How cohousing communities can help seniors sustain quality of life

Issue Date: 8/5/2020Last Updated: 8/4/2020 9:50:03 PM |By David Erickson, Missoulian

Montana is the oldest state west of the Mississippi, and demographic projections show the state growing collectively older as more Montanans enter their senior years. The economic,cultural, and personal impacts of that trend present the state and its residents with new challenges and, with those challenges, opportunities.

Graying Pains is a series of weekly stories and broadcasts exploring those challenges and opportunities in communities statewide. By investigating how other communities have responded to the issues raised by aging, Graying Pains hopes to point the way toward policies and innovations that can help Montana, and Montanans, improve with age.

The series is produced by the Montana Fourth Estate Project, a collaboration among 13 Montana newsrooms and the University of Montana School of Journalism coordinated by Montana Free Press under the auspices of the Montana Newspaper Association and the Solutions Journalism Network. See montanafourthestate.org for the collected Graying Pains stories and more information.

__________________________

Could senior cooperative housing, a model gaining popularity in states with aging populations, be the solution to alleviating social isolation and population loss in Montanas rural small towns?

In Montanas rural counties, where demographic trends show large numbers of young people leaving for the states fast-growing urban areas, the need for elderly housing solutions is going to become increasingly important.

These communities are losing population and growing older. But many seniors in these communities dont want to leave because they know their neighbors and have spent decades as leaders in the community. Housing options for the elderly are few and far between in these areas. Older farmhouses are often poorly equipped for people to age in place, as they often have stairs and require lots of maintenance. Many small towns lack assisted living facilities or nursing homes, and many senior citizens dont need or want that type of round-the-clock care, preferring a more independent lifestyle.

Across the United States, especially in places like Florida, Arizona and California, senior cooperative housing organized around the concepts of resident control and sustaining independence with minimal services is becoming an appealing model. Cooperative housing usually includes independently owned living units, such as condos or houses, arranged around a communal gathering space with some shared activities.

Senior cooperative housing communities are different from assisted living facilities or retirement communities because theyre not usually developed by outside entities, and residents take charge of programming, forming boards that govern everything from landscaping to occupancy. They often include shared kitchen facilities, outdoor areas and rooms where visitors can stay.

What attracts older adults to senior cohousing is the desire for greater social engagement, for a new old-fashioned neighborhood, as one member put it, said Sherry Cummings, a former professor of social work at the University of Tennessee Knoxville who co-authored a book about the facilities. Theyre designed so people see each other a lot. They typically get together for several meals or activities each week. They help one another out with practical tasks, such as driving someone to the airport, and support each other through crisis situations.

In 2016, the Montana Cooperative Development Center funded a feasibility study on the prospects for new housing cooperatives in the Northern Rockies. The study documented a high degree of interest in the development of housing cooperatives as a potential strategy to address a number of housing needs in the northern Rockies.

Jill Eversole Nolan, a retired Ohio State University faculty member, co-authored a study on rural cooperative housing for older adults for the Journal of Extension in 2001, aimed at giving extension offices information for people curious about the facilities.

Cooperative housing for older adults would most certainly be a viable option in Montana, she said in an interview with the Missoulian earlier this year.

Eversole Nolan completed her doctorate on quality of life for older adults in rural communities, with a focus on senior cooperative housing. In reviewing the literature, older adults wanted to stay in the community where they had lent their leadership and where they had family, she said. Their friends were there, their farm was there, but as dynamics changed many of the children would go off and not return to the farm, so they were at an age where they could not maintain the farm but they still wanted to stay in the community. But there were not housing opportunities.

Eversole Nolan visited cooperative living communities for those age 55 and older in rural towns in the Midwest and in the southeastern United States. I interviewed one woman that was 95, she recalled. She said, I was born here, I grew up here, I got married and raised children here and I want to die here. Something like a cooperative housing community was a good choice for her because she could not live in her home and continue her way of life.

Older houses in rural areas lack upgrades that allow older, disabled and frail adults to function normally, Eversole Nolan said. Something as simple as a rounded faucet knob can be difficult for someone with arthritis, and a lack of elevators in multi-story housing can be impossible to live with for some.

She also noted that cooperative housing isnt just for people who want to be social all the time. Some individuals didnt want to partake in a lot of group interaction, she said. Others engaged in many activities. So it gave them a choice to choose the way of life they were accustomed to living.

Margaret Roesch is an organizer for and resident of Village Hearth Cohousing, an intentional cohousing neighborhood for 55-and-over LGBT residents, friends and allies in Durham, North Carolina.

We certainly never imagined, when we joined Village Hearth as members, that we would move in during a global pandemic, Roesch said in a recent newsletter to members. It has certainly added some unexpected twists, but it also makes us all the more thankful and excited to be joining a community of caring people.

The 28-residence facility includes a common house and was built just this year. People are moving in now, and instead of in-person happy hours, the group has instituted Zoom happy hours during the pandemic.

See the article here:

A home of their own, together - Valleyjournal

When Cal State Fullerton President Fram Virjee met recently with business leaders from the North Orange County Chamber of Commerce, he wasted no time in describing how the university is taking action to ensure a quality student education during the pandemic.

Pivoting on a Dime"We had to pivot on a dime back in March," he said. "We not only transitioned 40,000 students but also 4,000 faculty and staff members as they moved to virtual learning, teaching and support. However, graduation rates didn't suffer. Nearly every service we offered is up and running virtually. Of course, this came at considerable expense to ensure all Titans have equitable access to the technology necessary to access these resources. This included issuing thousands of laptops, MiFis, cell phones and state university grant money, more than $10 million in March and April alone.

"This also included training faculty and staff to better utilize the technology we have," he continued. "In fact, 2,600 faculty participants took virtual teaching workshops this summer. They focused on how to get students involved, what would happen in the classroom this fall.

"And yes, we have a tremendous plan in place for fall with 97% of our classes being held in a robust and engaging virtual environment. Students will have lectures, they'll have labs. The other 3% will be held on campus with tremendous safety precautions in place."

Emphasizing that CSUF is the largest campus in the CSU (the largest system in the country) and the only CSU campus in Orange County (that graduates about 12,000 students each year), he shared that about 60% of the student body are students of color and the first in their families to attend college. Also, nearly half are eligible for Pell grants federal grants that are overwhelmingly provided to students from families who earn less than $30,000 a year.

"We are going to come out of this and on the other side, we'll be better," he said. "The new normal, post-COVID, is going to be a hybrid of working virtually and on-site. That is the experience our students are undergoing right now. You'll never have to miss a class because your childcare didn't work out, your car conked out "

Unanimous Approval of the Campus Master Plan"And, most recently, we are celebrating the unanimous approval that Cal State Fullerton received for its campus master plan," he noted. "We've been working on it for almost three years. This is good for Fullerton, North Orange County and many of you came out to support us."

Of course, Virjee continued, the innovative work coming from CSUF transcends the university. Some of the community benefits of the master plan include a new events center that will replace the "granddaddy Titan Gym."

"We are being careful in the design of the gym and are beginning the drafting and planning," Virjee said. "It'll be a place for Titan basketball obviously, but we want a versatile space where we can hold concerts, conventions, speaking events, gatherings . We also want the flexibility to accommodate academic delivery. Since it will be located near the Marriott, there will be easy access off and on 57 freeway.

"Another project, the Innovation Center, will be a place for collaboration, not just among the colleges ... but with businesses and the community. Students and faculty can collaborate with outside groups for mutual benefit.

"And there's the arboretum. It will stay in one piece. We are very proud of it and hope to incorporate it into the academic life of our university. We want our students working out there: engineering, marketing, science, art, music . This will make it more vibrant for the surrounding community.

"With this approval, we are now beginning work on the master plan as we speak. Remember, this is a 15-year plan. One of the things that might not be so obvious to the community but is quite important is developing a new flow for traffic on campus. There will be no traffic running through the core of the campus but it will be diverted in an oval shape around the perimeter of the campus. In fact, we are already beginning to implement that. We are widening the perimeter roads and creating bike/pedestrian paths on campus.

"This approval will also allow us to enhance our student housing. We will be able to offer 5,600 beds on campus (from 2,000) to create 'villages' on campus. And again, having students live on campus will reduce traffic density."

Not Just COVID-19Virjee also stressed that he expects the campus to be more proactive and have greater success as we grapple with the nation's long-standing plague: systemic racism and anti-Blackness. In fact, just days after the killing of George Floyd, Virjee published an "Open Letter to Our Legacy Leaders Across White America."

"It's been a new rallying cry. We have virtual advocacy and training programs. We developed these on our campus organically. Each division has developed a framework to work on issues that relate to anti-bias and anti-racism," he said. "We've been working with different groups in Orange County and Southern California. We're very proud of the work we're doing but we have a lot more work to do.

"Our proactive, decades-long mission to be a national model for diversity and inclusion continues with the momentum of a very intentional redoubling of our commitment in this work over the past two years," he said. "The fruit born from these measures are infinitely backed by endless data but such markers of success are laurels that we cannot and do not intend to rest on for one simple reason: It is not enough.

"As we advocate for and work toward long overdue reform, please know that we at CSUF will not stop at the campus, country, or even state-wide level."

How Can the Community Become Involved?"We have started a 'Common Read' program where we are all reading the same book, 'The Book of the Unknown Americans,'" he said. "This is an opportunity for everyone to engage in discussion. We would love our business community to be reading this book along with us.

"Also, if you have the capacity, mentoring students is a great way to get involved in working with kids from underserved communities. Your assistance helps them become fully engaged and ready. They are hungry for mentors. Help us build what Martin Luther King, Jr. called the 'beloved community.'"

What About Athletics?"The Big West Athletic Conference just announced they'd cancelled athletics for the fall," Virjee said. "We hope to offer athletics (if safe) in the spring. Our student athletes are still on full scholarship. But if it's not safe to play in spring, we won't play then either.

"As far as our new baseball and softball complexes, we've already raised most of the money so groundbreaking will begin soon. Right now, we're working with the contractor, state fire marshal and so forth. We need to keep people safe but we need to also keep the long-term view in sight."

Contact: Valerie Orleans, vorleans@fullerton.edu

The rest is here:

Creating a Safe and Welcoming Campus: President Virjee Meets (Virtually) with North OC Business Leaders - CSUF News

Could senior cooperative housing, a model gaining popularity in states with aging populations, be the solution to alleviating social isolation and population loss in Montanas rural small towns?

In Montanas rural counties, where demographic trends show large numbers of young people leaving for the states fast-growing urban areas, the need for elderly housing solutions is going to become increasingly important.

These communities are losing population and growing older. But many seniors in these communities dont want to leave because they know their neighbors and have spent decades as leaders in the community. Housing options for the elderly are few and far between in these areas. Older farmhouses are often poorly equipped for people to age in place, as they often have stairs and require lots of maintenance. Many small towns lack assisted living facilities or nursing homes, and many senior citizens dont need or want that type of round-the-clock care, preferring a more independent lifestyle.

Across the United States, especially in places like Florida, Arizona and California, senior cooperative housing organized around the concepts of resident control and sustaining independence with minimal services is becoming an appealing model. Cooperative housing usually includes independently owned living units, such as condos or houses, arranged around a communal gathering space with some shared activities.

Senior cooperative housing communities are different from assisted living facilities or retirement communities because theyre not usually developed by outside entities, and residents take charge of programming, forming boards that govern everything from landscaping to occupancy. They often include shared kitchen facilities, outdoor areas and rooms where visitors can stay.

What attracts older adults to senior cohousing is the desire for greater social engagement, for a new old-fashioned neighborhood, as one member put it, said Sherry Cummings, a former professor of social work at the University of Tennessee Knoxville who co-authored a book about the facilities. Theyre designed so people see each other a lot. They typically get together for several meals or activities each week. They help one another out with practical tasks, such as driving someone to the airport, and support each other through crisis situations.

In 2016, the Montana Cooperative Development Center funded a feasibility study on the prospects for new housing cooperatives in the Northern Rockies. The study documented a high degree of interest in the development of housing cooperatives as a potential strategy to address a number of housing needs in the northern Rockies.

Jill Eversole Nolan, a retired Ohio State University faculty member, co-authored a study on rural cooperative housing for older adults for the Journal of Extension in 2001, aimed at giving extension offices information for people curious about the facilities.

Cooperative housing for older adults would most certainly be a viable option in Montana, she said in an interview with the Missoulian earlier this year.

Eversole Nolan completed her doctorate on quality of life for older adults in rural communities, with a focus on senior cooperative housing.

In reviewing the literature, older adults wanted to stay in the community where they had lent their leadership and where they had family, she said. Their friends were there, their farm was there, but as dynamics changed many of the children would go off and not return to the farm, so they were at an age where they could not maintain the farm but they still wanted to stay in the community. But there were not housing opportunities.

Eversole Nolan visited cooperative living communities for those age 55 and older in rural towns in the Midwest and in the southeastern United States.

I interviewed one woman that was 95, she recalled. She said, I was born here, I grew up here, I got married and raised children here and I want to die here. Something like a cooperative housing community was a good choice for her because she could not live in her home and continue her way of life.

Older houses in rural areas lack upgrades that allow older, disabled and frail adults to function normally, Eversole Nolan said. Something as simple as a rounded faucet knob can be difficult for someone with arthritis, and a lack of elevators in multi-story housing can be impossible to live with for some.

She also noted that cooperative housing isnt just for people who want to be social all the time.

