top clinicians and enable patients to find Castle Connolly Top Doctors who have shared backgrounds and experiences. As part of this initiative, Castle Connolly surveyed its current Top Doctors (top 7% of physicians in the U.S., all nominated by peers) to request that they share information about their race/ethnicity, gender and sexual identity.
“When immigrants come to the U.S., they may not have insurance, they may not know anyone to go to, and they may have a hard time even making a phone call to get in touch with a doctor. So there’s a challenge from the very beginning — access to doctors is very, very difficult,” said Dr. Erik Suh, founder of the Korean American Health Professional Association (KAHPA) and Castle Connolly Top AAPI Doctor. “And then once they get to see a doctor, there’s a language barrier. Simple things like annual physicals, mammograms or colonoscopies are not done. So you’re finding health issues at a late stage.”
Asian American and Pacific Islanders are the fastest-growing racial group in the United States, comprising about 6% of the population according to the 2020 U.S. Census. This AAPI population faces health inequities stemming from language and cultural barriers. A 2021 survey by the Pew Research Center revealed that 54% of Asian Americans were born outside the United States, and 68% when considering only Asian American adults. This diverse population faces numerous linguistic and cultural hurdles, which adversely affects the group’s integration and access to healthcare.
“Having a physician who shares the same language or ethnic background can improve communication and build trust with patients, which can ultimately lead to better health outcomes,” said Steve Leibforth, Managing Director, Castle Connolly. “Castle Connolly’s Top AAPI Doctors serve as a valuable resource for patients seeking culturally sensitive healthcare that respects patients’ values and beliefs, alongside unparalleled medical proficiency.”
All Castle Connolly Top AAPI Doctors are nominated by their peers, after which the Castle Connolly research team evaluates each nominee using selective criteria to determine who makes the list, including professional qualifications, education, hospital and faculty appointments, research leadership, professional reputation, disciplinary history, interpersonal skills and outcomes data.
In addition to the Top AAPI Doctors list, Castle Connolly’s 2024 distinctions include:
About Castle Connolly
With over 30 years of experience researching, reviewing and selecting Top Doctors, Castle Connolly is a trusted and credible source. In fact, a study published in the Journal of Medical Research found that across several specialties, evidence indicates that Castle Connolly’s peer-reviewed directory is methodologically more reliable than sites that just relied on patient reviews when it came to identifying quality care. Our mission is to help people find the best healthcare by connecting patients with best-in-class healthcare providers. For more information, visit https://www.castleconnolly.com.
About Everyday Health Group
The Everyday Health Group is a recognized leader in patient and provider education, attracting an engaged audience of over 81 million health consumers and over 890,000 U.S. practicing physicians and clinicians to its premier health and wellness digital properties. Our mission is to drive better clinical and health outcomes through decision-making informed by highly relevant information, data and analytics. We empower healthcare providers and consumers with trusted content and services delivered through the Everyday Health Group’s world-class brands. Everyday Health Group is a division of Ziff Davis, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZD).
Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, via Wikimedia Commons
This month, conservative radio host Glenn Beck broke down the extent of DEI ideology in the medical community. The examples came from universities from coast to coast.
Mandatory seminars on critical race theory and gender ideology abound while tried-and-true principles of medicine are abandoned. Medical treatment based on individualized patient care has been replaced with unrelated demographic groupings taking its place.
So, for those citizens who think the college campus woke mind virus won’t affect them in their daily lives, you may not feel so safe after learning what your future pediatrician, primary care doctor, and specialty surgeon are taught in school. So much for the Hippocratic Oath!
Instead of focusing on things like, I don’t know, MEDICINE, our top medical schools are teaching often MANDATORY classes on social change, antiracism, “race, power, and privilege,” “confronting U.S. history,” and how “gender is a social construct.” pic.twitter.com/EslPJINT5q
Last week, Glenn Beck provided scathing examples of what is being taught nationwide in medical schools. For instance, at Harvard Medical School, there is a mandatory course titled Social Change and the Practice of Medicine.
The course aims to teach young want to be doctors to be “important advocates for social change.” Mr. Beck also mentioned my alma mater, George Washington University.
The George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences offers a course on “how to talk about race, power, and privilege in classroom and clinical settings.” Aspiring medical students are taught how to move “beyond bystanding…to disrupting racism.”
At Good Ole’ GW, they also teach Beyond the Binary: Navigating pregnancy and affirming care for people with diverse gender identities. What would George Washington say about that?!
I imagine he’d be dumbfounded due to the nonsensical language utilized by his namesake university and others like it. The land of the free and the home of the brave is also now the land of pregnant persons and chest feeders.
It would be comical if it weren’t the reality of every institution and field in modern America. According to work done by an organization named Do No Harm:
“…23 of America’s top 25 medical schools now have anti-racism instruction as the core part of their curriculum.”
Who needs anatomy and biology when you can learn about how modern medicine is inherently racist?
MyPOV: @MartyMakary is completely right. Woke DEi standards and pass fail on level 1 are going to create the worst trained class of physicians.
DEI has no place in medicine yet this trusted institution is being destroyed by bad policies. Meritocracy is key and competency should… pic.twitter.com/IpxtSFnjQv
— R “Ray” Wang 王瑞光 #AI #1A R.NFT (@rwang0) April 21, 2024
The doctor says you’re racist
Extreme liberal ideas coming out of college campuses are not a new concept. What is new is the genuine danger these latest extreme ideologies pose to society.
Earlier this year, an adjunct assistant professor of medical education told an audience of over 300 medical students at the University of California at San Francisco that white people are racist because we are genetically predisposed to psychopathy. As a white person, this news surprised me.
So naturally, I poked around to find out if it was confirmed that because of my skin color, I am predisposed to psychopathy. A fair amount of scientific medical reports are published on the National Institute of Health’s library that says there is NOT a correlation between race and psychopathy.
But what do they know? All it takes for something to be true is for enough people to believe it.
Meanwhile, over at Johns Hopkins University, an email was sent out by a DEI professional earlier this year with a list of characteristics requiring immediate repentance. The list provided by the still-employed Dr. Sherita Golden included the following “privileged” identities:
white people
able-bodied
heterosexuals
cisgender
males
Christians
middle or owning-class people
middle-aged
English speakers
That’s quite the list. I fit all but one of those identities, and only two of them are even the result of choices.
Sorry…. not sorry?
Johns Hopkins University DEI department just sent out an email accusing the following people of being “privileged” even if they don’t know it:
-Males -Whites -Christians -Mid-aged people -Able-bodied people -Middle & owning class -English-speaking people
The med school incident that takes the cake for the cringiest comes from UCLA’s School of Medicine. Recently, first-year med students were required to attend a lecture on structural racism.
The lecture was titled Housing (In)justice in LA: Addressing Unhousing and Practicing Solidarity. It was given by activist and “Poverty Scholar” Lisa Gray-Garcia and included forced chanting of “Free Palestine.”
Additionally, students were pressured to kneel in prayer to “Mama Earth” by Ms. Gray-Garcia. During her “lecture,” she called modern medicine “white science.”
After the event, she posted the following:
“Infiltrate to liberate. This knowledge, us skolaz shud b invited into every medical & law/social work, psychology & education dept to name a few, across occupied Turtle Island.”
It’s hard to imagine the parents paying for tuition at these overpriced places of “higher education,” believing their money is well spent. It’s any wonder anyone wants to be a doctor anymore, with lectures such as those.
