What
Our Purpose: This six-month program is designed to give us the opportunity to immerse ourselves in this topic of race, then use exposure to information, group interaction, and personal sharing to explore the way systemic racism impacts each, and all of us, and to take that awareness into action as leaders and allies.
Our intention is to raise awareness of patterns of race in ourselves and in society and to create opportunities for anti-racist leadership, allyship, advocacy, and activism in our organizations, communities, and society to create an equitable and just society that fulfills the vision of our country.
Session One: Laying the Groundwork: Creating a Safe Space for Dialogue.
Participants will get a chance to share their perspective re the current environment and about race in general and reflect on how their background experiences have created their world view re recent events. We will discuss how race shapes our reality and sense of the world around us.
Session Two: “The Past is Never Dead, In Fact, it’s Not Even Past”
The Faulkner quote will be a jumping-off point about how our history has created the racial system we all live in. We will explore the history of race relations in the United States with an orientation towards looking at how it has shaped our current reality, including the history of whiteness as a racial construct.
Session Three: Understanding Bias and Our Personal Cultural Narrative
The foundation of racism lives in conscious and unconscious bias, both in individuals and in systems. This session will explore the phenomenon of bias and how it plays out in society and in organizational life. We will look at how our own personal life experiences have shaped the way we see the world and the world that others around us see.
Session Four: Allyship, Advocacy, and Activism
We will explore the concept of allyship: what does it mean and how is it manifest in the world around us. We will also look at how we can strengthen allyship and then evolve into more active forms of advocacy and activism to create real change.
Session Five: Race in Organizational Life-What does it mean to be an Anti-Racist Leader? How do we create cultures of Belonging within our organizations?
We will discuss how systemic racism impacts organizations and introduce some ways that it can be addressed. We will also explore the first three of six elements of Inclusive Leadership and look at what it is to create a true culture of belonging within our organizations.
Session Six: Where do We Go From Here?
The last session will explore the final three elements of Inclusive Leadership and give participants an opportunity to develop action plans for themselves that give them a pathway to move forward by applying what they have discovered in their daily lives.
Additional Features:
We will offer some optional reading in-between sessions and a recommendation for people to form study groups that will allow them to have at least one discussion between sessions. We will also offer some optional opportunities for people to meet in same-race sessions to explore identity within our own racial groups.
Meet the Series Co-Leaders:
Howard Ross (’91) – Founding Partner, Udarta Consulting, LLC
Howard Ross is a lifelong social justice advocate, the founder of Cook Ross, and the founder of Udarta Consulting, LLC. He is considered one of the world’s seminal thought leaders on identifying and addressing Unconscious Bias. To learn more about Howard you can read his full bio here.
Dr. Karyn Trader-Leigh – CEO, KTA Global Partners
Dr. Karyn Trader-Leigh’s extensive work in diversity has included helping organizations implement corporate diversity initiatives in major corporations, conducting global organization assessments on equity issues for international NGO’s, working with committed leaders, training managers, and employees, coaching consultants and training facilitators in diversity work. To learn more about Karyn you can read her full bio here.
The first session is mandatory and attending all sessions is strongly encouraged.