Some individuals didnt want to partake in a lot of group interaction, she said. Others engaged in many activities. So it gave them a choice to choose the way of life they were accustomed to living.

Margaret Roesch is an organizer for and resident of Village Hearth Cohousing, an intentional cohousing neighborhood for 55-and-over LGBT residents, friends and allies in Durham, North Carolina.

We certainly never imagined, when we joined Village Hearth as members, that we would move in during a global pandemic, Roesch said in a recent newsletter to members. It has certainly added some unexpected twists, but it also makes us all the more thankful and excited to be joining a community of caring people.

The 28-residence facility includes a common house and was built just this year.

People are moving in now, and instead of in-person happy hours, the group has instituted Zoom happy hours during the pandemic.

Read the original:

A home of their own, together | Features - boulder-monitor.com

By Clare S. Richie, public policy specialist, Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta

In June, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) announced Vote Your Voice, a partnership with the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta to invest up to $30 million through 2022 from the SPLCs endowment to engage voters and increase voter registration, education, and participation; support Black- and brown-led organizations often ignored by traditional funders; support and prototype effective voter engagement strategies; and re-enfranchise returning citizens despite intentional bureaucratic challenges. SPLC recently announced a total of nearly $5.5 million in a first round of grants to 12 voter outreach organizations across the Deep South, four of those organizations are in Georgia.

The 12 organizations have proven track records empowering voters of color and presented innovative proposals to boost voter registration, education and mobilization in Vote Your Voices five targeted states Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. The grants will help the organizations continue their efforts to turn out low-propensity voters amid voter suppression schemes and other barriers, including the pandemic, in advance of upcoming elections.

Organizations working to boost voter engagement in Georgia are:

Black Voters Matter increases civic engagement and power building in predominantly Black communities. The organization works in nine southern states Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. In 2019, it expanded into two northern states Michigan and Pennsylvania. Through the $500,000 grant the organization will register, educate and mobilize Black voters in 17 Alabama counties and 24 Georgia counties through mini grants to grassroots groups and conduct outreach via texting and other digital and social media strategies.

The Georgia Coalition for the Peoples Agendas mission is to improve the quality of governance through a more informed and active electorate who will hold elected officials accountable.The organization operates seven offices metro Atlanta, Athens-Clarke County, Bibb County, Chatham County,Dougherty County,Richmond County and Troup County and conductscivic engagementactivities, registers thousands ofvoters,holds educationalforumsand mobilizes volunteers to participatethrough phone banks, texting and providing rides to the polls, focusing primarily on African American women and men in57 counties across the state.Through the $75,000 grant, the organization will continue their work focusing on people of color, young people, single women and low-income Georgians. Their tactics include phone banking, texting and relational organizing.

The New Georgia Project (NGP) is focused on voter registration, engagement and power building for the large and growing population of African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans in Georgia. NGP is part of a movement not a moment to meet the changing demographics of Georgia, to harness the unheard voices of the New American Majority and to position Georgia for leadership in the South and across the country, identify local policy priorities, demystify the political process, and move their families and neighbors to action. Through the $750,000 grant, the organization will engage in voter registration, education and mobilization among low-propensity communities of color, women of color and young people. Additionally, it will counter online voter suppression with videos, songs, social listening and tech tools.

ProGeorgia is a bold, trusted, and diverse collaborative that champions an equitable and inclusive democracy, for and with traditionally underrepresented communities. The organization supports and coordinates the civic engagement programs of its diverse partners. ProGeorgia develops the infrastructure, executes the joint strategies, and employs new tools and technology to assure a government that is more responsive to the needs of its constituencies. Through the $750,000 grant, the organization will continue its work to register, educate, mobilize and protect voters in low-propensity communities of color as well as women of color and young people, focusing on 33 counties for voter engagement and 70 counties for election protection.

SPLC and Community Foundation have started to accept applications for grants in a second round of distribution across the target states. The initiative is seeking a broad cross-section of nonprofit organizations with deep roots within communities prioritized; experience in nonpartisan voter registration, education and mobilization; and a commitment to working with the initiatives data partner to track progress and impact.

Together with the first cohort, organizations participating in the Vote Your Voice initiative will use grants to amplify their ongoing work to engage millions of voters across the South this election cycle to exercise their basic right to vote and ensure their voices are heard.

Applications for the second round of grants are due by August 14, 2020. Organizations can apply here. Additional application information may be found here. Click here for more details including a full list of organizations that received first-round grants.

This is sponsored content.

Excerpt from:

Southern Poverty Law Center Announces Initial Grants in $30M Vote Your Voice Initiative Four Georgia... - SaportaReport

Thanks to intentional culture-building, startup workplaces have evolved to become much more than officestheyre where people take meals, cultivate friendships, and find their purpose. Great culture attracts and retains great talent, encourages people to spend more time working toward company goals, and rallies the team around a mission. For many employees at these companies (and the other companies that emulate their cultures), the role of the workplace has taken on an outsize importance.

But as round after round of startup layoffs have occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, the downsides of this type of culture are becoming rapidly apparent. As a founder-turned-venture capitalist, I find myself contemplating the total costs of this indoctrination-style approach to culture. When people are laid off, they lose income and health insurancedevastating losses in the middle of a global health pandemic. But they also lose some things that are far less tangible but potentially even more costly. Intentional and immersive culture-building has tied our identities, self-worth, emotional security, and lifes purpose to our jobs, leaving both employeesand employersvulnerable.

Years ago, after a round of layoffs at TaskRabbit, the company I founded, I had to face some hard truths about the culture we had so painstakingly built. We spent years cultivating an environment that could offer fulfillment, purpose, and a sense of belonging to every team membera family in a very real sense. Our success in doing so meant that layoffs suddenly became about much more than discontinuing a persons income. We had power we shouldnt have had as employers: Thanks to the culture wed built, separating a person from their job also separated them from their sense of self, their purpose, and their closest friends. There isnt a severance package in the world that can soften that blow.

There isnt a severance package in the world that can soften that blow.

Just as record-high unemployment has made it crystal clear that relying on employers to provide healthcare is a faulty and dangerous idea, its time to stop propping up the very Silicon Valley notion that a persons identity, lifes purpose, and belonging should go hand in hand with their place of employment. This moment requires a total shift in mindset. Instead of building cultures that emphasize a companys role in peoples lives, what if we dedicate our efforts to prioritizing the individuals themselves?

As the founders I work with have started to grapple with this very question, many find themselves arriving at the same conclusion: Shifting as much autonomy as possible to the employee makes companies stronger.

This simple mindset shift meets the moment were in. As parentsparticularly momsshoulder compounding responsibilities at home and many young people pour off-hours into social justice, its becoming more apparent than ever that employees require greater control over how they spend their time, energy, and talents. Workplaces must adjust to accommodating the full lives of their employees to navigate this new reality. The solution isnt as simple as switching to Zoom meetings and remote project managementit requires a culture that gives employees greater agency over their own work.

Recognizing the full life of your employees requires accepting that we all have multiple roles to play. People can be engineers and activists, marketers and moms, dev-ops and dads. People who write code by day might write short stories by night. That star support employee might also front a band. Every team is full of people with obligations to their families, social circles, passions, and communities. By giving each employee full control of how and when they work, they can better integrate their work into the rest of their livesand their workplace will cease to become the central place where people feel a sense of purpose. Instead of encouraging employees to stay late at work, push them to set a schedule that helps them find balanceand meaningin other parts of their lives as well. This isnt just the necessary remedy for getting through this particular moment, and it isnt just a fluffy nice thing to doits a pathway to creating stronger companies over time.

It will bring a greater wealth of experience to your workplace. When individuals are encouraged to prioritize their other life roles, they bring those experiences and skills back to their work. This diversity of thought and perspective is something that many startups lack, and the positive impact of it is incalculable. Imagine: Spending more time helping his aging parents leads your designer to have an UX epiphany that streamlines your app. The community organizing your product manager does on the side shows up in the way she marshals resources to get that feature done on time. Helping her kid with history homework gives your copywriter an idea that becomes your next successful lead generation campaign. Moving away from an office-centric life also makes groupthink much more difficult, which means you can approach problems with more perspectives and get to clarity (and solutions) faster.

It increases a companys resilience and agility. Companies with more individualistic cultureslike those with distributed teams and greater employee autonomyadjusted much more quickly to our new work-from-home reality than companies with office-centric cultures. Working parents suddenly juggling home education and childcare on top of work responsibilities at companies that didnt take an individualistic approach found themselves in an impossible bind. Imagine how much productivity could have been gained had every working mother simply been empowered to figure out her own schedule and workflows.

This ability to swiftly adapt to changing circumstances is often the difference between survival and death for early stage companies. Theres no such thing as an entirely future-proofed business, but trusting the individuals on your team to make the best decisions for themselves and for the company is a solid start.

It boosts the value, productivity, and momentum of your employees. Giving your employees the leeway to invest in themselves and their lives doesnt just increase your chances of retaining them, it increases the value they can bring to your company. All that energy people spend figuring out how to juggle the many obligations in their lives on the margins can actually be used for productive work. Whats more, people experiencing success in other aspects of their lives can use that momentum in the work they do for your company.

Theres no doubt that culture can make or break a company. As an ecosystem, startups have been wise to prioritize it and approach it with intention. But the cultures we built before simply arent good enough for what comes next. This moment of uncertainty provides a unique opportunity to do things better, and founders thinking about the future understand they must adapt. Rather than turning a company into employees whole world, focusing culture-building efforts on giving employees agency and celebrating their lives beyond work is a good place to start.

Leah Solivan is the founder of TaskRabbit and the general partner at Fuel Capital.

More:

COVID-19 is revealing the flaws of Silicon Valley culture - Fast Company

The current global health emergency and the ongoing uprising against police violence in the United States have once again laid bare the nations enduring crisis of white supremacy. In the design and planning professions, many scholars, practitioners, and organizers have pointed out that these challenges are not new, but foundationalwhiteness and anti-Black racism have long defined the ways in which design is framed, taught, and practiced. As design schools across the country begin to respond to longstanding criticism over their wholesale embrace of whiteness in pedagogy, it is useful to examine the work that some educators and researchers are doing to analyze and challenge systems of oppression, both within the disciplines and more generally in U.S. cities. The Architects Newspaper talked to several practitioners at the department of urban planning and design at Harvards Graduate School of Design (GSD) about the work theyve been doing in this area.

Urban Design and the Color Line

Taught by Stephen Gray, associate professor of urban design, Urban Design and the Color Line is a seminar workshop that developed out of a series of research projects at the GSD. Having advised student researchers on mapping strategies for the exhibition Bang! Bang! Bang! Housing Policy and the Geography of Fatal Police Encounters and the atlas project Map the Gap: Visualizing Sociospatial Inequity in the U.S., Gray went on to conduct extensive research on racial inequities in the Boston area for Urban Intermedia: City, Archive, Narrative, an exhibition curated by professors Eve Blau and Robert Pietrusko.

In the portion of the exhibit that focused on Boston, Gray and Alex Krieger, research professor in practice of urban design, examined neighborhoods in the citys South Bay area, where redlining, urban renewal, and infrastructure projects have long determined which communities have access to resources. As Gray told AN in a recent conversation, outwardly beneficial linear park projects like Southwest Corridor Parkfirst developed on Bostons South End in the 1970s and 80sraised particularly compelling questions about race, urban design, and infrastructure. If people arent meaningfully involved in the imagination and making of a space, does that space actually have any benefit to them in the long run? Gray asked.

Following his work on Urban Intermedia, Gray developed the curriculum for Urban Design and the Color Line, a course that centers on infrastructural reuse projects in the United Satesnamely, New Yorks High Line and its progeny. Gray and his students have partnered with the Urban Institute, GSD CoDesign, Friends of the High Line cofounder Robert Hammond, and the High Line Network (HLN), a group of leaders of industrial reuse projects around the world that aims to learn from the social and economic challenges faced by the High Line, to help develop an equitable impacts framework pilot for 19 HLN member projects. Pairs of students in the course focused on two infrastructure projects each during the semester. After analyzing the histories and geographies of racial inequity in the cities where the projects are located, the students proposed equity agendas for their assigned HLN projectsrecommendations that were handed off to the partner organizations for possible implementation.

According to Gray, the class and its research constitute a sort of informed speculation: Were using student research to inform curriculum, which is now informing practice. The ultimate objective is to deploy student minds and educational resources to make a real and measurable impact in the world, a mandate that has only become more pronounced as institutions and city agencies alike are called to action over white supremacy and state violence against Black people. Americas segregated cities present immense challenges to the people who shape their built environments, but as Gray notes, If urban designers are intentional about our work, we can begin to break down some of those divisions.

CoDesign

Founded in 2018 at the GSD, CoDesign is a multifaceted, school-wide initiative that aims to tighten links between design, research, teaching, practice, and activism. Building on existing relationships between government agencies, GSD researchers, private design practices, and local communities in the Boston area, CoDesign equips educators, researchers, and students with tools for a more equitable approach to design and community engagement. This work has taken many forms over the course of two years, including technical assistance for the citys Community Preservation Act and research assistance for the Boston Foundations Place Leadership Network and the Highline Network.