That’s precisely the trend the United States is seeing. It’s estimated that by 2034, the U.S. will have a projected surgeon shortfall of 30,000.
Currently the U.S. is short 2,500 trauma surgeons. The only cure for this virus is completely amputating it from our institutions and professional fields.
It has latched onto hosts in medicine, anthropology, law, astrophysics, biology, the military, public schools, and every facet you can think of. If we aren’t careful, it won’t be long before aspiring physicians are taught to triage patients based on skin color rather than their illness or injury severity.
If that sounds too much like a dystopian TV series plot where some evil shadowy group attempts a sick form of population control to maintain power, just remember this: “people who menstruate” and pronouns such as xe and xyr are a thing now.
Now is the time to support and share the sources you trust. The Political Insider ranks #3 on Feedspot’s “100 Best Political Blogs and Websites.”
There were fewer than 24 hours between The News & Observer revealing the evening of April 16 that the UNC System Board of Governors would consider a policy targeting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, and a board committee voting to approve the move.
And there were fewer than 48 hours between the policy becoming public knowledge and the board’s public comment submission form for the meeting closing Thursday at 5 p.m.
But the short turnarounds didn’t keep some members of the public from making their opinions on the policy heard.
Public comment records provided to The N&O by the UNC System office show that 25 people submitted comments to the board for its April 17-18 meetings. Of those, 21 comments were about the proposed policy changes to diversity efforts at the state’s public universities. Two of the comments supported the board’s action. The remaining 19 denounced the move.
So, what did the comments say?
Welcome to Dean’s List, a weekly roundup of higher education news in the Triangle and across North Carolina from The News & Observer and myself, Korie Dean.
This week’s edition takes a deeper look at the public comments submitted regarding a Board of Governors committee’s vote to repeal the UNC System’s existing policy on diversity and inclusion, plus information on the new interim chancellor at Appalachian State University and the impending retirement of Campbell University’s president.
Kellie Blue, chair of the UNC System Board of Governors’ University Governance committee, speaks during a meeting on Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Winston-Salem, N.C. Kaitlin McKeown kmckeown@newsobserver.com
Public comments to Board of Governors regarding DEI
The Board of Governors, which oversees all of the state’s public universities plus the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, generally does not allow public comments during its meetings, but it accepts written comments through an online form ahead of full-board meetings.
Ahead of the board’s April meeting, the public comment submission form was open from April 9 until April 18 at 5 p.m.
The N&O was the first to report Tuesday, April 16, that the board’s University Governance committee would consider a policy repealing the UNC System’s existing policy and regulations on diversity and inclusion. Among other changes, the new policy is expected to impact DEI-related jobs that are currently mandated under the existing policy, either by eliminating the positions or by forcing their ties to DEI to be removed or revised.
The policy was added to the committee’s meeting materials that Tuesday afternoon, ahead of its Wednesday afternoon meeting. It was not included in the materials when they were first made available about a week before the meeting.
Public comments on the topic began to pour in sometime Wednesday, according to the records. The records show that students, parents, alumni, faculty and staff affiliated with seven of the state’s 16 public universities submitted comments.
In the two comments supporting the board’s proposed policy:
▪ Chris Kirby, a professor at UNC Charlotte, urged the board to eliminate funding for DEI efforts and activities throughout the university system, saying that those promoting the efforts “seek to inculcate unwavering adherence to predetermined political ideologies.”
Kirby wrote that UNC Charlotte has “a wide-reaching DEI bureaucracy” that includes several “high-level administrators.” Kirby wrote he believes the “bureaucracy” advances “an inherently political agenda” that “also wastes an extraordinary amount of taxpayer dollars.”
“State residents should not be subsidizing out-of-control administrative bloat that contributes to rising college costs and student indebtedness,” Kirby wrote. “Defunding the DEI bureaucracy would help restore the focus of all constituent institutions to their traditional guiding principles: freedom of academic inquiry, merit-based advancement, and scholarly excellence.”
UNC Charlotte, like many campuses across the UNC System, operates an Office of Diversity and Inclusion that is overseen by a chief diversity officer and employs other staff members. The office, which was established in 2020, has a stated mission “to guide UNC Charlotte toward inclusive excellence by creating a culture and climate where students and employees can access and thrive.”
“We do this by leading in developing, integrating, and advancing the university’s inclusive excellence strategy to support our vision of educating, inspiring, and empowering communities to champion humanity, care and dignity for all,” the office’s website states.
▪ Michelle Bardsley, a parent of two UNC System graduates, asked the board to “take steps to eliminate DEI programs and funding in our NC colleges and K-12 public schools.”
“Our NC educational institutions need to be focused on teaching our children and young adults’ employable career and workforce skills, leadership, and character education,” Bardsley wrote. “Let’s stay focused on the mission of public education in NC, spend tax dollars wisely, and successfully prepare our children and young adults to work and compete in a global economy.”
Andrew Tripp, General Counsel for the UNC System, speaks during a meeting of the UNC System Board of Governors’ University Governance committee on Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Winston-Salem, N.C. Kaitlin McKeown kmckeown@newsobserver.com
Among the remaining 19 comments, which opposed the board’s proposed policy:
▪ Tamika Henderson, a parent affiliated with UNC-Chapel Hill, wrote to the board to express “deep concern and strong opposition” to the proposed policy.
“As a concerned citizen, parent of a UNC student, and advocate for equal opportunity and inclusivity in education, I firmly believe that diversity and inclusion are crucial components of a thriving academic environment,” Henderson wrote. “The UNC System has long been recognized for its commitment to fostering a diverse and inclusive community, and the proposed elimination of diversity goals and jobs undermines these fundamental principles.”
Henderson said the proposal would “risk diminishing the reputation of UNC, devaluing a degree from UNC thereby creating a negative economic impact.”
“This proposal not only undermines the efforts of individuals who have worked tirelessly to promote diversity and inclusion within the UNC System, but it also sends a concerning message to current and prospective students, faculty, and staff who value and rely on the commitment to diversity,” Henderson wrote.
▪ Hope Murphy Tyehimba, a two-time alumna of UNC-Chapel Hill and former employee of East Carolina University, NC State University and NC Central University, wrote that she was “greatly troubled by the direction that the UNC Board of Governors is considering taking regarding this matter.”
Tyehimba said she credits her success at UNC, both as an undergraduate student and as a law student, to the support services she received from the university as a first-generation student from rural North Carolina. She later paid that success forward by advising other students from similar backgrounds, she wrote.
“The thought of UNC no longer providing specialized support and resources to African American students, and other students of color, is greatly troubling and concerning. The university is quickly transforming into an institution that I no longer recognize,” Tyehimba wrote. “Please reconsider taking any action that would limit the ability of DEI officers to be employed within the System and to continue providing much needed services to students like me who relied upon and provided such services to others.”
▪ Cameron Toler, a student at the UNC School of the Arts, wrote that the board’s decision to act on the policy during its meeting at the school was “insulting,” given that the university “flourishes without question as a result of DEI.”
“This moment is a scourge upon our institutions and I hope for the sake of every students wellbeing and the integrity of their education that a change is made in the leadership that led to this decision,” Toler wrote. “How dare this decision be made.”
▪ Sarah Ho, a staff member at the NC State University College of Veterinary Medicine, wrote to the board to describe the positive impact she sees DEI-related staff make at the college.