In a recent conversation with AN, CoDesigns faculty coordinator Dr. Lily Song reflected on both the opportunities and challenges presented by university-based community engagement work. For one, relationships between elite institutions like Harvard and local BIPOC or working-class neighborhoods are historically defined by institutional exclusion, extraction, and displacement. There are also disconnects between what is typically expected of design students at the GSD and what local partners are often seeking. Communities are hardly looking for abstract design propositions or beautiful renderings that dont reflect their aspirations or their needs, Song said. At the same time, the skills of students can be useful if theyre plugged into what efforts local community groups are leading. Leveraging the GSDs convening power, research acumen, and financial resources, CoDesigns local partners can advocate for policy changes, fundraise for community-led projects, and begin to challenge established power relations.

As the GSD and other leading design schools face intense scrutiny over their cultures of white supremacy and intensification of systems of racial injustice, CoDesign teamed up with Powerful Pathways to release the Design Studio First Aid Kit. Posted on the initiatives Instagram page and shared as a free zine online, the kit offers straightforward guidance on how to begin confronting white supremacy and its intersecting oppressions in studio environments. Song views it as a resource for jumpstarting a much longer, more committed process. The idea is that we can all administer first aid in ways that are accessibleits not a panacea, but a first step, Song said.

Acknowledging that CoDesign is somewhat constrained by its need to serve a wide variety of communities and stakeholders across the Boston area, Song also recognizes the ways in which the current uprising has invigorated the push for anti-racist practices. With the longstanding scourge of police violence against Black people and the broader injustices of white supremacy in stark relief, there is an opportunity to advance a more liberatory and reparative vision with CoDesign. The Design Studio First Aid Kit is just one part of that process. Moving forward, Song emphasizes the need to foreground radical community work led by BIPOC organizers. Whether we ally or accomplice, we first need to reckon with our own identities, power, and privileges and use them in service of these movements. Its defining yourself and your work beyond your day job, Song said. You harness the network and resources you have at your disposal.

Design for the Just City

Design for the Just City centers on the fundamental question: Would we design better places if we put the values of equality, inclusion, or equity first? Led by Toni L. Griffin, professor in practice of urban planning, since its inception nearly ten years ago, the research lab has promoted justice in the design and planning disciplines through a series of exhibitions, master-classes, talks, workshops, and publications.

In order to frame its mission, the lab has spent years developing the Just City Index, a matrix designed to be used as a tool for communities to establish their own definition and principles for what makes each city or neighborhood more just. The listed values range from reconciliation and spirituality to protest, empathy, and participation, all categorized under a series of 12 Values Indicators, from acceptance to welfare. Through its free digital resources, as well as design workshops hosted in Johannesburg, Amsterdam, and Cambridge since 2018, the Just City Lab aims to empower communities to articulate their own values and aspirations.

In 2015, the Just City Lab collaborated with Gehl Studio, the J. Max Bond Center, and Transportation Alternatives to compile Public Life & Urban Justice in NYCs Plazas, a report investigating the real and potential impacts of public space design on public life and urban justice. Using seven public spaces in New York City as case studies, the lab and its collaborators took a critical look at the contributions of the citys Public Plaza Program to quality of life and issues of social justice.

In the wake of the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd by police in Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis, the Just City Lab has released one essay per week from its 2015 publication The Just City Essays: 26 Visions for Equity, Inclusion, and Opportunity. The volume contains reflections and visions for how to pursue reparative and restorative justice in 22 cities through architecture, city planning, art, and policy-making. With writings by such prominent figures as urbanist Teddy Cruz, architect Theaster Gates, and former mayor of Minneapolis Betsy Hodges, The Just City Essays are meant as a provocation, a call to action. As the Just City Lab states on its Instagram page, Now, during these times of dissonance, unrest, and uncertainty, their contents have become ever more importantWe hope they may continue conversations about our shared responsibility for the just city.

Go here to read the rest:

Harvard GSD faculty take on the challenge of building just cities - The Architect's Newspaper

Carleton University is pleased to announce Professor James McGowan (School for Studies in Art and Culture: Music) has been named the 2020 Carleton University Chair in Teaching Innovation.

On behalf of Carleton University, I am pleased to acknowledge and congratulate James McGowan on this achievement, said Provost and Vice-President (Academic) Jerry Tomberlin.

The Chair in Teaching Innovation is an important appointment that plays a significant role in furthering teaching excellence across Carleton.

Prof. James McGowan (Photo Jenna Gernon)

Established last year, the Chair in Teaching Innovation is awarded annually to an educator who has demonstrated teaching excellence and innovation across their academic career. It provides faculty with a $45,000 grant spanning three years to undertake projects that advance the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and student success at Carleton.

James is an outstanding educator who is fully invested in providing students with creative and engaging learning experiences, said Associate Vice-President (Teaching and Learning) David Hornsby. Were looking forward to seeing his project implemented and the impact it will have throughout the Carleton community and beyond.

McGowan, who has been teaching at Carleton since 2010, sees the important role the performing arts play in student success, mental health and wellbeing, and fostering a sense of community. With this award, he plans to create and support a network of like-minded instructors, students and staff using the principles of Performative Learning and Artistic Communities of Engagement (PLACE).

The network will identify opportunities for performative learning, exploring experiential arts-based approaches to engage students in a variety of disciplines, and create artistic communities of engagement that allow students to find means of expression beyond course work.

Receiving this distinction signifies to me that the university is ready to be a leader in applying and researching innovative approaches that allow students to experience a wide range of disciplines of study enhanced by the intentional exploration of the arts, said McGowan.

It seems more than ever that we as a university community want to grow in ways that create meaningful, exciting and safe experiences to challenge students to thrive and engage artistically with communities on campus.

While PLACE will start this Fall with online programming of songwriting and community music at Carleton, McGowan plans to extend the network to include a variety of arts and non-arts-based disciplines, and eventually expand outside of the university.

Professor McGowans ambitious project will employ arts-based approaches to learning in disciplines far beyond the humanities, offering students unique opportunities to integrate performative learning into any field of study, said Pauline Rankin, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Professor McGowans extensive experience with diverse forms of performance studies makes him the ideal champion for this exciting experiment at Carleton. His vision for the Chair in Teaching Innovation is particularly relevant at a moment in which many of us are turning or returning to the arts to sustain and inspire us during this unprecedented period.

Through the PLACE initiative, McGowan says he hopes to enrich the student experience at Carleton and promote student engagement within the community, while acting as a resource for colleagues in developing innovative educational strategies.

The biggest hope I have is that the PLACE initiative will give students a richer experience at Carleton. For some students, that might mean that they see opportunities to reach out to others to explore interdisciplinary conversations. For others, this might mean that they simply enjoy a creative activity with other students, helping to sustain them through the inevitable darker days, said McGowan.

Ultimately, I truly hope that applying PLACE principles at Carleton will create and support programming that will enhance students connection to this beautiful campus community. In tandem with this goal, I hope that wecolleagues with common interests and Iwill be able to explore and share the results of studying the impact of this programming more broadly.

See original here:

Announcing the 2020 Carleton University Chair in Teaching Innovation - Carleton Newsroom

In partnership with our parent organization, the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), IJNet is connecting journalists with health experts and newsroom leaders through a webinar series on COVID-19.The series is partof theICFJ Global Health Crisis Reporting Forum.

This article is part of our online coverage of reporting on COVID-19. To see more resources,click here.

You have a television station. We have these AK-47s. We will have to tell our stories with these guns, members of an indigenous community who had joined Maoist forces told journalistShubhranshu Choudhary. Your media will not give us any space.

Their representation is zero, and Indias mainstream media shows little interest in changing that, Choudhary said during a panel discussion co-hosted Tuesday by ICFJ and theMedia Diversity Institute(MDI).

Around the world, a lack of media diversity has dire consequences. Yet even among news outlets that claim to value diversity, most have failed in their efforts to hire, retain, engage and report accurately on minority and disenfranchised communities, panelists said.

At the same time, the global pandemics outsized effect on already-vulnerable communities, along with the growing strength of the Black Lives Matter movement in both the U.S. and other countries, is forcing a reckoning in many newsrooms, they said.Choudhary, founder of IndiasCGNet Swaraand a former ICFJ Knight Fellow, joinedTory Parrish, regional director of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in the U.S; Frans Jennekens, head of diversity at Dutch broadcasterNTR; and Syrian journalistZaina Erhaim, communications manager at theInstitute for War & Peace Reporting(IWPR), to examine the state of media diversity. MDI Communications Manager Anna Lekas Miller moderated the discussion.

It's really hard to cover a community when you only swoop in when bad things happen, said Parrish, a business reporter at Newsday. And that has been a problem with the media for centuries.

In the U.S. this year, black journalists have become more outspoken in the newsroom for the last couple of months, she said. In her own newsroom, there are conversationsgoing on about coverage, about diversity, about hiring and the importance of diversity at the management level, she said.

She said hiring managers need to be more intentional in their efforts to hire and retain diverse talent. The quality of the talent is there. But the issue is how deliberate are you in bringing the talent onto your staff? And it's not enough to just say, Well, we posted the job. Did you reach out to any journalists of color? Did you reach out to the National Association of Black Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Asian American Journalists Association offices? She emphasized the importance of hiring more than just one or two people from each underrepresented group, which leads to isolation and high turnover, she said.

Jennekens, with NTR, said he believes the newsroom is mostly a representation of the ruling powers. And the whole problem is, in my view, that in the newsroom there is this system of tapping. So when people are hired for the newsroom, they want to have someone who looks like the people who are already in the newsroom. And as long as this whole system of tapping is not more or less destroyed, I think it will be very difficult to change a newsroom.

He thinks the journalism industry should see this as a business case, as something that makes this medium stronger. You get more viewers, you get more participants. Your base and society will be stronger if you are more diverse and you give more room to different kinds of voices and to people who are not the same as yourself.

Erhaim, the Syrian journalist who works for IWPR, noted that in some cultures, newsroom diversity is a non-starter.

When we're speaking about the Middle East or the Arab world, diversity is in many cases criminalized, she said.

Getting to know who you're living with, getting to know the other cultures, sects and ethnicities is going to make a kind of peace, Ehraim said. You might be able to unite together, but everyone was raised on fearing the others and that was their way of controlling the area and keeping everyone silent.

Erhaim also advocated for free legal counsel for journalists who want to sue the large media companies that parachute in and take unfair advantage of local reporters.

We don't know our rights. We are not raised to know about rights or demand them, she said. If enough journalists begin to take legal action, big media institutions will think twice before taking advantage of local journalists or treating them as free-of-charge sources.

Choudary urged others to start their own, independent platforms for news. As an ICFJ Knight Fellow, he created CGNet Swara, a citizen journalism platform that uses Bluetooth technologyto bring news to media-dark villages in India.

We should be more interactive. A lot of journalists are afraid of their own audience, he said.

Can people tell their own stories? Can [citizen reporting] be a new way of doing journalism? Can we reinvent ourselves? he asked. Technology is giving us that opportunity. In the remotest parts of the country, I go to any village in India, and I find at least half a dozen mobile phones. Each phone can broadcast and become its own radio station, he said.

Can we connect that radio station which is there in every pocket with our newsrooms? It is doable. It is possible. We should be doing more of it. We should be using more of this technology if we want to remain relevant, he said.

Jennifer Dorrohis a senior program director at ICFJ.

Main image CC-licensed by Unsplash viaChristina @ wocintechchat.com.

Read more here:

How to promote diversity in coverage and in the newsroom - IJNet

The nationwide protests for racial justice impacted several local cities in Palm Beach County.The tension is still there; its a movement, not a moment, says activists, members of various communities, and elected officials. A task force formed to help solve racial inequities might be a potential huge step within the proverbial movement.

The Stronger Together march in Riviera Beach called for economic and political empowerment, interracial unity, alleviation of food deserts and affordable housing. The protest staged outside of a Lake Worth Beachs city commission meeting urged commissioners to consider a symbolic renaming of Dixie Highway.

You turn to WLRN for reporting you can trust and stories that move our South Florida community forward. Your support makes it possible. Please donate now. Thank you.

Young demonstrators in West Palm Beach, who marched in the scorching summer heat with their masks and bright signs, demanded policies aimed at economic equality and police reform countywide, tax-paying residents rallied for actionable plans and timelines.

Community organizers say they want to be involved and make elected officials accountable for their actions, and inactions, for whichever policy-driven plan is presented to the public.

West Palm Beach Mayor Keith James discuss the city's Task Force For Racial And Ethnic Equality with WLRN's Wilkine Brutus

As a response to the ongoing protests, West Palm Beach Mayor Keith James has created a citywide task force for racial and ethnic equality to identify and address stark racial disparities related to education, wealth, income, housing, poverty, and police reform. He also said he eventually wants the young women and men who took to the streets to have a say in the process.

James said as a Black mayor in West Palm Beach, he felt it was incumbent on him to grasp the moment and see what we can do in terms of making our city a more just city.

He told WLRN, creating the task force was also a way to address the unyielding poverty rate, which, in 2018, stood at 17 percent, according to that years West Palm Beach Economic Development Study. James believes "that there's some systemic causes for that.

The task force includes the Black Chamber of Commerce, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, State Attorney's Office, subject matter experts within subcommittees, and other leaders appointed by the mayors office.

Here's an excerpt of the mayor's conversation with WLRN, which has been edited for length and clarity.

KEITH JAMES: So we're going to have up to 17 members of the task force itself. And what is consistent from the earlier executive order is that we will have five pillars to really drill down deep into some substantive areas, including education, housing, health care, economics, criminal justice. And I wanted to get a very broad variety of individuals, both from a diversity standpoint, gender standpoint and generational standpoint. I'm intentional about bringing some of those young people who were out on the streets marching and protesting to enter the room. So they are also at the table.