“They prepare our students well for a diverse and global workforce. They work to ensure ALL of our students feel a sense of belonging. Their efforts help to attract the best students, faculty, and staff to the University,” Ho wrote. “Our community would suffer greatly without them. Please do not cut this vital resource.”
▪ TaMera Harris, a graduate of NC Central University, denounced the board’s action, writing that “diversity is needed to make sure that an opportunity of higher education is afforded to everyone.”
Interested in submitting a comment to the board? The online form to submit public comments to the Board of Governors is expected to reopen in advance of the group’s May meeting, when it will vote on the DEI policy change through its consent agenda. The form to submit a comment can be found on the UNC System website: northcarolina.edu/leadership-and-governance/board-of-governors/meetings-materials/public-comment-sessions.
Interim chancellor named at App State
Heather Hulburt Norris will serve as the interim chancellor of Appalachian State University.
Norris had been serving as the university’s provost and executive vice chancellor since 2020, first on an interim basis before securing the role fully in 2021. She first came to the university in 2003 before rising through the ranks to become dean of the university’s Walker College of Business in 2016.
“Dr. Norris is an experienced and talented leader who is well regarded in the App State community,” Hans said in a news release Friday. “She has served in various roles at the university, from faculty member to dean to provost, and she has excelled at all of them because of her collaborative style and her commitment to public service. I’m grateful to her for taking on the position of interim chancellor.”
Norris said she is “passionate about the success of our students, faculty and staff” and is looking forward “to working collaboratively with faculty, staff, students and members of the communities we serve to ensure the continued success of this great institution.”
The UNC System news release said that a search for the next permanent chancellor of App State will be launched “in the near future.” The system is also searching for new chancellors at four other universities: UNC-Chapel Hill, NC A&T State University, Winston-Salem State University and NC Central University.
Heather Hulburt Norris is the interim chancellor of Appalachian State University. Courtesy of the UNC System
Creed, a scholar and historian of religion, in 2015 became the private, Christian university’s fifth president after serving in administrative roles at Samford University and the George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University.
During his time at the helm of Campbell, Creed led the university through the COVID-19 pandemic and oversaw the university’s most successful capital campaign, which raised more than $105 million, among other accomplishments.
“Serving as Campbell’s president has been an honor and the capstone of my career in higher education,” Creed said in a news release. “I am thankful for the many wonderful people who assisted and supported me, and especially for the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of our students. After more than 30 years of leadership in higher education, I’m eager to take on other projects and to spend more time with my loving wife, children, and grandchildren.”
Creed will remain as president for the next year “to keep Campbell moving forward and to ensure a smooth transition to his eventual successor,” Board of Trustees Chair Gene Lewis III said in a news release.
“Thanks to President Creed, Campbell is poised to make great strides under a new leader, who will elevate our university among private institutions of higher learning in the heart of one of America’s fastest-growing states,” Lewis said. “That should be an exciting opportunity for strong candidates nationwide. Our board looks forward to working closely with a search consultant and President Creed to identify the next leader, who will take Campbell to new heights.”
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That’s all for this week’s roundup of North Carolina higher education news. I hope you’ll stay tuned for more.
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This story was originally published April 23, 2024, 11:29 AM.
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Korie Dean covers higher education in the Triangle and North Carolina for The News & Observer. She was previously part of the paper’s service journalism team. She is a graduate of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC-Chapel Hill and a lifelong North Carolinian.
A group of students from UNC-Chapel Hill wait outside of the Alex Ewing Performance Place building on the campus of UNC School of the Arts after a meeting of the UNC System Board of Governors’ University Governance committee went into closed session on Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Kaitlin McKeown
kmckeown@newsobserver.com
WINSTON-SALEM
Students from UNC-Chapel Hill say they were kept out of the building where the UNC System Board of Governors — a public body — met Wednesday, raising questions about whether the board potentially violated the state’s open meetings law.
The UNC students who attempted to attend the governance committee’smeeting Wednesday afternoon said they were told by Ed Purchase, the UNC System’s director of university public safety operations, that the meeting room was full and all of the seats available to the public were filled. Purchase did not allow the students to enter any portion of the building where the meeting was held, they said.
North Carolina law states that “any person is entitled to attend” meetings of public bodies, including the Board of Governors and its committees.
UNC System spokesperson Andy Wallace told The N&O Wednesday that some members of the public were unable to enter the meeting room because of a lack of available seats and because the open-session portion of the meeting, in which the vote on the DEI policy took place, lasted for such a short time. By the time system staff could have made accommodations to let more people in, Wallace said, the meeting had gone into closed session, in which members of the public are not allowed.
Raleigh attorney Mike Tadych said the UNC System’s actions Wednesday in keeping the students out of the meeting seemed “dubious,” but said it was “not black and white” to him whether those actions violated state law. Tadych said public bodies, including the Board of Governors, are required “to take reasonable measures to provide access to public meetings.”
UNC student Samuel Scarborough said he and other members of the Southern Student Action Coalition (SSAC), a progressive student-activist group,and TransparUNCy, a group dedicated to shining a light on political influences on North Carolina higher education, wanted to attend the meeting “to make our voices heard” and “be present in the room” as the vote on the DEI policy took place.
“We were not given this opportunity,” Scarborough said.
Asked by The N&O via email Thursday if the UNC System believed it had followed state law on open meetings by keeping students from entering the building, Wallace replied Friday with this statement: “All UNC Board of Governors committee and full board meetings are livestreamed and available to the public via PBS NC. Chancellors, campus staff, UNC System staff, PBS NC technical staff and the Board itself are present in the room to attend the meetings. Seats are reserved for the media. Any open seats are available to the general public on a first-come, first-served basis.”
Students say they were kept out of meeting
Though the Board of Governors typically meets at the UNC System office in Raleigh, the board meets twice a year at one of the system’s 17 campuses. The board’s meetings are open to the public, though it can enter closed session and meet without the public present for reasons that are outlined in state law.
The board held its April meetings at the UNC School of the Arts, with the Catawba Theatre inside the Alex Ewing Performance Place functioning as its meeting room for all of its committee meetings on Wednesday and its full-board meeting on Thursday.
Scarborough was one of about 10 students from SSAC and TransparUNCy who attempted to attend the board’s University Governance committee meeting Wednesday, which began at 3:45 p.m.
Wallace described the following chain of events to The N&O Wednesday when a reporter asked why the students were kept out: Fred Sellers, the system’s vice president for safety and emergency operations, “was made aware there were four members of the public that wanted in,” Wallace said, but there were only three seats available. One of the four said they would watch the meeting via the live-stream made available by the system on its website, Wallace said, and the other three people were allowed inside. Sellers then heard that more people wanted to enter the meeting, Wallace said, but by that time, the board was entering closed session.
The open-session portion of the meeting, in which the vote on the DEI policy took place, lasted roughly five minutes.
Alexander Denza, another student with the groups, said students arrived to the doors of the Alex Ewing Performance Place before the committee meeting began. Denza provided to The N&O a video of the students’ encounter with Purchase, the UNC System public safety director, which Denza said was filmed beginning at 3:40 p.m. — five minutes before the meeting began, and 10 minutes before the meeting was closed to the public for the closed-session portion of the meeting.
In the video, Purchase is seen standing in front of the main doors to the building answering questions from the students. Purchase told the students that there were “three seats for the public” available at the meeting, noting that all of the other seats were all filled by university chancellors, their guests and other attendees. The three seats had been filled by faculty and staff of the School of the Arts, Purchase told the students.