West Palm Beach is still a city in the south. And if you as we dig into its history and we're going to spend a lot of time in those conversations that we do as we dig into the history of West Palm Beach, we will note that our community, as other communities in the South and maybe even around the nation, has not always been at its best when it comes to racial matters.

And so I want the committee to spend time understanding the history, as ugly as it may be, but having those tough, difficult conversations with this very diverse group of accomplished individuals to make sure that we grasp the true history of our city. Because if we sugarcoat that, if we try to just brush that under the rug, I don't think that the committee will be able to do its job to its fullest capability.

WLRN: Is the current mood in the air forcing cities and counties to shift some of their focus and money to racial equity?

Its more than a moment, its a movement. I wanted to take advantage of the platform that I have as an African-American mayor to see what I could do to engage in a conversation. I conducted a town hall shortly after a lot of the demonstrations and the protest began included Congresswoman Lois Frankel, Patrick Franklin, head of the Urban League, and some other notable individuals in our community. And that was very well received. But I knew that was not enough. I said, "What else can I do to capture this moment in time to make sure that we don't lose this moment and that it doesn't just wither away?"

Once the recommendations come out of this task force, how would the public have access to that information?

So there will be a published report. But also one of the things that we want to come out of the task force work are specific policy recommendations that could then be brought to the commission and debated and discussed.

This is certainly I think it's more than a movement. It's a moment. And I think ... as a mayor of this city, I felt it incumbent upon me to grasp the moment and see what we can do in terms of making our city a more just city.

View original post here:

After Weeks Of Protests, West Palm Beach Creates Task Force To Address Racial And Ethnic Equality - WLRN

Editor's note: The following is a guest article from Charla Griffy-Brown, PhD, Professor of Information Systems and Technology Management at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School.

Over the past month, major companies, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Morgan Stanley, announced they would permit large numbers of employees to work from home on a long term or permanent basis.

The practice of extended or indefinite work-from-home is growing. Twitter and Square's CEO, Jack Dorsey, along with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently notified employees of a permanent work from home policy.Many other tech companies followed suit.

Perhaps less surprising, the acceptance of working remotely is also strongly supported by employees. A recent Gallup poll showed 59% of U.S. workers who moved to remote work on account of the pandemic indicated they would like to continue working from home even after the COVID-19 crisis ends.

Tens of thousands of workers who were once unfamiliar with video conferencing have, in a few short months, achieved expertise. They will naturally keep using these technologies and likely incorporate them into the post-COVID-19 business norm.

What are the potential opportunities for diversity, equity, and inclusion? Can we leverage this shift not only for creating stronger more economically robust communities but also to create stronger businesses with healthier employees?

With that in mind, here are five factors driving work from home arrangements that point to opportunities for community building and employee arrangements that have potential for addressing problems the pandemic unveiled in stark reality: unhealthy work/life habits and the need for greater diversity, equity and inclusion.

There is a collective, growing mindset supercharging the adoption of digital technologies. This will go beyond traditional technology adoption and be seen most starkly geographically as some trends slowly reverse.

For example, Richard Florida coined the term "superstar" metropolitans,places where ambitious and skilled people feel they need to be.

But in recent years, metropolitans benefiting from tech centralization source of much of their wealth have faced the "new urban crisis."

Riddled with affordability and quality of life issues, now coupled with a psychology of social distancing that will leave a shadow as people reexamine risk and family-life differently.

Affordable housing is more available in remote locations and the digital infrastructure required to reliably work from home is stronger.

Traditionally, people move to cities because cities are job hubs. But cities have become unaffordable and create economic hardship for millions of people.

Now with companies welcoming a remote workforce, cities, suburban and rural areas are set to dramatically change. At one point in April, Americans were relocating at twice the pace they did a year earlier, a trend that continued into mid-May,according to data firm Cuebiq.

Future job growth will not hinge on working in an office. According to Brookings,more than one-third of the nation's digital services job growth in the last decade was concentrated in five metro areas: New York, Seattle, Boston, San Francisco, and San Jose, California.

The success of a few large metropolises created geographic inequality and bottlenecks in economic growth in other areas.

Personal wealth growing opportunities will be more balanced. By creating a remote workforce, the U.S. can expand economic wealth and the digital potential for communities that have been "left behind."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that increased adoption of online tools and digital services for businesses across rural American could add $140 billion to the U.S. economy and create more than 360,000 jobs.

The opportunity gap will close between the tech elites and tech novices. With higher-wage jobs moving toward permanent remote work, the U.S. moves away from "superstar" metropolitans decentralizing tech across the nation and fostering new tech jobs.

Remote work impacts how society connects, opening up a broader attack surface and increasing the need for cyber-physical security.

Boards and executives should put together "innovation strike-forces" within their organizations to reimagine their future products, services, and how they will do business.

This rapid shift could be a magnitude change, if anticipated and supported through infrastructure growth, including investments in education and services, and intentional corporate efforts to address long-standing equity issues.

Though COVID-19 brought tremendous negative impacts, it also left little choice for workers to adjust to a new, digital normal.

The new digital transformation is not only creating new product/service variations, but leadership, operations and organizational design is also being transformed.

This means that digital leadership, including command/control, is being reinvented.Operations and infrastructure can now be completely decoupled from geography to more efficiently execute delivering new value to stakeholders, including employees.

Industry faces the opportunity for both leadership and employees to develop new skill sets and ask deeper questions regarding employee health, productivity, how to create broader diversity, equity and inclusion which could fuel increased top-line and bottom-line corporate growth.

To achieve these goals we should collectively ask better questions such as:

As the U.S. begins to recover and develop a new "normal," the vibrant tech titans of the U.S. and business leaders have a unique opportunity to recognize the concentration of prosperity and invest in a more stable future across a larger geography with broader diversity, equity, and inclusion.

COVID-19 has given us perspective, and together we have the opportunity to create a future worth wanting.

Original post:

A remote workforce, urban exodus and opportunities emerging from the pandemic - CIO Dive

Share this story

Published August 3rd, 2020 at 1:45 PM

Glass barriers. Metal gates. Visible security cameras.

Ostensibly, each of these things is meant to make a building safer. Theyre often put in place after a crime is committed nearby, designed as deterrents for any future crime. But why do we see these measures more often in minority communities?

Thats what Lisa Middlebrook wondered, except her question focused on post offices. Middlebrook, who is an anti-racist educator, moved from a majority White neighborhood to a majority Black neighborhood. The post office in her new neighborhood on Troost Avenue had a feature her old one did not glass panes that separated customers from postal workers.

To better understand the original curiousKC question, we decided to look at how security measures are implemented and why theyre so prevalent in communities of color.

Daniel Serda, a city planner who specializes in community design, development and historic preservation, said theres a deep history behind these barriers.

In many minority neighborhoods, there is much more perception of crime than there is real crime, Serda said. And theres also much more misperception of crime.

Serda said people not only tend to believe theres more crime in a neighborhood than actually exists but they also tend to believe that certain types of crime occur more often. Part of that, he said, has to do with media coverage. For instance, because some media cover homicides every time they happen, communities think homicides happen more often than other crimes.

Perception is rarely in line with reality, he said. The media plays a big part in reinforcing that bias.

As a result, people associate violent crime with the community in which they happen, which increases their fear of being victimized in that community, according to a report by the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.

The presence of certain security measures can be a reflection of the misapprehension of certain types of crimes happening, Serda said.

Security measures such as metal bars, glass barriers and security cameras can then lead to mistrust and confusion among community members. Even though one person involved in a business may feel a barrier was necessary, others might not feel the same way.

For the average member of the public, seeing bulletproof glass between you and the clerk is probably not the most reassuring thing, Serda said. You wonder, whats going on here, or why am I being perceived as a threat?

But when you live in an area with security barriers for most of your life, that becomes normalized.

Wanda Taylor, the corporate secretary for the 49/63 Coalition and former president of the Troostwood Neighborhood Association, lives near Troost Avenue. She said when it comes to barriers like the ones at the post office, its hard to tell that somethings not right.

A part of living in a place for a long time, certain things just become normal, until you start looking at it, Taylor said. When you dont know what the other side looks like, you dont know that something is abnormal. Thats the danger sometimes in implicit bias, because people on either side, their reality is their reality.

White flight, where White people relocated to the suburbs in order to leave racially diverse, urban areas, left a lasting economic impact on minority communities. Businesses reduced investment in urban areas as White customers moved, and many havent returned.

Taylor said when you travel along Troost disinvestment is on full display. She pointed to the abandoned buildings that line the street, boarded up while waiting for new tenants, while new businesses pop up in other areas of town.

Underneath all of that, the reality is that these neighborhoods are looking at decades, generations of disinvestment, Serda said.

Ongoing disinvestment created issues such as food deserts, where grocery stores pulled out of urban areas in favor of the suburbs. Urban areas could be profitable for grocers, but theyre still reluctant to return.

Serda said that when asking businesses why they wont relocate to these neighborhoods now, they often cite security concerns.

If they open up (a business) and you know theyve got a metal screen, and two-inch thick bulletproof glass, it doesnt matter who you are, thats going to send a message, he said.

Serda pointed to a trend in New York during the 70s when street crimes such as pickpocketing and theft were common. In response, many businesses began implementing aggressive security measures like roll-down gates over their storefronts.

It was not unusual, even in the 80s and 90s, youd be walking along after five oclock, and there were these weird metal screen garage doors pulled down in front of all the businesses, he said. Sometimes, you couldnt even see that they were businesses.

In the 90s, economic development professionals began advocating against the measures because they create the perception that an area isnt safe.

They started pushing this argument that this is actually very alienating to the public, and its questionable whether it actually increases security, Serda said. What it tends to do is reinforce identity in certain areas and perception of those areas.

In an effort to make the area more attractive to customers, they began to pay businesses to take down the more extreme security measures. This initiated a shift from metal screens to more subtle features we see now, such as thick glass and cameras.

Serda said that in recent years the security of public buildings has been influenced by changing firearm regulations. Most major public buildings now have some kind of security measure, such as metal detectors, physical barriers and cameras.

The New York Times reported that in Kansas, lawmakers voted to allow concealed firearms in public buildings but granted an exemption. Communities can ban concealed firearms so long as they put security measures such as metal detectors in place. Laws like this force cities and counties to either invest in those measures, a costly endeavor, or permit concealed firearms.

Public spaces, by their nature, are required to be open to everyone. Because of that, Serda said, those spaces consciously had to redesign their security measures with the deregulation of concealed carry.

Additionally, security features in private businesses are spurred by a reaction to a perceived threat the business owner has seen reports of crimes in the media, or there was a crime near their business.

In public spaces, cue the post offices Middlebrook noticed, these features tend to be more intentional. Public institutions often have handbooks guiding their design. In the architects handbook for building post offices, for example, its stipulated that security features must be unobtrusive. But it lacks specific guidance on what unobtrusive means, so theres still room for individual variation in different communities.

Municipal and federal buildings are guided much more by specific design guidelines, he said. But there are people internally helping shape those decisions.

curiousKC is supported by

Discover more unheard stories about Kansas City, every Thursday.

Check your inbox, you should see something from us.

The rest is here:

Why are security measures heightened in some KC neighborhoods and not others? - Flatland

All our coronavirus coverage is free to the public. Its the right thing to do as a public service to our community. If you find this article helpful or informative and want to support our continued coverage, please subscribe orsupport us with a tax-deductible donation.

To find all our coronavirus coverage, including helpful local resources and website links,click here.

This is the first in an occasional series spotlighting faith-based communities in Sumter, Clarendon and Lee County with a focus on how the congregation and its leaders are reacting and adjusting to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The first week Alice Drive Baptist Church elected to not have in-person services due to the coronavirus pandemic was on March 22. When it resumed in-person services on May 31 following the implementation of social distancing, disinfecting and cleansing guidelines, the Rev. Clay Smith said attendance was about half of what it would be pre-coronavirus.

However, with the spike in positive coronavirus cases and deaths in the weeks following, in-person numbers dipped.

"That has fallen off now to about 20% to 25% of a normal crowd," Smith said. "We think a small percentage of that is just summer stuff, but the much larger is that people are still uncomfortable coming to a large public gathering. We have the benefit of being able to arrange our chairs where the rows are 6 feet apart, and we've got it about as socially distanced as we can. But still we recognize that there are some who just aren't comfortable coming back yet.

"Essentially, some of it is older people, and some of it is families with young children, and some of it is just people that if they get sick - they're self-employed - then they wouldn't be able to work. So that just puts them in a difficult position, and they just don't want to take any chances."

That hasn't deterred the church itself from limiting its worship services, though. The Loring Mill Road church is still having three Sunday morning services as well as a Monday service, while its Pocalla campus on Bethel Church Road is having two Sunday services.

Smith said the biggest combined number upon return to in-person services was 730, whereas the typical number is 1,500. And while those numbers have dropped off, Smith doesn't think that has come because of a state of fear.

"I honestly feel that it's shifted somewhat," Smith said. "I think at first people had a lot of fear, and now people are more like, 'We need to be wise, and we're really ready for this to be over.' Most of our people, they're not rattled by it. They really are walking in faith, I would say."

While the number of people coming to the church is obviously down, Smith said the tithes and offerings to the church have remained strong.

"We have been extraordinarily blessed," he said. "Our people have continued to give, and we're within 5% of our giving projection goal.

"It shows some good, spiritual maturity on their part, that they're not just thinking about church as just what's in it for me, but they're recognizing this is a time where they want to lean in and say, 'We want to be generous for what our church is doing and continue to support our ministries.'"

When the in-person services were stopped, many churches turned to online and social media options. Fortunately for Alice Drive, it was already well-versed in producing services online.

"We had already been doing online, and we actually hired a part-time online minister to do that for us," Smith said. "So we're really thankful God led us in that direction because we didn't have to scramble at the last minute to try to figure out how to do it."

As one might expect, the numbers of those participating online have increased dramatically. Prior to the shutdown, Smith said the church had an average of about 350 devices linked to the services. Since then, it is between 1,000 and 1,200 on a Sunday.

The good thing, Smith said, is it's not just locals watching the services.

"What's amazing is I know of a couple of situations where some smaller churches, like in Oklahoma and Florida that have not reopened, they have some family connections, so they're watching us online, which is just like amazing to me," Smith said. "We have a thing that shows you the geographic cluster, and there's like 20 devices in northeast Oklahoma that watch us every Sunday."

Smith said he knows the church is being watched by those living overseas, as well, and that's likely due to the church's military connections with Shaw Air Force Base.

"That's really humbling," Smith said of the services being viewed in countries such as England, Afghanistan and Qatar.

Along with the Sunday and Monday services, Alice Drive also has student meetings outdoors on Wednesdays and also holds small "life groups" meeting in person and via Zoom, as well.

Smith doesn't see any increase in services at the church happening at this time.

"Right now, we're probably going to stay right where we are, and we're just looking for signs that the infection rate goes down and the death rate goes down," Smith said. "And at that point, then we'll probably consider moving back to having Sunday morning groups. But right now, putting people in small rooms in small groups may not be the wisest thing for us."

As people deal with the pandemic and other issues, such as movements against systemic racism and racial injustice, taking place in the country, Smith thinks being connected with the Lord is imperative.

"People need to be responsible for caring for their whole soul," he said. "So they need to be wise about how they take care of their body, but they also need to be nurturing that spiritual relationship they have with the Lord. This is a time to really stay connected to a church or get connected to a church, get connected to whatever gives you some spiritual hope. And that has to be something that right now is intentional because there is just so much going on that wants to rob us of our hope."

Continue reading here:

Church amid COVID-19: Alice Drive Baptist's readiness for online services connects families across the world - Sumter Item

It happened in a struggling neighborhood on the east side of Atlanta, and local private business owner Greg Thompson is confident it can happen here in south Sumter.

In the late 1990s, a few philanthropists started the work of transforming one of Atlanta's most troubled neighborhoods, the East Lake community, and creating a place where people of all ages and incomes now choose to live.

It started with a complete renovation of a dilapidated golf course - East Lake Golf Club - and through the support of a foundation, a public charter school with a high education platform was built next to it. Now, 20 years later, it's a model of urban renewal.

After acquiring the former Sunset Country Club last year with his brother, Thompson is transforming it into an elite golf course under a new name, Quixote Club. He's also founding board chairman of Sumter STEAM Charter School, which this week acquired a former school property 2.8 miles away from the course in south Sumter.

"The golf course was in complete disrepair," Thompson said. "The facts areeerily similar."

Drew Charter School opened in 2000 as Atlanta's first public charter school in the high-poverty East Lake community.

Today, it's one of the highest-performing schools in Atlanta with graduates becoming success stories in all walks of life, Thompson said.

The success of the East Lake initiative has served as a national model of holistic community revitalization for 27 other sites across the country, with the assistance of a community network organization, named Purpose Built Communities.

Sumter is now looking to copy the East Lake model and build its own renaissance.

"We wanted to propel the education renaissance and mimic the model that East Lake Foundation and Drew Charter School started some 20 years ago," Thompson said. "We said, 'There's a blueprint for Sumter, South Carolina, in Atlanta, Georgia.'"

Since deciding to pursue a public charter school in the spring of 2019, Thompson hired a chief of staff for the school in experienced Sumter County public educator Trevor Ivey. The charter's 11-member founding board has also hired a founding executive director, Khalil Graham, who begins work next week.

Thompson, Ivey and other board members have visited East Lake and Drew Charter in Atlanta twice, and Purpose Built Communities has visited Sumter once, they said. Though not in a formal partnership agreement, Ivey describes them as "informal thought partners."

GOLF COURSE AS PHILANTHROPIC ARM

Quixote Club sits on the Census track boundary with south Sumter to give it proximity to the area.

Golfers are generally philanthropic-minded and goal oriented, Thompson said, and the club will be a continual funding source for the charter school.

Currently, one-third of the new club members initiation fees go to Sumter STEAM Charter.

A lead effort and goal for Quixote Club will always be to support ongoing, high-quality, free public education in Sumter and surrounding communities, Thompson added.

Following renovations, the course is expected to reopen during the second week of November, weather permitting, he said.

THREE-PRONGED AND HOLISTIC APPROACH

According to models, it takes a three-pronged approach to achieve community revitalization. Those components are education, neighborhood revitalization and housing development. It takes all three and cannot be achieved with just one component.

Based on other sites that have used the East Lake model, Thompson and Ivey foresee the area neighborhood adopting the charter school after it starts to have success based on high standards.

The schools location in south Sumter is intentional, Ivey said. The location will drive recruitment of our students, the families we serve and teachers and staff.

Thompson and Ivey like to use the phrase holistic approach toward the revitalization.

You cant just isolate revitalizing a neighborhood to one thing, Ivey said. You cant just say, We are going to clean up crime or Were going to pick up trash off the street and thats going to make this neighborhood better. Instead, you must have a high-quality school, you have to have revitalization of the neighborhood, and some sort of revenue has to be generated.

Both said they think the new charter school has the potential to serve as a key lever for holistic neighborhood revitalization and build a strong, economically diverse community in South Sumter.

Thompson added he thinks the new charter can be a drawing card for Sumter for incoming residents who want to be a part of the school, as opposed to choosing to live in neighboring counties.

At build-out, the pre-K-12 school will serve 976 students across four academies.

Originally posted here:

Daring to dream of equal progress: East Lake in Atlanta is 'blueprint' for Quixote Club and Sumter STEAM Charter - Sumter Item

You are the owner of this article.

You have permission to edit this article.

Watch now: In Central Illinois, a heightened focus on police agencies' efforts to diversify

Please subscribe to keep reading. You can cancel at any time.

Sign Up Today and Support Local Journalism

Enjoy more articles from Bloomington's Most Trusted Information Source. Subscribers can log in for unlimited digital access

Normal Police Department officer Jasmine Johnson says earning the badge has been her dream come true. Johnson said police agencies in general will have to look at changing their approach to minority hiring if they want their departments to reflect their communities. She said Normal was working in the right direction.

Normal Police Department Chief Rick Bleichner says recruiting qualified minority police officers has become one of his primary goals in staffing the department. Making adjustments to the process, such as doing long-distance assessments to make it easier for candidates in other cities to qualify, has helped the department.

Normal Police officer Jasmine Johnson calls for people to work together to end unjust police actions during the "United Against Police Brutality" event June 18. Johnson helped organize the event, which saw officers and protesters walk together through Uptown Normal.

BLOOMINGTON The years-long efforts of Central Illinois law enforcement agencies to diversify their forces are getting more attention in the months since George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis police custody.

Floyds death sparked protests in Bloomington-Normal and around the country. Some advocates have called for police reforms that include restructuring and defunding, or shifting resources to other positions, like social workers. Many also pointed to departments across the U.S. that dont look like the communities they serve.

You need to have people, law enforcement, going into the community that represents the community, said Linda Foster, president of the NAACPs Bloomington-Normal Branch. Thats how you learn, thats how you understand and thats how you are able to build relationships and its not seen as us against them.

Bloomington-Normal NAACP President Linda Foster addresses the topic of "change" during a rally May 31 outside the Law and Justice Center in downtown Bloomington.

Its too soon to tell whether Floyds death will make that harder, they said, but overall heavy scrutiny and negative media coverage of the profession in recent years have not helped.

It's only been a couple of months since that incident, said Bloomington Police Chief Dan Donath, who anticipates it will have an impact on recruitment of minorities and new officers overall.

In Bloomington, data provided by the department shows that 92.7% of the departments 123 officers are white and 7.3% are people of color, including seven Hispanic officers. Compare that with U.S. census data that shows the citys population is 73.4% white and 10.1% Black.

The Normal Police Department has 82 officers, of whom 90.2% are white and 9.8% are minorities. The towns population is 77.4% white, 11.2% Black and 5.8% Hispanic.

The McLean County Sheriffs Office has 54 officers, of whom 94.4% are white and 5.6% are minorities. The countys population is 79.2% white, 8.4% Black and 5.2% Hispanic.

At Illinois State University, the police force is 79.3% white and 20.7% minority officers. Roughly 71.2% of the students enrolled in fall 2019 were white; 10.8% were Hispanic, and 9% were Black.

Leaders of all four departments acknowledge the disparity and say diversity remains a high priority in recruitment and hiring. Theyre competing with departments across the region that are working toward similar goals, and several said they face an uphill battle because of the stigma surrounding police work these days.

We have not initiated a testing cycle for deputy sheriff since before the George Floyd incident, McLean County Sheriff Jon Sandage said. However, we are seeing an overall decline in applicants to be police or correctional officers, I believe largely due to the anti- police sentiment that is being pushed.

Meanwhile, advocates for police reform say a focus on diversity could distract from other changes that need to be made.

As long as our policing system continues to operate the way it does now, we will continue to have problems no matter the racial makeup, said Bloomington Ward 6 Alderwoman Jenn Carrillo, who has been involved with the local Black Lives Matter movement. ... People do get stuck in this whole diversity angle of things. Diversity isn't the same as racial justice.

Black Lives Matter of Bloomington-Normal member Jenn Carrillo, also Ward 6 Alderwoman on the city council, leads the crowd in raising their fists for solidarity duringthe organization's meeting June 7 at Miller Park in Bloomington.

Recruiting efforts

By the time Jasmine Johnson joined the Normal Police Department in 2016, the department had been working for years to recruit more officers of color. Police Chief Rick Bleichner had spoken publicly for months about it as a priority, something Johnson, who is Black, said she appreciated reading in a news article.

To her, hiring a diverse workforce just makes sense. Its important for a number of reasons, but it mainly builds trust between officers and community members while placing potential victims at ease.

From my experience, it seems as though with everything thats going on, if you can see someone who looks like you, its more of a comfort thing, said Johnson, 29. They can relate to you more. I dont think its a racial thing by any means, but I think its important.

Johnson said she sometimes encounters women who are more comfortable speaking with her than with a male officer. Ive also had where Ive interacted with someone whos African-American and they feel more comfortable speaking with someone whos African-American, as opposed to someone who is Caucasian, because we can understand the experience, she said.

Normal Police Department patrolman Jasmine Johnson is the third generation of police officers in her family. She said one tip she would give potential minority applicants is to be determined in meeting the requirements for a police department's screening procedures.

Bloomington police this spring added five new officers, three of whom were people of color. But Donath stressed that they were hired for their qualifications, not skin color.

I am very adamant about hiring only highly qualified candidates to ensure we provide great service to our community, he said. In addition, we would like people of color to see working at our police department as a real possibility. Sometimes, people in general fall into a trap that any given career field is not for their race or sex, etc.

But, this is a good job that gives a person an opportunity to help others and make a good living for themselves and their family.

City Manager Tim Gleason, who also is a chairman on the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board, said the city has taken measures to improve minority officer recruitment and there is still more to do.

This is definitely a priority, Gleason said. In no way am I satisfied with where we are at as an organization, but over the last two years, our minority employees have increased from 7.5 to 11.5%, and my direction to staff is let's be targeted and intentional. Lets cast a wider net on government employment, specifically public safety.

Of the 29 officers on the Illinois State University Police force, 23 are white, three are Black, two are Hispanic, and one is listed as other.

Officers Jasmine Johnson, right, and Brad Park led the Normal Police Department's "United Against Police Brutality" walk across Uptown Normal on June 18.

Hiring for diversity has been, and always will be, a primary focus for our department, said Chief Aaron Woodruff, but its just too early to say if there has been any impact recently, since we havent had any vacancies posted. Prior to the George Floyd murder, we had already seen a downturn in overall applications for police officer. We attributed that to a number of factors, including the healthy economy (prior to COVID-19); the type of work which requires working weekends, overnight, and holidays; decreasing benefits; and the continuing fallout over the previous policing issues after Ferguson.

Woodruff said the key is to develop personal relationships when recruiting.

That includes, but is not limited to, working with our local community organizations to help us find good people who still want to make a positive difference in our communities, despite the current stereotypes surrounding policing.

In Normal, the police department made minority hiring a top priority when Bleichner was hired nearly nine years ago. However, he said, the department is committed to hiring the best candidate for the job, which means attracting a diverse talent pool.

One of the most important things I think I do, or functions as a chief, is hiring people, said Bleichner. At the end of the day, I could retire, somebody else could come in and they could change every directive within the police department, but one thing they cant change very easily is the people. Thats the legacy.

The department follows a comprehensive recruitment plan that is evaluated each year. Most candidates are pulled from within an 80-mile radius of the department, and Normal actively recruits at colleges, universities and in military magazines.

We certainly arent where we would like to be, but we have made progress, said Bleichner. We dont have a specific number in place that once we get there we can declare victory. Our approach is hiring the best people that we can because theyre going to be representatives of us.