Purchase told the students that the meeting was being streamed online and that they could watch it through that platform.
Asked by a student in the video how many people had been turned away, Purchase answered that he hadn’t “turned anybody away.”
“You guys are the first,” Purchase told the group.
Asked by another student if there was a larger space where the meeting could have been held to accommodate more people, Purchase said he did not know. Purchase also said that he did not know how many seats in the theater were occupied by university staff.
Toward the end of the roughly four-minute video, Purchase is seen telling the students: “If you guys are going to hang out, maybe you could hang out over there, if that’s alright.” It is unclear exactly where Purchase was gesturing, but he told students they were blocking the entry to the building “a little bit.” At separate points in the video, one person is seen being able to access the doors to leave the building, while two other people are seen entering the building.
Denza told The N&O that neitherhe, nor any of the other students he was with, was let inside the meeting room or the building by system staff at any time Wednesday afternoon.
Did the board violate open meetings law?
Both Wallace, speaking to The N&O, and Purchase, as seen speaking to the students on the video, said all of the seats available to the public were full, citing that as the reason that the students were not allowed inside the meeting room.
It is unclear whether exceptions to the state law on open meetings are made when a room reaches its capacity. The Catawba Theatre has signs posted outside of its doors stating that “occupancy by more than 210 persons is dangerous and unlawful.” It is also unclear whether that occupancy was met Wednesday.
At a morning committee meeting Wednesday, additional seats were added to accommodate meeting attendees after the seats that were initially available were all filled. Denza also noted that other public bodies have allowed attendees to stand in the meeting room when seats are not available, pointing to photos of attendees lining the walls of a June 2021 meeting of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees that involved discussions of whether journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones would be offered tenure to teach at the university.
Asked by The N&O Wednesday whether the room was filled to a point at which a fire code or other regulations would make the room unsafe, Wallace said only that the room was full.
Tadych, the attorney, said thatcourt rulings on a related issue indicates public bodies, such as the Board of Governors, must take “reasonable measures” to not completely exclude members of the public from the meeting. Such measures could include streaming the meeting through video or audio for attendees in an overflow meeting space, Tadych said.
In one court case Tadych cited, “the public was excluded only to overflow space and not permitted to enter the meeting room for the convenience of the body.” The body also instituted a ticketing policy for admission to the meeting, which was found to be “unreasonable as it was instituted without notice to the public.”
Two courts found “that the public body’s use of streaming and overflow rooms where the meeting could be viewed via audio/visual feeds were reasonable,” Tadych said.
While Board of Governors meetings are live-streamed, it does not appear that overflow space to view the stream was made available for the students Wednesday when the room became filled. Tadych said he was not sure whether only providing a live-stream of the meeting, but not a space to view it, would be considered an attempt to provide reasonable access to the meeting.
The state law on open meetings states that any person can seek a judgment from superior court on whether a public body violated the law. If the court were to find that the body did violate the law, the court could rule that actions taken during the body’s meeting are “null and void.”
Denza told The N&O that the students plan to file a complaint with the North Carolina attorney general’s office about not being let into the meeting. That office “issues opinions reminding government entities of their obligations under these laws and how to comply,” according to its website.
NC Reality Check is an N&O series holding those in power accountable and shining a light on public issues that affect the Triangle or North Carolina. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email realitycheck@newsobserver.com
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Korie Dean covers higher education in the Triangle and North Carolina for The News & Observer. She was previously part of the paper’s service journalism team. She is a graduate of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC-Chapel Hill and a lifelong North Carolinian.
Since starting its operations in the Philippines nearly two years ago, the fast-growing fintech brand Skyro has experienced exponential growth, establishing an expansive network of over 500 partner merchants and a formidable presence in more than 3,000 stores across the country.
As the brand continues to expand and provide more Filipinos access to credit opportunities through its inclusive digital financial products, Skyro recognizes the indispensable role played by its workforce in achieving these milestones.
From its humble beginnings with a small team of 42 employees back in 2022, Skyro has expanded its workforce to 1,200+ strong employees to date — an achievement that speaks volumes to the company’s aggressive expansion and growth as it continues to reach more Filipino customers in the coming years.
“Reflecting on our journey, I am deeply appreciative of the remarkable dedication shown by our employees. Their unwavering commitment and tireless efforts have been instrumental in driving Skyro’s growth and success,” said Skyro’s co-founder and co-CEO Nasim Aliev.
Asiya Erzhanova, Skyro’s head of human resources, also shared, “Each member of our team plays a vital role in shaping our company’s narrative, and their passion fuels our mission to revolutionize the fintech industry. At Skyro, we hold immense gratitude for our people’s contributions, and we are committed to fostering a culture of appreciation and empowerment, ensuring that each individual feels valued and supported in their professional journey.”
Fostering a culture centered on diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI)
As the company prepares for its expansion this year, Skyro is committed to fostering a culture centered on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). This will stand as a core of Skyro’s values, aimed at acknowledging the potential of every employee regardless of sexual orientation, age, gender identity, nationality, disability, ethnic origin, or marital status.
The company prides itself on its rich and diverse workforce, boasting a balanced gender with nearly equal representation of males (48%) and females (52%) across the company. Additionally, Skyro values cultural diversity, providing equal opportunities for Filipino executives to hold top management positions alongside expatriate leaders.
Skyro’s workforce comprises a blend of experienced industry veterans who offer hands-on support and guidance to young professionals eager to learn and contribute insights into industry trends. Millennials make up 74.2% of the workforce, with centennials comprising 24.0%, while Gen X represents 1.8%.
Embracing its diverse employment culture, Skyro has recruited talents from over 10 different countries, including the Philippines. The company is also proud to have 156 hires from Visayas and 103 from Mindanao, giving opportunities to other Filipinos across the country.
Through its DEI initiatives, Skyro aims to foster a diverse and inclusive workplace, where employees can freely share unique perspectives, respect one another’s individual needs, and realize their full potential without encountering barriers.
Celebrating Skyro Day and unveiling of new HQ for employees
With the goal of showing Filipinos a glimpse of working in fintech, the brand celebrated Skyro Day last March 25 in which Skyro employees showcased their experience on social media about what it is like working in a fintech company like Skyro.
This initiative goes beyond showing Skyro’s culture but also aims to debunk common misconceptions about working in fintech. As a leading fintech brand in the Philippines, Skyro actively supports the country’s growing fintech market, offering numerous opportunities for Filipinos to enter an industry that promotes growth, learning, and enjoyment.
In line with this, Skyro also announced its recent relocation to a new headquarters in Mandaluyong City, reflecting the company’s expansion plans and preparation for onboarding more talent in the coming months. Located at Robinsons Cybergate Tower 3, this new workspace was designed to foster an environment conducive to collaboration, wellness, and productivity.
As Skyro continues to expand its operations in the Philippines, the company remains steadfast in its commitment to making its employees one of its top priorities. Skyro believes that cultivating an empowered and diverse workforce will enable them to deliver better services, offerings, and experiences to their valued Filipino customers.
Skyro is a fintech company duly licensed and supervised by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). To learn more about digital financial products from Skyro, visit its official website www.skyro.ph. Follow its official Facebook and Instagram accounts to know more about its latest promos and offerings.
El Segundo Unified School District (ESUSD), in partnership with EdSAFE AI Alliance, is proud to announce the establishment of a new AI Policy Lab. The lab will be focused on fostering safe and ethical use of artificial intelligence (AI) in educational settings, and part of a nationwide network of similar policy initiatives, including the New York City Public Schools AI Policy Lab.