Community policing

Johnson feels the Normal Police Department has had some success in recruiting minority officers because of its commitment to creating a welcoming culture and engaging with people through programs such as the Minority and Police Partnership.

But, as conversations and opinions toward police shift, Johnson said it is more important now than ever to focus on community policing. That doesnt just mean attending events, she said; it includes getting out of the patrol vehicle and interacting with people on the streets.

I know sometimes thats very hard to do when were getting calls for service, she said. I think if we can get back to community policing, engaging with the community and hosting more events that actually engages the community, that will be a way to not only change the narrative, but show the community that we are more than what we have been in the past perceived to be.

As part of an effort to connect with the community, Normal and Illinois State University police officers held a march June 18 at which they walked alongside protesters carrying Black Lives Matter signs. Johnson came up with the idea for the event and brought it to Bleichner, who readily agreed. Officers who attended said it was important for them to show the community that they did not agree with the excessive force shown in Minneapolis.

Miltonette Craig, an assistant professor in the Criminal Justice Sciences Department at Illinois State University, said community engagement is crucial for departments.

The underlying premise is that the police are supposed to protect and serve, she said, and it is very hard for them to work with the community that views them as illegitimate.

Craig, who is Black, described growing up in a Florida community where her experience with law enforcement was different from some in other communities where most residents are white.

When it comes to those that are disadvantaged, high-crime, high poverty, then they dont see the police unless they are coming in for law enforcement purposes, Craig said. I did not see the service part of policing until much later in my life.

Bloomington city leaders in December 2017 formed a group, the Public Safety and Community Relations Board, to handle appeals from people unhappy with how the police department handled complaints about officers.

Art Taylor, who was the boards first chairman and is still a member, said the group has only had two complaints to review since it was created. But the board plays a vital role because it serves as a factor in officers decision-making while on duty and could prevent incidents from escalating, he said.

We have had no police brutality in Bloomington, to my knowledge, in the same kind of light of what is going on with George Floyd and others who have lost their lives in other communities because of police brutality, Taylor said. I think the PSCRB has created something where the police at least have some pause to think and consider, before anything happens.

More work ahead

Advocates of police reform say there is still much work to be done, both in Central Illinois and nationally. Some believe the problems cant be solved by only diversifying the force.

Theres a systemic problem in policing and putting Black bodies or bodies of color into the blue uniform is not really addressing the issue that we see within police departments nationally, said Ky Ajayi, a leader with Black Lives Matter Bloomington-Normal.

Efforts to increase minority recruitment are needed, but Ajayi fears a hyper focus on the former will overshadow the pressing need for widespread police reform.

There needs to be radical restructuring of policing, he said. We have seen officers of color brutalize citizens, brutalize residents of communities. Weve come to the conclusion that when we focus on diversifying law enforcement, it doesnt address the systemic problems within policing.

Black Lives Matter of Bloomington-Normal member Ky Ajayi speaks to attendees of its meeting June 7 at Miller Park in Bloomington.

The solution, he said, is police reform and decreasing the number of interactions between officers and citizens. To do this, Ajayi suggested funding social service programs and having people equipped to handle calls for service for mental health crises and homelessness.

Taylor, of the review board, has said that he felt concerned about a recent interaction with Bloomington police in his neighborhood. He and his wife, Camille, were approached as part of a complaint of disorderly conduct involving a vehicle that matched the description of their car.

Donath said last week that a review of the situation found the officer acted appropriately.

Art Taylor, of Not In Our Town, left, talks with Bloomington Police Chief Dan Donath on June 8 after a rally of the Bloomington-Normal Branch of the NAACP, NIOT and local law enforcement departments.

But Art Taylor said they were approached in a way that put them on the defensive, and he wrote to several local officials and community leaders about his concerns with the experience.

The Taylors have been active in community service projects and nonprofit organizations during the 30 years theyve lived on Bloomingtons east side; Art Taylor had been named chairman of the review board at its first meeting because of his reputation for this work.

If that can happen to us and we understand that we are known in this community and I am on the PSCRB it can happen to anybody, he said.

Whole new era

It is not enough for police departments to simply increase minority recruitment efforts, said Foster, of the NAACP. Agencies must be transparent with their efforts to recruit and hire officers.

It comes down to hiring, Foster said. Thats the proof. We need to see an intentional effort to make a difference in our community.

People need to see police departments recruiting in areas out of their comfort, and the department needs to show there are minority officers who have been promoted to higher ranks, Foster added. That means having minority officers who are sergeants, lieutenants and captains, not just patrol officers.

The Bloomington-Normal NAACP is working on a list of recommendations for law enforcement agencies to increase transparency and minority recruitment. While the list has not been finalized, Foster said the organization plans to unveil the recommendations soon.

We really do need to move forward toward a more aggressive stance on making our community a community that is inclusive of all individuals that are willing to put the work in, she said. Its going to take some work.

If law enforcement agencies are serious about increasing diversity, then they need to evaluate what barriers are preventing them from achieving that goal, said Robert Moore, a retired U.S. Marshal and police community relations consultant who chairs the Illinois NAACP criminal justice committee.

You have to know whats stopping you from being successful, he said. If you have a department that is constantly losing your African Americans or minorities, you know theres something wrong.

These barriers include not having a proper recruitment plan, not having trained recruiters, a lack of resources and tense community relations. Once the barriers are identified, Moore said, the police department can move on to developing a comprehensive recruitment plan.

Moore was lead consultant in a 2016 case study of the Springfield Police Department as it made diversity a priority. When he was first brought on, Moore and his team started by evaluating the police departments mission statement, past newspaper clippings and interviews with community members.

What we found was that mayors and city council people had been promising minority recruiting for 20 years and nothing had changed, he said, which further damaged community relations. We also found that there was no recruiting plan.

Moore added that Springfield, like many police agencies from the 1980s to 2000s, had essentially cut off the hiring process and was not actively recruiting officers.

The Springfield department has since increased its number of black officers by nearly 150%. But the issues that led to the lack of diversity will likely be felt for years to come, Moore said.

Today, the Illinois NAACP and the Illinois Chiefs of Police have developed a list of 10 principles to building trust. They include treating all people with dignity and respect, rejecting discrimination, embracing community policing and undergoing de-escalation training.

Moore travels with the Illinois Chiefs of Police to promote the 10 principles, bringing residents and law enforcement agency leaders together for dialogue. Officers need to be held accountable and disciplined when they behave badly, he said.

Were heading into a whole new era when it comes to policing and accountability, he said.

Can you help? The latest Crime Stoppers of McLean County cases

Daniel P. Simpson, 43, was wanted as of July 31, 2020, on a charge of burglary. He is5 feet8 inches tall and weighs190 pounds. He hasbrown hair andblueeyes. His last known address is in Bloomington.

Davis W. Hopkins, 42, was wanted as of July 3, 2020, on a charge of possession of a controlled substance. Heis5 feet11 inches tall and weighs190 pounds. He hasblack hair andgreeneyes. His last known address is in Lexington.

Hopkinsis

Crime Stoppers will pay cash rewards of up to $1000 for information leading to the arrest and indictment of people who commit felony crimes in McLean County. Call (309) 828-1111.

Elizabeth A. Johnson, 39, was wanted as of June 27, 2020, on a charge of obstructing justice. She is5 feet4 inches tall and weighs140 pounds. She hasblack hair andblueeyes. Her last known address is in Bloomington.

Darius D. French, 31, was wanted as of May 19, 2020, on a charge of aggravated driving under the influence. He is6 feet1 inches tall and weighs295 pounds. He hasblack hair andbrowneyes. His last known address is in Bloomington.

Star A. Jones, 26, wasnamed as of May 15, 2020, on a warrant charging her with theft over $500. Sheis 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 115 pounds. She has brown hair and brown eyes. Her last known address was in Normal.

Timothy L. King, 21, was wanted as of May 5, 2020, on a robbery charge. He is6 feet tall and weighs155 pounds. He hasblack hair andbrowneyes. His last known address is in Bloomington.

Deonte K. Spates, 21, was wanted as of May 2, 2020, on a warrant charging him with robbery. He is 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs 135 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes. His last known address was in Bloomington.

Terrell D. Moon, 33, was wanted as of April 3, 2020, of a warrant charging him with delivery of a controlled substance. He is 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs 150 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes. His last known address was in Bloomington.

Aaron J. Fluty, 44, was wanted as of April 1, 2020, on a charge of delivery of a controlled substance. He is5 feet10 inches tall and weighs150 pounds. He hasbrown hair andblueeyes. His last known address is in Bloomington.

James L. Fields, 22, was named as of March 27, 2020, on a warrant charging him with delivery of a controlled substance. He is 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs 200 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes. His last known address was in Bloomington.

Regina M. Evans, 43, was wanted as of March 4, 2020, on a charge of aggravated driving under the influence. She is5 feet8 inches tall and weighs140 pounds. She hasred hair andgreeneyes. Her last known address is in Normal.

Carl R. Herrman, 74, was wanted as of Feb. 25, 2020, on a charge of theft. He is 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighs180 pounds. He has white hair andbrowneyes. His last known address is in Bloomington.

Read more:

Watch now: In Central Illinois, a heightened focus on police agencies' efforts to diversify - Bloomington Pantagraph

The COVID-19 pandemic has spawned an infodemic, a vast and complicated mix of information, misinformation and disinformation.

In this environment, false narratives the virus was "planned," that it originated as a bioweapon, that COVID-19 symptoms are caused by 5G wireless communications technology have spread like wildfire across social media and other communication platforms. Some of these bogus narratives play a role in disinformation campaigns.

The notion of disinformation often brings to mind easy-to-spot propaganda peddled by totalitarian states, but the reality is much more complex. Though disinformation does serve an agenda, it is often camo0uflaged in facts and advanced by innocent and often well-meaning individuals.

As a researcher who studies how communications technologies are used during crises, I've found that this mix of information types makes it difficult for people, including those who build and run online platforms, to distinguish an organic rumor from an organized disinformation campaign. And this challenge is not getting any easier as efforts to understand and respond to COVID-19 get caught up in the political machinations of this year's presidential election.

Rumors, misinformation and disinformation

Rumors are, and have always been, common during crisis events. Crises are often accompanied by uncertainty about the event and anxiety about its impacts and how people should respond. People naturally want to resolve that uncertainty and anxiety, and often attempt to do so through collective sense-making. It's a process of coming together to gather information and theorize about the unfolding event. Rumors are a natural byproduct.

Rumors aren't necessarily bad. But the same conditions that produce rumors also make people vulnerable to disinformation, which is more insidious. Unlike rumors and misinformation, which may or may not be intentional, disinformation is false or misleading information spread for a particular objective, often a political or financial aim.

Disinformation has its roots in the practice of dezinformatsiya used by the Soviet Union's intelligence agencies to attempt to change how people understood and interpreted events in the world. It's useful to think of disinformation not as a single piece of information or even a single narrative, but as a campaign, a set of actions and narratives produced and spread to deceive for political purpose.

Lawrence Martin-Bittman, a former Soviet intelligence officer who defected from what was then Czechoslovakia and later became a professor of disinformation, described how effective disinformation campaigns are often built around a true or plausible core. They exploit existing biases, divisions and inconsistencies in a targeted group or society. And they often employ "unwitting agents" to spread their content and advance their objectives.

Regardless of the perpetrator, disinformation functions on multiple levels and scales. While a single disinformation campaign may have a specific objective for instance, changing public opinion about a political candidate or policy pervasive disinformation works at a more profound level to undermine democratic societies.

The case of the 'Plandemic' video

Distinguishing between unintentional misinformation and intentional disinformation is a critical challenge. Intent is often hard to infer, especially in online spaces where the original source of information can be obscured. In addition, disinformation can be spread by people who believe it to be true. And unintentional misinformation can be strategically amplified as part of a disinformation campaign. Definitions and distinctions get messy, fast.

Consider the case of the "Plandemic" video that blazed across social media platforms in May 2020. The video contained a range of false claims and conspiracy theories about COVID-19. Problematically, it advocated against wearing masks, claiming they would "activate" the virus, and laid the foundations for eventual refusal of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Though many of these false narratives had emerged elsewhere online, the "Plandemic" video brought them together in a single, slickly produced 26-minute video. Before being removed by the platforms for containing harmful medical misinformation, the video propagated widely on Facebook and received millions of YouTube views.

As it spread, it was actively promoted and amplified by public groups on Facebook and networked communities on Twitter associated with the anti-vaccine movement, the QAnon conspiracy theory community and pro-Trump political activism.

But was this a case of misinformation or disinformation? The answer lies in understanding how and inferring a little about why the video went viral.

The video's protagonist was Dr. Judy Mikovits, a discredited scientist who had previously advocated for several false theories in the medical domain for example, claiming that vaccines cause autism. In the lead-up to the video's release, she was promoting a new book, which featured many of the narratives that appeared in the "Plandemic" video.

One of those narratives was an accusation against Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. At the time, Fauci was a focus of criticism for promoting social distancing measures that some conservatives viewed as harmful to the economy. Public comments from Mikovits and her associates suggest that damaging Fauci's reputation was a specific goal of their campaign.

In the weeks leading up to the release of the "Plandemic" video, a concerted effort to lift Mikovits' profile took shape across several social media platforms. A new Twitter account was started in her name, quickly accumulating thousands of followers. She appeared in interviews with hyperpartisan news outlets such as The Epoch Times and True Pundit. Back on Twitter, Mikovits greeted her new followers with the message: "Soon, Dr Fauci, everyone will know who you 'really are'."

More recently, Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns or operates 191 local television stations across the country, had planned to air an interview with Mikovits in which she reiterated the central claims in "Plandemic." In airing this program, Sinclair would have used the cover and credibility of local news to expose new audiences to these false and potentially dangerous narratives. The company is reconsidering its decision after receiving criticism; however, the interview was reportedly posted for a time on the company's website and was aired by one station.

This background suggests that Mikovits and her collaborators had several objectives beyond simply sharing her misinformed theories about COVID-19. These include financial, political and reputational motives. However, it is also possible that Mikovits is a sincere believer of the information that she was sharing, as were millions of people who shared and retweeted her content online.

What's ahead

In the United States, as COVID-19 blurs into the presidential election, we're likely to continue to see disinformation campaigns employed for political, financial and reputational gain. Domestic activist groups will use these techniques to produce and spread false and misleading narratives about the disease and about the election. Foreign agents will attempt to join the conversation, often by infiltrating existing groups and attempting to steer them towards their goals.

For example, there will likely be attempts to use the threat of COVID-19 to frighten people away from the polls. Along with those direct attacks on election integrity, there are likely to also be indirect effects on people's perceptions of election integrity from both sincere activists and agents of disinformation campaigns.

Efforts to shape attitudes and policies around voting are already in motion. These include work to draw attention to voter suppression and attempts to frame mail-in voting as vulnerable to fraud. Some of this rhetoric stems from sincere criticism meant to inspire action to make the electoral systems stronger. Other narratives, for example unsupported claims of "voter fraud," seem to serve the primary aim of undermining trust in those systems.

History teaches that this blending of activism and active measures, of foreign and domestic actors, and of witting and unwitting agents, is nothing new. And certainly the difficulty of distinguishing between these is not made any easier in the connected era. But better understanding these intersections can help researchers, journalists, communications platform designers, policymakers and society at large develop strategies for mitigating the impacts of disinformation during this challenging moment.

Kate Starbird is associate professor of Human Centered Design and Engineering, at the University of Washington.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.

Read the original here:

Starbird: Disinformation campaigns revealed by pandemic are murky blends of truth, lies and sincere beliefs - Chattanooga Times Free Press

Drew Hart

There is more support than any time in our history, in this moment, said Dr. Drew Hart, author, professor, activist and Harrisburg resident about the current attention on racist policies in this country.

He hopes that this interest and activism are not superficial.

There is the potential that something really meaningful could flourish from this, he said.

How do we move from this cursory concern to profound change?

Not in the way one might think, according to Hart. We must start at the root and unlearn and relearn much of the knowledge we have acquired, not just about Black history, but about American history or real American history. In his book, Trouble Ive Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism, Hart give readers an opportunity for this relearning.

He described historical practices like red-lining, an intentional federal government system of color-coding neighborhoods to keep minorities and immigrants out of predominantly white neighborhoods, and the withholding of GI Bill benefits like low-interest loans and mortgages from Black veterans.

There are two different narratives in America, Hart explained. Black stories include oppression, brutal policing and the constant scrutiny of whites. White stories are centered around American pride, opportunity and wealth achieved by hard work. By challenging the white narrative, white Americans challenge their identity.

If you are in a social bubble, when your narrative always gets told, then you take that for granted, he said. That becomes the instinctive way that you interpret everything that happens around you.

In other words, people begin to think that their perspective is the only perspective, and they spend little time listening to other peoples experiences.

Even though they [whites] may not have any lived experience in these [Black] communities, they dont have the meaningful, substantive relationships from a variety of people in those communities to receive these stories, and yet they have an immediate response to events in the Black community, he said.

His book described this as going with your gut, a practice that white Americans need to set aside in order to understand the struggles of the Black community.

To sustainably turn this present progress into change, people need to invest time into their neighborhoods, find ways to participate in community good, hold police accountable, and link arms with those who are oppressed, said Hart.

For those who doubt the racism and oppression against Blacks and respond that All Lives Matter to the cries of injustice, You are not listening to what Black people have been saying, Hart said.

This response to Black Lives Matter is also a result of not recognizing racism, he said. People hearken back to crosses burned on yards, segregated lunch counters and whites-only water fountains to define racism. However, according to Hart, racism is a chameleon, adapting to the current situation just as it has done throughout American history.

After slavery was abolished, Jim Crow laws took effect. These laws, which lasted into the late 1960s, allowed for segregation, decided where Blacks could work and travel, and disallowed voting rights. The war on drugs followed, which incarcerated Blacks at a higher rate than whites and provided for much tougher jail sentences for the use of crack cocaine, used more by Blacks, versus the use of powdered cocaine, used more by whites.

These racist policies are fueled by the idea of white supremacynot the skinhead white supremacy many people are familiar with, but the accepted, often unconsciously held idea that whites are superior to Blacks. Harts book points out that white people need to begin to examine their assessment of Blacks and other minorities.

Society labels white teenagers who use drugs as experimenting, as a normal part of growing up. However, it labels Black teens who engage in drug use as thugs and a threat to society.

In fact, Hart has experienced that a Black mans mere presence often labels him a thug. The book dives into these experiences and the fact that they happened in an unlikely placea Christian college.

That Christians foment racial division may seem unconscionable, but Christianity has not only participated in but has perpetuated and justified racial oppression and remained silent in its midst. Within the pages of Trouble Ive Seen, Hart calls out the church and urges it go beyond its complacency.

Christianity has racial work to do, as does Harrisburg, according to Hart. Substantial conversations regarding race need to be had and neighborhoods like Uptown and Allison Hill need more investment.

[There are] no simple answers, but until we talk about the root problems, we wont get to anything meaningful, he said.

This weighty work is what birthed Harts next book, Who Will be a Witness: Igniting Activism for Gods Justice, Love and Deliverance, due out in September. During his countrywide speaking engagements, people often ask whats next or how to we do racial justice.

I realized they need a little more help thinking through this, he said.

Even with the focus on racial matters right now, those working on the long, uphill cause of justice know this is an ultramarathon not a sprint. When asked if he has hope for the future, Hart measured his words. He said hes not hopeful in the optimistic sense but in another way.

Im hopeful in the sense that we can be the hope, he said. Im more interested in the practice of hope, of exercising hope, of living hope for others.

For more information on Dr. Drew Hart, his activism and books, visit http://www.drewgihart.com.

Here is the original post:

Different Lives, Different Narratives: Messiah College Professor Drew Hart on the divisions between Black, white America - The Burg News

Long-standing systemic health and social inequities have put members of racially and ethnically minoritized and marginalized communities at an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19. With the disproportionate impact the pandemic has on Black, Latinx and other underserved communities, Kaiser PermanenteanAMA Health System Program Partnersends a clear message that the health program stands with those fighting for equity and justice.

We have a long-standing commitmentits in our DNAthat equity is important to us, said Edward M. Ellison, MD, a physician executive leading Permanente Medical Groups in Georgia and Southern California, and co-CEO of The Permanente Federation. It always has been equity, diversity and inclusion, and we recognize that there's more that we can do, and we want to do more.

In a recent call with Dr. Ellison, we discussed what Kaiser Permanente is doing to address inequities in health care. Here is what he had to say.

AMA: What inequities are driving the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black and Latinx communities?

Dr. Ellison: Nationally it has been recognized that Black and Latinx communities have historically had increased challenges with access to health care in generalthe availability of proper nutrition, higher rates of preexisting conditions that we know predispose you to more significant outcomes with COVID-19, like heart disease, respiratory disease, diabetes, and there are other socioeconomic and environmental factors.

We also know the impact of ACEs [adverse childhood events] early in life and how that contributes to lifelong challenges with health, chronic stress, and what that can contribute to in terms of overall health.

In our country we've long had inequities in health care outcomes in Black, Latinx and underserved communities. COVID-19 has just exacerbated what we've observed in the past and highlighted the need to approach communities of color with targeted interventions to help us better serve and improve the outcomes, not just for COVID-19, but in all of the other areas.

Learn about five steps physicians can take to prioritize Black patients well-being.

AMA: What inspired Kaiser Permanentes 75-year commitment to equity and inclusion?

Dr. Ellison: I've been with the organization for 35 years and one of the things that drew meand kept me hereis I am inspired by the mission, vision and values of Kaiser Permanente. If you look at our mission, we are committed to providing high quality, affordable, accessible care for our members and the communities that we serve.

We have a history going back to the early days of Kaiser Permanente when Henry Kaiser declared that our hospitals would not be segregated. We want everyone to have equitable opportunities and recognized that with all thats going on in the country today, it was important to recommit. It was important to be public and make sure that all of our patients, our people, our communities knew where we stood. It was about how we've always had a long-standing commitment to closing gaps in health care inequities. We can always do better, but we've made a tremendous impact.

AMA: How do you help physicians and other health professionals maintain that commitment?

Dr. Ellison: One of the things that we have done is to embark on listening sessions. They have been powerful. I have appreciated the courage and the vulnerability of my Black colleagues and my Latinx colleagues who are sharing their experiences of discrimination and racism, and at times violence. There's so much for us to learn and so we want to use those learnings to help inform the actions that we take.

We participate in something called Hippocrates Circle, which includes our own physicians who have come from underserved populations and minority groups who found their own path through medicine to become physicians and overcame many obstacles. We affiliate with middle schools in underserved communities and students who self-identify as being interested in a career in medicine.

Kaiser Permanente sponsors fellowships for physicians to go into the community, identify need, and then help to address that need. There are many ways in which we try to help support our physicians and staff to stay connected to and understand how they can contribute and give back to the community.

We have something in Southern California called the Watts Counseling and Learning Center. It was founded in 1967, two years after the civil unrest in Watts and it started with just going out and meeting with mothers in the community.

We opened another facility, Baldwin Hills Crenshaw, in an underserved area in need of revitalization. We learned what they needed in the community and so when we built this facility, part of this almost nine-acre campus includes two and a half acres of green space and a two-mile walk.

They have this motto that health care is interwoven into people's daily lives, meeting people where they stand, and I think that's the philosophy that you take into making a difference in the communities. That particular facility was intentional40% of the contracts for building the building were to diverse businesses and companies owned by women, minorities, or veterans.

AMA: Are there different solutions for Latinx and Black communities, or does a broader solution work for all vulnerable communities?

Dr. Ellison: There are approaches that would be beneficial to all communities, including appropriate use of language, being culturally sensitive and responsive to different needs that different communities that we serve have, and understanding the impact of socioeconomic differences.

The cultural values for many Latinx patients and their families are gathering together, celebrating together, living in multi-generational households. But we know that is an added risk for COVID-19. We know that for the African American community, we have to work harder at building trust in the health care system because of past history.

We have to understand that there are actions we can take that are helpful, but it's not one size fits all. There are attributes beyond race that are impacted in terms of culture, socioeconomic conditions and educational background.

Learn about eight steps Kaiser Permanente is taking to suppress COVID-19.

AMA: During the COVID-19 pandemic with concerns about physical distancing, what ways have physicians continued to be involved in those communities?

Dr. Ellison: We've seen a tremendous acceleration of virtual care delivery of telemedicine both in terms of video and telephone, so understanding how you can meet the needs of the patient, even if it's virtually is really important. And those same cultural and language issues are just as important, if not more so.

Establishing a trusting relationship between the patient and the person providing care is really important and providing education to our physicians and other providers about how you can do that effectively, virtually. Then recognizing that not all of our members have access to virtual care.

Providing appropriate face-to-face care is still important but doing it in a safe way. Many of our patients want their care virtual right now for obvious reasons. And for those who need or desire face-to-face care, it's important that it's provided.

We worked hard to do outreach to our patients with communication about what's going on to reduce fear and uncertainty about the COVID virus, to get facts, to be as fact-based as possible, and to provide that in different languages so that we can make it easier for different communities to have the information that they need.

Learn more about helping patients put essential care ahead of COVID-19 fears.

AMA: Regarding staffing, how is Kaiser Permanente improving inclusiveness and diversity now and in the future?

Dr. Ellison: We're looking at how we recruit, how we develop individuals, how we provide opportunities for advancement. All of those are part of the work that we do, but I would say I'm very excited about the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine.

In just a few weeks our first class of 50 students will be arriving. We took a very holistic approach in recruitment, so that we will be welcoming a class that does bring a diverse background and lived experiences.

We train a larger number of residents so after medical school, in a wide array of specialties, we have physicians being trained within our system and they're being exposed to the same vision, values and commitment in our organization.

It's also working with the communities and providing opportunities for minority-owned businesses to succeed. When we're contracting for services, were being intentional about providing opportunities from the communities that we serve.

AMA: Do you have any tips for other organizations that want to make a commitment to equity and inclusion?

Dr. Ellison: It starts with having a passionthat this is the right thing to do. I believe that it starts with the leadership of any organization. You have to create intentionality, be explicit in declaring what you value and why you value it. Create a safe space to execute on those values and create infrastructure that supports it and remove barriers to it.

The more of us that lean in together, the more successful that we'll be. But I do think it comes from also a place of humility knowing we don't have all the answers. It means listening to your peoplethey have the answers.

Whatever impact you can make, where you are with your opportunity, start there. Its about starting where you are and then reaching out and connecting. The more of us that do that, the more successful we'll be.

The AMA continues to compile criticalCOVID-19 health equity resourcesto shine a light on the structural issues that contribute to and could exacerbate already existing inequities. Physicians can also access the AMAsCOVID-19 FAQs about health equity in a pandemic.