“Our AI policy initiative underscores our dedication to integrating AI in a manner that prioritizes our values,” stated Melissa Moore, Superintendent at ESUSD. “Our primary objectives include ensuring equity, safety, ethical practices, effectiveness, and transparency. We aim to incorporate a wide array of perspectives in this process, including those of policymakers, industry experts, educators, students, and families, to collaboratively develop AI strategies and policies that resonate with our community’s unique needs and principles.”
ESUSD’s AI Policy Lab is designed as a collaborative, interdisciplinary partnership that encourages responsible AI development, deployment, and usage. The lab will provide ESUSD with policy recommendations and educational resources for teachers, students, and parents, and facilitate ongoing refinement to ensure policies are in sync with practical applications with a particular focus on community, parent and student engagement.
The national network – led by the EdSAFE AI Alliance – aimed at addressing the challenges and embracing the opportunities arising from the rapid introduction of AI in education. The network is comprised of 12 districts throughout the country who have come together to develop a “policy stack” – including acceptable use policies, parent communication and consent policies, and professional development resources for their districts.
By working together in an open science approach the network aims to create a comprehensive policy stack supporting AI’s responsible, secure integration in K-12 education by involving experts from various fields. This collaborative effort is a significant step towards leveraging AI in education more effectively and aligned with the SAFE framework.
Numerade, the AI-powered online STEM learning platform, announced the company is offering a free year of access to its Numerade Plus subscription to all Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) K-12 students and teachers. With Numerade Plus, students and teachers will have access to a full suite of education features, including over 100 million textbook video solutions, expert-verified answers, full-length video courses, custom quizzes, unlimited “Ask an Expert” questions, and an AI chatbot tutor powered by GPT-4.
The initiative comes as downstream effects from pandemic-related learning losses continue to manifest. In fact, recent data from the state found that most California students don’t meet grade-level standards in math and reading. And historically, supplemental learning materials and tutoring haven’t been accessible to all students – nearly 1 in 5 upper-income families can afford to hire a private tutor, while only 7% of middle and low-income families can. As an LA-based company, Numerade is giving back to its community to help bridge this divide and reduce barriers by offering its premium features for free.
“This is a personal initiative for me, as Numerade was born from my own experience growing up in LA and seeing education inequity firsthand,” said Nhon Ma, CEO and co-founder of Numerade. “I believe that everyone deserves a quality education, regardless of their background. Numerade is my way of giving back and helping level the playing field – we’re proud to help support our community and give students opportunities and resources that they may not have otherwise.”
All teachers within the LAUSD will also have free access to Numerade Plus so they can incorporate Numerade’s trusted educational content into their instruction to reinforce the topics covered throughout the year. Numerade Plus can also help them save time with lesson plans, quizzes and even grading assignments.
To enroll in 12 months of free Numerade Plus, students and teachers can visit www.numerade.com/lausd and use their LAUSD email address to enroll between now and December 31, 2023.
Success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) demands keeping up with the latest tools and techniques. The AI boom, for example, has made coding and data management skills integral. But going back to school isn’t an option for most scientists. Short training programs like webinars and boot camps have become a popular alternative among busy STEM professionals. However, these formats can have significant shortcomings. There’s often no guarantee attendees will leave with the skills needed to advance their careers. And they can be exclusionary, preventing learners of all abilities and circumstances from benefiting equally.
An interdisciplinary and international team assembled at CSHL’s Banbury Center to address the challenges of short STEM training programs. The meeting was titled “Making Career-spanning Learning in the Life Sciences Inclusive and Effective for All.”
“We’ve all had horrible teachers,” recalls Jason Williams. Williams is Assistant Director of Diversity and Research Readiness at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) DNA Learning Center. “There have been efforts to improve science education at the undergraduate level for decades. But there’s basically no effort to improve education once you’ve graduated. It’s just assumed you’ll somehow keep up.”
To tackle this problem, Williams and collaborators have created a new teaching framework called the “Bicycle Principles.” It aims to make short STEM training effective, inclusive, and scalable. The principles originated from a meeting at CSHL’s Banbury Center think tank. Williams and co-organizer Rochelle Tractenberg recruited the world’s leading experts in short-format education. They identified the field’s biggest issues and ways to address them.
The group came up with two sets of principles linked like bicycle wheels. One wheel, Core Principles, focuses on effectiveness and inclusivity. Recommendations here include setting clear objectives participants of all abilities can achieve. The other wheel, Community Principles, revolves around reach, accessibility, and sustainability. It recommends making training adaptable for different institutions, especially those lacking the resources of large universities.
Williams says the Banbury meeting and the guidelines it inspired are the first of their kind. He hopes they won’t be the last. Williams explains:
“If we can raise awareness, we can start doing something about it. Our goal was to put the first flag in the ground to say, ‘Here are the key problems scientists face in professional development. And here are some potential solutions.’”
Such improvements could help researchers achieve their career goals and increase the impact of their work—familiar objectives for Williams and CSHL. The institution supports a number of science career paths through its education initiatives. These begin as early as grade school via the DNA Learning Center. And they continue throughout a scientist’s career, with CSHL’s Meetings & Courses Program.
After all, learning is a journey. The Bicycle Principles can make the trip more successful for all.
Kevin is a forward-thinking media executive with more than 25 years of experience building brands and audiences online, in print, and face to face. He is an acclaimed writer, editor, and commentator covering the intersection of society and technology, especially education technology. You can reach Kevin at KevinHogan@eschoolnews.com
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
It’s that time of the year again when “Let’s circle back in the new year” is the recurring mantra around the office while employees schedule their much-needed time off. If you’re responsible for approving requests for paid time off, you may have seen some interesting dates — some that don’t seem to align with Christmas and other Christian holidays. You may have encountered requests around the three other December holidays that aren’t Christian-centric and that HR and hiring managers often overlook.
Before you hit “deny” on that PTO request, make sure you aren’t saying no to someone’s religious holiday needs. There are three religious and cultural holidays in December that may have slipped your mind. Here’s how to stay on top of your employees’ requests for holiday time off and keep your business afloat at the same time.
Brush up on Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Bodhi Day
Although 63% of Americans identify as Christian, that leaves 37% who don’t — many of these people celebrate religious holidays and periods that aren’t Christianity-centric and here are three that you should be aware of.
Hanukkah
This Jewish holiday period begins this year on Thursday, December 7, 2023, and runs through Friday, December 15, 2023. For several days, different themes are celebrated, candles are lit on the menorah, there’s daily reading of Scripture, recitation of some of the Psalms, and singing of special hymns. All of which take time off and dedication to fully enjoy. If you have Jewish employees at your company, be sure to respect their needs for family and tradition during this period.
Kwanzaa
Kwanzaa is a pan-African holiday that started in the United States in the 1960s. This holiday period begins this year on Tuesday, December 26, and ends on Monday, January 1, 2024. It includes celebrating a different value every day during that period, wearing symbolic colors, reciting sayings from great black thinkers, African drumming and sharing a meal from the African diaspora. Be sure to honor the paid time off requests of those who celebrate Kwanzaa.
Bodhi Day
Bodhi Day is a Buddhist holiday that occurs this year on Friday, December 8, 2023. Bodhi Day commemorates the day of Buddha’s enlightenment. It involves lots of prayer and meditation, reading scriptures, decorating trees with colorful lights, and having meals with family. Be sure to respect those who ask for this day off in 2024 and beyond.