Read the original post:

How Kaiser Permanente fights inequity in the face of COVID-19 - American Medical Association

Last week, legislators from opposite ends of the state filed a bill establishingthe Commonwealth Health, Economic, Education and Equity Recovery and Reconstruction Fund or CHEEERRS. Even before we learned of the economic and health inequities suffered by the Commonwealths Black and Latino residents exposed by COVID-19, we had ample evidence of the impact of yearsof systemic racial disparities that have been endured for far too long. This national and local reckoning presents a unique time for a reset. We begin the process with the filing of this bill.

State Representative Bud Williams (D-Springfield) and State Senator Nick Collins (D-Boston), have joined together to file this most bold piece of legislation. This bill supports close to $1 billion, identifies the source of funding, and establishes a separate independent bureau to oversee a comprehensive collection of services and programming directed to the targeted communities.

Even before the pandemic, our children, families, and businesses were struggling in what most would describe as a strong economy for everyone else. Its hard to imagine it could be worse when youre already hanging on by a thread. Yet, the pandemic has stretched the pain even further; our children are falling so far behind in school,were on pace to lose permanently much more than the projected 40% of Black and Latino business and weve represented more than 60% of the COVID-19 cases. stated Rep. Bud Williams. If there ever was a case to be made for a reset, for reparations, the time is now.

Among the highlights of the bill creates an independent bureau, support for families and children; a small business stabilization fund; support for returning citizens; a first in the nation resiliency service corps; and a process to review all the policies in the Executive Branch through a racial and social justice lens with an eye towards leveling the playing field.

After numerous conversations and listening sessions, I bear witness for those suffering due to the results of systemic racism, said Senator Nick Collins. It is impossible to miss and it is frightening to think as the dust eventually settles on the pandemic, it will likely be worse. It is clear, we must be intentional and bold in our efforts to tackle racial and economic injustice. This bill presents a real opportunity to address longstanding injustices, while providing assistance to communities who have been impacted the most by this pandemic. Stated Sen. Collins.

Weve seen corporate, spiritual and government leaders across the state posting Black Lives Matter signs on websites and issuing public statements of commitment to dismantle systemic racism, stated Horace Small, Founder and Director of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods. This bill is a huge step to making those words real.

Its no mystery to us that whether youre standing in Nubian Square in Roxbury or Mason Square in Springfield, the story is the same, our communities suffer the worse in nearly every health category, our children continue to learn in understaffed and under resourced school and our businesses are struggling stated Bishop Talbert Swan, President of the Springfield NAACP. Its unbelievable to think, as we begin to think about post pandemic life, that it could be worse. Its time to make the promise real.

There are also plans and activities happening across the state to create an external, sustained fund to complement and support the work of this bill. Were committed to a sustained effort stated Priscilla Flint Banks, Convenor of the Boston Black COVID-19 Coalition, a group of more than 70 organizations, businesses and individuals whove waged a fierce battle to ensure that resources are committed to Black and Latino neighborhoods, including contracting opportunities to for Black and Latino businesses. We spent 8 weeks to get mobile COVID-19 testing done in one neighborhood even after the state identified it as a hotspot! Black and Latino businesses got less than 2% of Bostons contracts and even less of the states contracts over the last 3 months. An extraordinary failure given that all bidding processes have been suspended since the Governor declared the health emergency in March! Weve earned a reset. The time is now. The CHEEERRS bill is a real first step!

Rep. Williams and Sen. Collins hope to move this bill on an expedited schedule.

View original post here:

Representative Bud Williams & Senator Nick Collins introduce Reparations Bill - BayStateBanner

At the intersection of the COVID-19 pandemic and the national conversation on systemic racism brought on by the killing of George Floyd and protests thereafter, awareness and acknowledgment brings credibility to an organization, Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Delta Dental of New Jersey and Delta Dental of Connecticut Claude Richardson explained during an NJBIZ webinar panel discussion on diversity in the workplace on Tuesday.

If you appear to be tone-deaf to whats going on, if you appear to be tone-deaf to the plight of others in your organization, youre going to lose credibility of your workforce that you understand what it is that theyre going through, what their needs are, and that you perhaps even have their best interests at heart, Richardson said.

Agudosi

Richardson was joined by fellow panelists Amy Flynn, human resources specialist for HR business Insperity; Hackensack Meridian Health Director Diversity and Inclusion Avonia Richardson-Miller; and Genova Burns LLC Partner Rajiv Parikh to discuss how diversity and inclusion have become centrally important in todays business world.

New Jersey Office of Diversity and Inclusion Chief Diversity Officer Hester Agudosi moderated the discussion.

D&I is at the forefront of everything and at the core of everything right now, more than ever, Richardson-Miller said, noting the disparate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color, specifically Black communities; and her and other CEOs responses to the killing of George Floyd.

Richardson-Miller

HMH Chief Executive Officer Robert Garrett put out a statement on Floyds death, unarmed at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis, shortly after it happened. His statement was compassionate, Richardson-Miller said, and really acknowledged what was going on and [had] a level of empathy and cultural intelligence around what the team members within the organization were feeling. His statement wasnt just a statement, she said, importantly, he also made a commitment to action going forward.

Parikh noted that an organizations leadership team should have goals with their D&I work, rather than just conversations; and that the goals arent one size fits all.

Parikh

Everybody knows you have to have them and you should have them, but at the end of those conversations, what do you want to have as your goal? Do you want a more communicative workforce? Do you want less tension, he said. Theres a question [in the Q&A] about internal staff division Do you want to try to alleviate that type of staff division? I think that all of those goals can be accomplished just, you know, by creating kind of a custom methodology for your organization.

Flynn noted that, with COVID-19, it may seem hard for organizations to put a timeline to the implementation of D&I policies and programs.

I know some of our clients are overwhelmed and thinking, this is massive. How am I going to accomplish all of this? she said. Her advice? Start somewhere.

Be able to start with a couple of initiatives that we think, okay, I can start with this and then we keep growing, she said. But really being able to make that commitment.

Part of D&I is managers or employers making sure theyre amplifying diverse voices.

In the age of the perpetual Zoom meeting, Richardson noted that while someone might have something valuable and constructive to offer, being reserved and having others chime in might dissuade them from doing so. Richardson recommends managers go around the squares of any Zoom call, giving participants the opportunity to share what they wanted to but didnt get to.

Richardson

Especially if they know in your meeting thats a routine of yours on and they definitely dont miss the opportunity to contribute, he said. [It helps them] not to be tone-deaf whats going on and helping them to express kind of where do we stand as an organization? and making sure that we dont lose the voice of those that may not otherwise speak up in this type of environment is really important.

As many companies continue to work partially or fully remote, keeping employees connected to one another is a challenge. Flynn suggested that employers offer their employees the chance to come together for varied discussion groups, and shared that one of the employers she works with has started a book group.

After all, the business case for focusing on diversity and inclusion is manifold: According to census data, Agudosi noted that New Jersey is on track to be majority minority in 20 years, banks that had a higher percentage of women on their boards fared better than their peers during the financial downturn of 2008, and diverse companies are more adaptive and innovative than their counterparts.

Flynn

According to Flynn, close to 70 percent of job seekers now are seeking out employers that make D&I a priority.

A webinar attendee from a mid-size conservation-based nonprofit told the panelists during Q&A that his or her organization was having trouble recruiting Black and Latinx people, and asked what could be done to attract that talent.

Richardson-Miller asked them if they were reaching out to historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving institutes, and Black MBAs or Latino MBAs.

What are your intentional efforts in going after this talent? I think that there just has to be a very thoughtful methodical and intentional approach and making sure that your recruitment efforts are targeting agencies and organizations where that talent exists and where you can connect with that talent, she said.

Everyone matters. Diversity is organic, but inclusion is intentional, Agudosi said.

Read the original:

NJBIZ panel: Diversity is organic, but inclusion is intentional - NJBIZ - NJBIZ

History can be a powerful teacher, even when it involves a Rose Bowl queen.

Back in 1957, the Tournament of Roses named Joan Williams as Miss Crown City, the predecessor to the current Rose Queen. Then officials learned that she was African American and suddenly the city curtailed official duties of the honoree, according to an obituary for Williams, who died last year at age 86.

She was not invited to ride on a parade float. In fact, that year Pasadena decided against entering a float in the parade at all.

But in 2015 58 years later the city extended an apology and offered Williams an invitation to ride in the first float of the storied parade.

For 130 years, the spectacle on the first day of every new year has captured the attention of millions of people around the world. The parade was started as a showcase of sorts of the abundance provided by California weather, and also of its benefactors, the stalwart Pasadena scions who created it. For most of its history, the Tournament of Roses, which includes a foundation and committees that consist of volunteer members, reflected the epitome of Pasadenas old guard the white and male establishment.

In recent years, the organization has moved forward in fits and starts on its way to reflecting the Pasadena of today diversifying the ranks of volunteers, committee members and staff who keep it going. Its membership has grown to include more African Americans, Latinx and Asians, according to numbers provided by the organization.

As the community has become more diverse, so have the efforts to make the membership reflect that, says Tournament of Roses CEO David Eads.

Those efforts include adding at-large committee members who are ethnically diverse, says Laura Farber, the organizations immediate past president. Farber was the organizations first Latinx president; her term ended with the most recent festivities in January. She now chairs the committee that oversees football game management, a position never before held by a woman.

The committees are the pipeline by which executives, officers and presidents are promoted. All those who have served as president have come up through the committee system after years of service. The at-large members are chosen for their diversity.

I think that was intentional, observes Farber, an immigrant from Buenos Aires. We can at least make sure we are providing an opportunity to people from a variety of viewpoints. I credit the at-large positions for diversifying the organization.

The Tournament of Roses 935 members now number more women than men and are younger 43 is the average age of the latest class, Eads says. Its members are 11% African American, 20% Latinx and 20% Asian. Pasadena residents overall are almost 10% African American, 34.4% Latinx, 16% Asian and 36.5% white.

The committees oversee all the activities and the foundation that donates $200,000 to local nonprofits annually. They are what helped promote the Tournament of Roses first Asian American president in 2014, the first African American president two years ago and Farber one year ago.

An attorney with Pasadena law firm Hahn & Hahn, Farber says she first learned of opportunities to volunteer with the Tournament of Roses from other attorneys at the firm. She had never thought about it because she had the impression she would not be welcome.

Of course I would have never envisioned people like myself getting involved, she says. Im glad that I was encouraged to do so.

Farber has served on nine committees over 26 years and believes its important for young people from all walks of life and all socio-economic backgrounds to see people of color in prominent positions. With that in mind, she made a point to visit all of Pasadenas public schools and different community groups to invite them to visit the Rose Bowl headquarters while she was president.

You need experience to lead, she says. It took time. It took an investment. We are reaping the fruits now of the work we did over many years to bring this change.

Farbers notable contributions to the organization included bringing on three Latinas as grand marshals of the parade, something that had never been done before. Actresses Rita Moreno and Gina Torres joined Olympic gymnast Laurie Hernandez for the festivities this past January.

Farber also opened up the parade entries to a more global audience, which brought in bands and floats from countries that had never participated before.

Farber and Eads made it their goal to broaden the organizations membership, to bring in many different groups within the community, not just ethnically diverse groups and women.

Farber says she wants people from all economic classes to feel welcome to the festivities and to Wrigley Mansion, the Tournament of Roses headquarters. She has joined committees with the local NAACP to help businesses during the current economic downturn.

Farber wants to encourage participation so that more people who represent the community at large move into executive positions. Many members of the Tournament of Roses committees come from nonprofit organizations that work to support the community and create an overlap of interests.

The foundation grants $200,000 annually to nonprofit groups offering programs in education, sports and recreation, and the visual and performing arts. It offers a scholarship for high school football players nationwide and funds local nonprofits in their fundraising efforts.

To increase participation, Eads says the organization has participated in community parades and events, such as the Black History Parade, the Latino Heritage Parade and the San Gabriel Valley Pride Festival. It has been a deliberate effort, he says.

We continue to evolve. We try to keep a balance between holding on to our values. The joy and excitement of the Tournament of Roses and our traditions are only enhanced when we have an inclusive membership, Eads says.

But while there has been progress in reflecting the community, that progress should not be taken for granted, says former Pasadena developer Jim Morris, who once protested the lack of diversity of the Rose Bowl with an actual roadblock of the coronation festivities. He and other activists persisted in efforts to bring awareness to what they saw as stagnation in getting the organization to better reflect the community.

Morris fears there are efforts to eliminate those at-large positions that helped elevate Farber, Gerald Freeny, the first African American president, and Richard Chinen, the first Asian American president.

Morris also believes the foundation can do a better job of supporting local communities of color rather than donating to organizations in economically well-off cities such as San Marino and La Caada Flintridge.

Along with the encouraging changes brought on by diversifying the membership, Morris hopes that diversity broadens and that more history of the event be known that, for instance, the land on which the Rose Bowl and the Wrigley Mansion reside was once owned by an African American.

Morris is encouraged, however, to see the recent demands for structural change in the country and believes it will benefit all people if these changes are enacted.

Theres a hope that this change is going to be meaningful, he says, adding that when more people are included in organizations such as the Tournament of Roses, everybody benefits.

Eads too looks forward to seeing the tournament continue to embrace and reflect all people of Southern California today. It makes for a better organization. We are stronger for it.

Read more here:

Creating a Tournament of Roses that celebrates the diversity of Southern California - OCRegister