Ask what employees need
Sometimes, employees submit PTO requests and don’t give context or explanations of their religious or cultural holiday needs. If you, an HR professional, or a manager have a good relationship with someone who is a religious minority, be sure to start a conversation about what that person needs this holiday season.
Some employees want time off to pray; others want time off to travel to faraway places to celebrate with loved ones, while others would appreciate an office party to commemorate the period. However, employees choose to celebrate and practice compassion, understanding, and strategic planning to honor their religious needs while keeping business running as usual.
Create staggered time off schedules around religious holidays
If you have Buddhist employees who want Bodhi Day off or employees who celebrate Kwanzaa towards the end of December, you can artfully create staggered schedules that honor cultural holidays while keeping the company employee roster organized.
Ask employees to submit their PTO requests at least one month in advance to give managers and directors time to strategize. That way, employees have time to hear back about their requests, and managers can ensure no balls are dropped while coordinating coverage. This is good practice in general but especially important during the holiday season.
Final thoughts
For those of us in the United States, living in a Christian-centric society means that many of us might forget that not everyone celebrates Christmas. The holiday season is full of festivities that span beyond Christianity and should be respected and honored in a similar fashion.
For those in charge of managing paid time off, be sure to be mindful of what non-Christian holidays are occurring, which employees celebrate certain holidays, and how to keep business going through the holiday season. Your workforce and their families will thank you.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Does this sound familiar? You’re on the edge of burnout. You haven’t done anything “nice” for yourself in a while and you’re constantly putting other people’s needs above your own. The needs of your company, the needs of your family and the needs of your community are always a higher priority, and now there’s no more energy or room for you.
As a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) consultant with a background in organizational psychology, I understand why some people constantly put themselves behind others and, consequently, burn themselves out. Marginalized people often do that. They code-switch to fit in with the dominant culture as a means of survival. Their needs are always last in the hierarchy.
It turns out, that up to 89% of Americans have experienced symptoms of burnout. That has to change. You can’t show up as your best — at work or with others — if you don’t take care of yourself first. I’m inviting you to take a step back from burnout and embrace radical self-care. Here’s how.
Radical self-care is a continual process that involves the conscious and proactive decision to care for yourself by engaging in activities that regularly feed your wellbeing. Radical self-care allows you to prioritize yourself and put self-supporting needs before others’ needs to reduce the impact of stress, burnout and emotional disarray. Self-care isn’t just a “phrase;” it involves intentional actions that allow you to be more cognizant and aware of your physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and relational health.
Why radical self-care matters for professionals
You’re running a company or you’re an employee with lots of responsibility and stress. People depend on you to lead and contribute. But if you’re burned out and exhausted, how can you be your best self? How can you show up when it matters most?
Before burnout and ball-dropping happen, be radical about your self-care — that is, don’t just make it a “nice to have” practice in your routine. Make it a necessity. This is particularly important for professionals belonging to marginalized communities. Marginalized people face a disproportionate burden in society dealing with microaggressions, glass ceilings, and the like. Fortunately, prioritizing radical self-care can be a tool to counter some of the draining impacts of systemic racism, discrimination and trauma.
If you’re new to self-care, here’s what it can look like in practice. The three pillars of radical self-care involve the mind, body, and spirit which — contrary to popular belief — are not all separate entities working independently to keep you alive. They’re cooperators in your lived experience, and all work to keep you balanced and well for all of your endeavors. For practical purposes, let’s reframe mind, body, and spirit and refer to them respectively as mental and emotional, physical and purpose. Each area needs nourishment, so schedule time to engage in activities that provide that nourishment. Here are some ideas.
To nourish your mental and emotional wellbeing:
Have a lazy day.
Say “no” more often.
Limit your news consumption.
Spend time communing in nature.
To nourish your physical wellbeing:
Eat healthy foods.
Go on a walk.
Drink water.
Sleep 6-8 hours per day.
Hit the gym or go to a studio.
To nourish your purpose and get closer to it:
Meditate
Journal
Do a good deed.
Volunteer for a cause.
How to prioritize radical self-care
If you struggle to make time for yourself, try this: say “no.” I know it’s tough, but hear me out. When you say “no,” you make time for your “yes.” If you’re assigned an obligation that isn’t in your skillset and would take you days and weeks to figure out, you can say “no, thank you” and request it be assigned to someone else. If colleagues are meeting for drinks after work, but you know drinking alcohol isn’t great for your mental or physical wellbeing, simply say “no” and use that time to do something that nourishes your spirit instead.
When it comes to your family, if taking a half day away from the kids or family members would be nourishing to you, say no to obligations that force you to be present and find a way to negotiate some private time. You have more power with the word “no” than you might think.
For those with busy schedules, set aside a particular day or time of day as your radical self-care block — whether it’s every Friday or noon on weekdays. Tell your friends and colleagues you won’t be available and do something for you during that time slot. Don’t skip it when something comes up — instead, stick with it. Whether you’re simply going for a 30-minute walk on your lunch break or taking that time to journal and meditate, have a dedicated time every day or week that you can rely on to deepen your radical self-care practice.
Despite common belief, you don’t have to be “on” all the time, moving through the world as if you are impervious to trauma, stress and burnout. You can manage the effects of losing your stamina, falling out of touch with your purpose, and generally needing time to rest by implementing radical self-care.
That can look like saying “no” to obligations that drain you and assigning those obligations to someone else. It can look like taking mental health days once a week or month. It can look like actually using your paid time off instead of letting it accumulate for the holidays. Self-care can be more of a choice than we think, and it’s not a selfish choice. Prioritizing it in your professional and personal life can help you stay well and present for all of the endeavors and people that matter most.
In a Facebook Story she hoped would never become public, former Facebook employee Barbara Furlow-Smiles entered a guilty plea today for stealing over $4 million from the social media giant, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Georgia.
The Atlanta-based Furlow-Smiles, 38, led diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs for Facebook (whose parent company is Meta) from 2017 to 2021. During that time, she used her position and Meta money to live like a rockstar, booking expensive hair stylist appointments and babysitting services. She even stole money to pay a hefty $18,000 tuition payment for a preschool.
“This defendant abused a position of trust as a global diversity executive for Facebook to defraud the company of millions of dollars, ignoring the insidious consequences of undermining the importance of her DEI mission,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan.
Buchanan detailed Furlow-Smiles’ elaborate scam in detail. First, she linked her corporate credit cards to her personal digital payment platforms, including PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App. Then, she used these apps to pay relatives and associates for goods and services allegedly for Facebook. But in reality, nothing went to the company. The accomplices returned most of the money to Furlow-Smiles as a cash kickback.To cover her fake credit card charges, Furlow-Smiles submitted fraudulent expense reports.
But the fraud did not stop there. Furlow-Smiles also hired friends and associates as vendors for Facebook, approving their inflated invoices and taking a percentage. Some services she acquired included $10,000 to an artist for a portrait.
Meta has not said much publicly about the case. In an email to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, they wrote, “We are cooperating with law enforcement on the case regarding this former program manager, and we will continue to do so.”
A source sent me a photo of a peculiar notebook received by someone who attended Google’s K&I Black Summit in August but only recently looked through the merchandise from the event.
On the front of the Google-branded notebook given to its Black attendees is the summit’s name alongside the event’s theme: “Seize the moment.” That’s completely normal. On the inside of the notebook, however, it reads verbatim, “I was just cotton the moment, but I came back to take your notes.”
Image Credits: supplied
Now pause. The notebook is funny because it’s one of those things that, if given to a crowd of any other race, the slogan inside would have meant relatively nothing. It might have been perceived as it was likely supposed to be: a notebook made from eco-friendly recycled cotton materials. Instead, here is just this notebook, given to an audience of Black people, that says, “I was just cotton the moment.” It is an awkward oversight from Google, especially in the post-2020 era when support for Black employees has become more deliberate.
When reached by email, a Google spokesperson did not dispute that the company gave out the notebooks during the event. The spokesperson said that the notebooks were purchased through a third-party vendor and that Google did not add the cotton line. (Google declared the email on “background,” which requires that both parties agree to the terms in advance. We are printing the reply, as we were given no opportunity to reject the terms.)
I asked the spokesperson how the attendees might perceive the notebook’s awkward “cotton” line, but the spokesperson did not directly respond. What is clear is that whoever was overseeing the ordering of these notebooks did not pay keen attention to how they could be perceived before handing them out.
Anyway, if anyone knows more about what happened at this Summit, please, let’s get brunch.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
More than 5 million businesses were created in the U.S. in 2022. What makes the true industry giants stand out in a world of fierce competition? What separates an average company from a top-tier organization that’s successful and pivotal in shaping the future?
Drawing upon 20-plus years as an entrepreneur, during which I’ve witnessed numerous businesses rise and fall, I’ve gathered insights into critical factors that differentiate outstanding enterprises from the rest.
Let’s dig into the essential elements that elevate a company to best-in-class status, exploring how ethical conduct, innovation and social responsibility are admirable goals and vital drivers of success.
When we talk about ethical conduct in business, we’re not just checking boxes to comply with laws and regulations. We are establishing a compass that guides our companies’ actions, shapes culture and dictates how we interact with stakeholders. In a time when trust can shatter like glass and reputation is everything, integrity is the foundation upon which best-in-class businesses are built.
In my enterprises, I’ve learned that cultivating a culture that values doing the right thing, even when it’s tough, is critical. This means creating an environment where your team feels empowered to make ethical decisions, with you leading by example. Weaving ethics into your company’s DNA increases credibility, fosters trust and boosts profitability.
And here’s the magic: When customers and clients trust your company, they become loyal advocates, bolstering your reputation and driving sustainable growth through word-of-mouth referrals. Ethical practices also attract socially conscious investors, further boosting your company’s financial health.
Innovation isn’t confined to new technology and cutting-edge software. Best-in-class companies view innovation as a continuous pursuit of creative solutions to problems, whether in your products, services, how you treat team members or the processes that drive your business.
Innovation isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a significant driver of profitability. A recent McKinsey & Company study found that companies embracing innovation enjoy a substantial performance edge, outperforming their peers by a staggering 2.4 times in economic profit.
Nurturing innovation doesn’t only mean hosting grand brainstorming sessions; it involves having a company culture where every team member feels empowered to contribute ideas regardless of their title.
It centers on embracing diverse voices and perspectives, encouraging experimentation, and seeing failure as a stepping stone to success. Best-in-class companies are pioneers who establish themselves as thought leaders in their industry and push the boundaries of what’s possible.
I learned these principles early in my business career through observing successful companies and leaders. After a few years of ideation and experimentation, I found what worked for my leadership style and industry. Today, I’m still trying new things and paying close attention to results and the feedback of my teams, clients and other stakeholders.
Which approaches to innovation will work for you? You’ll only discover by jumping in fearlessly and getting creative.
To leverage innovation in your business:
Look for opportunities to improve efficiency, productivity, and results.
Include your leadership and frontline teams in planning from the start.
Talk to clients, investors and other stakeholders to gather unique perspectives and discover new ideas.
Due your due diligence: Study a variety of strategies and solutions.
Take risks (measured) — don’t be afraid to disrupt the status quo.
To be a best-in-class company, you can’t shy away from taking on significant challenges.
This means fully embracing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles and addressing critical concerns such as sustainability, reducing your carbon footprint, promoting employee wellbeing and engaging with the community.
It has become evident that stakeholders want, need and deserve a business approach that aligns with their values and addresses pressing global concerns.
A recent study revealed global investors are increasingly focused on ESG issues in their investment strategies. Roughly 89% of investors considered ESG issues in some form as part of their investment approach in 2022, up from 84% in 2021.
Equally vital is the commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Companies that prioritize diversity and inclusion not only contribute to a more equitable society but also reap the rewards of being able to tap into a variety of perspectives and ideas.
When you demonstrate an unwavering commitment to positive change, you enhance employee engagement and elevate your brand’s reputation, resonating with socially conscious consumers and investors.
To become a more conscientious organization:
Listen to your stakeholders and the public to learn what’s most important to them.
Research more into what comprises ESG and DEI initiatives.
Hire professionals or retain consultants with relevant expertise.
As with ethics, share these values across your organization and let them guide your actions.
Success goes beyond the bottom line; it hinges on a relentless pursuit of excellence. Best-in-class companies understand this truth.
They thrive by integrating ethics into their DNA, prioritizing innovation, and leading positive change by adopting ESG and DEI initiatives.
Through these pillars, they enhance profitability, but more importantly, create a lasting positive impact that solidifies their best-in-class status, setting a high standard for all who follow.
SAINT PAUL, Minn., November 21, 2023 (Newswire.com)
– Renowned diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) coach Seena Hodges, founder of The Woke Coach®, is excited to announce the release of her groundbreaking book, “From Ally to Accomplice: How to Lead as a Fierce Antiracist,” where she shares best practices from her DEI training programs for every person and organization, no matter where they are on their antiracism journey.
“In our day-to-day lives, it’s not enough to simply stand by and be an ally,” said Hodges. “Whether you’re a leader inside your organization or outside of your workplace, it’s time to become an accomplice. This book is an invitation and call to action for anyone looking for support in their efforts to fight against the multi-faceted phenomenon of racism.”
In her debut book, Hodges provides a roadmap for leaders, featuring educational tools, personal anecdotes and real-life examples to illustrate the importance of collective action and ongoing education. By emphasizing the significance of listening, learning and unlearning, Hodges empowers readers to cultivate authentic relationships and create inclusive spaces for all.
“I wasn’t expecting a self-help book on racism to be a page-turner, but Seena shares profound expertise and wisdom in such an engaging and straightforward way that it’s hard not to read it cover to cover,” said David Wilson, managing partner at Commutator LLC. “And at the end of it, the case for becoming an accomplice fighting racism is compelling, and the path forward is clear. This book will change the hearts, minds and actions of all who read it.”
Seena Hodges is an award-winning DEI expert who is passionate about equity, intersectional feminism and access to brave spaces for all. She founded The Woke Coach® in 2018 because she wholeheartedly believes that racial equity is the defining issue of our time. As CEO, she leads antiracist programming and inclusion training for a wide range of clients, from local governments to the University of Minnesota, Red Wing Shoe Company, KNOCK, inc., and the Walker Art Center.
“From Ally to Accomplice: How to Lead as a Fierce Antiracist” is available for purchase on Amazon and at select retailers. For more information about Seena Hodges and her work, visit thewokecoach.com/book.
Panel on Genderless Beauty Brought Together Top LA-Based Creators, Industry Pros and Media
LOS ANGELES, November 14, 2023 (Newswire.com)
– Agency Guacamole, a Los Angeles-based communications firm supporting leading beauty and lifestyle brands, hosted its seventh Beauty, Lifestyle and Nurturing Diversity (B.L.N.D.) event on Oct. 25, 2023, in Los Angeles. This year’s B.L.N.D. conversation was around gender diversity with the theme “Genderless Beauty – The Future is Now.”
“What a special evening!” said Bilal Kaiser, founder and principal at Agency Guacamole. “This year’s topic around Genderless Beauty gave each of our panelists the opportunity to share their perspectives and passion for the industry and bring new insights to those of us working in the beauty/lifestyle categories.
“Our seventh B.L.N.D. event was our biggest event to date, and I couldn’t be more proud,” he added.
This year’s B.L.N.D. panel was moderated by Kaiser and featured three panelists:
Gloria Noto, professional makeup artist and founder of beauty brand NOTO Botanics
Maebe A. Girl, drag queen and Treasurer and At-Large Representative for the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council
Each panelist brought a unique perspective on the genderless beauty movement and covered a multitude of topics under the genderless beauty umbrella, including authenticity, inclusive marketing and the future of gender in the beauty industry.
Numerous brand partners were involved in the event, including Urban Decay Cosmetics, Baxter of California and Suntory, and guests were invited to a make-their-own-gift-bag station featuring covetable beauty products from the event’s gifting sponsors.
B.L.N.D. started in 2018 and has taken place in New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta and virtually since then. The goal of this annual initiative is to bring together key opinion leaders, industry executives, content creators and editors to talk about different themes around inclusivity.
“Our coast-to-coast experiences have brought together a community of amazing people who want to do and learn more,” added Kaiser. “After this year’s event, the feedback from our audience is even clearer that more conversations around DE&I are needed in the beauty and lifestyle categories — and we are up to the challenge. Just wait until you hear what we’re cooking up for B.L.N.D. in 2024.”
ABOUT AGENCY GUACAMOLE:
Agency Guacamole is an award-winning influencer marketing, PR and events firm, dedicated to exceptional service and developing innovative, cross-platform experiences for leading beauty and lifestyle brands. From product launch campaigns, content initiatives. influencer partnerships and experiential activations, Team AG thrives on bringing each client’s vision to life in ways that are unique yet fun.
Just as a delicious guacamole recipe brings together various ingredients to produce a wonderful final product, so does Agency Guacamole’s approach to experiential, social and PR: connecting the dots, sharing meaningful stories and inspiring all involved to deliver impactful, impressive and — of course — delicious results.
Join us as we change the world one chip at a time.
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Now more than ever, this question of what a business’ values, perspective, and stance are on certain social issues is under the microscope of diverse applicants. According to Monster.com, 86% of applicants actively engaged in a job search care about an employer’s reputation with regard to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). The same survey found that 62% of applicants would turn down a job offer if their employer did not support DEI.
In this hiring climate, where hundreds of thousands of jobs have been added to the economy in 2023 alone, employees are looking for their perfect match and feel certain they can afford to wait until they find it. Without communicating DEI as a key value of your business on online platforms, you could be turning off high-value applicants who could join your team.
So, how can businesses like yours stand out in the vast sea of “now hiring” signs and attract the best of the best diverse talent? The answer is clear: Develop an employer brand.
What is an employer brand?
Employer branding is a marketing and communication strategy that builds an emotional connection between the potential employee and the employer by demonstrating a positive image and reputation in its marketing.
Employer branding involves the rhetoric that’s written on the company’s website, the posts it touts on LinkedIn, and the word-of-mouth reputation that represents its staff makeup, values, and commitments.
When a diverse applicant sees your newly posted job description and is curious about your business, they likely go to your LinkedIn profile or website to see if yours is the kind of organization they’d like to be a part of. One of the ways companies can present themselves in the most positive light to these applicants is by discussing their values and initiatives around DEI.
However, there are several missteps companies make when engaging in employer branding that could turn diverse employees off in seconds.
How employee branding could be turning off diverse candidates
From the brand’s policies to its website messaging, these five mistakes may cause diverse candidates to dismiss your job posting before they even apply.
1. Your business doesn’t have a DEI statement on job applications
If you don’t have a DEI statement at the end of your job applications, you’re sending the wrong message to diverse candidates. This statement can be simple and should say something to the effect of “We’re an equal opportunity employer and are committed to providing equal employment opportunities for all applicants and employees, regardless of race, religion, gender, national origin, age, disability, marital status or veteran status.”
As basic as this statement may sound, it acts to lower the perceived barriers to entry for some diverse applicants. It’s the first step in DEI-centric employee branding that serves as a handshake to diverse candidates. It communicates that “all are welcome” and that one’s identity doesn’t qualify or disqualify someone from being here. It’s a small step that can lead to more diverse applicants applying for your open role.
2. Your business doesn’t offer ERGs, BRGs, or wellness groups
An employee resource group (ERG), business resource group (BRG), or wellness group is an important component of promoting a sense of belonging in a company. Diverse applicants are looking for businesses that offer affinity groups, especially if the staff makeup has a sizable group of individuals who share a similar identity.
It doesn’t always have to be about race, gender, or other common identities. Groups can also be formed around shared values like faith, health, sports and more. The goal is to demonstrate that your business is making a good-faith effort towards promoting community and belonging, and these are important components of a desirable workplace, especially for diverse applicants. Having a page on your business’s website or social media showcasing special groups that employees can join can help your business stand out and appear more welcoming to diverse applicants.
3. Your business doesn’t offer a flexible work environment
It’s 2023, and more applicants are looking for flexible workspaces, whether they’re a parent or someone looking for more work-life balance (or work-life blend, as I call it), companies who brand themselves as flexible or accommodating workspaces are more attractive to potential employees than those who enforce rigid work schedules and mandatory in-office days.
Since the world was taken by storm by the Covid-19 pandemic, more diverse applicants, including people of color, those with disabilities, and gender minorities, began looking for “safer” spaces to work. Minorities have always had to face microaggressions and adapt to the dominant culture in the workplace. However, having more flexibility around their office environment and schedule has helped those individuals find a work-life blend and has eased the burden of daily microaggressions and code-switching in the workplace.
4. Your business doesn’t offer outside-of-work activities
We all like to have fun and enjoy quality time with others. Companies that brand themselves as “fun” workspaces or ones that offer outside-of-work activities like company outings, retreats or sports activities can attract more diverse applicants and likely retain them longer. Although not every employee should have to participate in these activities, it’s nice to have the option for diverse candidates who are seeking community in the workplace.
These activities aren’t just for show; they allow employees to bond and cultivate a true sense of belonging and community. Belonging is a critical element of a diverse workplace and should be promoted. Most companies do the bare minimum in offering outside-of-work activities. The consequence is that it can lead many minorities to feel isolated or disconnected from their coworkers–and this certainly does not attract or retain diverse talent.
5. Build an employer brand that attracts — not repels — diversity
Your business could have some of the best benefits packages and offerings available, but if you’re not actively discussing them, writing about them on your website and on social media, and sharing them in company emails, your employee brand isn’t going to benefit.
Don’t neglect to speak about issues potential employees care about, like maternity and paternity benefits, flexible hours, and remote working, as well as diverse representation at all levels of the organization.
These components of an employee brand can make or break your business’s competitiveness in the hiring market. Be the brand that stands out and attracts the best of the best by honing your employer brand and letting diverse employees come to you.
