Lisa D. Givan has spent more than 30 years working in multiculturalism, also known as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Today, she is Vice President of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Belonging as well as Senior Diversity Officer at Indiana Tech in Fort Wayne.
But in all her roles—both corporate and higher ed—she’s come to a common conclusion about DEI work.
“It is a job of
we; not a job of
me,” Givan says. “It takes everybody to work together to advance the work of social justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
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Lisa D. Givan is Vice President of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Belonging as well as Senior Diversity Officer at Indiana Tech.
It’s this mindset that’s driving a new program at
Indiana Tech designed by Givan. It’s called
Leveraging Engagement and Action in Diversity (L.E.A.D.) Executive Certificate program, and it’s designed to meet the needs of local business managers who want to build inclusivity and equity in their organizations, but don’t know how to make change happen.
The six-day L.E.A.D. course is spread out over three months, including instruction days and practice time. It teaches working professionals how to be open to other people’s unique experiences, why diversity in experience matters in the workplace, as well as how to advocate for diversity of all types to create a more inclusive regional workforce.
In recent years, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion have become buzzwords at many offices and organizations across the country. Givan says these terms take on substantive meaning in L.E.A.D., which shows participants how to apply them. She often encourages L.E.A.D. participants to be “not just good people,” but also to “do intentionally good work.”
“There are a lot of people who have gone through workshops that have given them ‘aha’ moments,” Givan says. “We take those ‘aha’ moments and make them applicable. This is how you intentionally practice. This is how you shift cultures and transform institutions.”
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Lisa D. Givan is Vice President of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Belonging as well as Senior Diversity Officer at Indiana Tech.
Parkview Health, Northeast Indiana’s largest employer, saw the value of L.E.A.D. early on. In fact, the first L.E.A.D. class that graduated in June consisted entirely of Parkview employees.
Tami Brigle, the Public Relations Manager at Parkview, says the healthcare provider’s goal is to help employees “become more effective in understanding, leading, and implementing inclusive organizational practices.” Parkview plans to send additional employees to participate in future L.E.A.D. courses.
The program costs $4,500 per person. According to Givan, the cost is comparable to other professional certificate programs of its level, and Indiana Tech is the first institution offering this type of professional development in Northeast Indiana.
“We had to develop a curriculum and specialized content,” Givan says.
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The first L.E.A.D. class that graduated in June consisted entirely of Parkview Health employees.
So what exactly does the L.E.A.D. program look like? Broadly speaking, participants focus on three key areas (diversity, inclusion, and equity) over the course of their six classes, taken in two-day blocks. Each pair of classes maps onto a particular area of focus.
The first two days highlight the dimensions of diversity, in which participants examine the subtle ways stereotypes can arise in a multicultural workplace. The next set of classes looks at creating an inclusive environment, where instructors share the best practices for how those in leadership roles can also serve as change agents. The final pair of classes focus on developing a culture of equity, which explores approaches to linking organizational strategy, culture, and human resources with an emphasis on inclusive excellence.
Three facilitators from Indiana Tech guide participants in their professional DEI journeys, including Givan, as well as the Dean of the College of Business, Angie Fincannon, Ph.D., and the Associate Dean of the College of Business, Kevin Bottomley, Ph.D.
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The L.E.A.D. Executive Certificate program is designed to help business managers who want to build inclusivity and equity in their organizations, but don’t know how to make change happen.
Niki Reynolds, the lead Neuroscience Nurse Navigator at Parkview Health, is a member of the first cohort of Indiana Tech’s L.E.A.D. program who feels the program’s facilitators “created an even playing field, a safe space, so everyone had a chance to speak.” Within this safe space, they shared information and terminology that might be new to learners, like the “diversity wheel” model.
Bottomely explains that the wheel is comprised of four layers (personality, internal, external, and organizational levels) through which people process stimuli, information, and experiences. By looking at the human experience through this lens, you can identify things you have control to change and things that are largely out of your control. It can also reframe the way you think about terms, like “able-bodied.” Bottomely says it would be more accurate to refer to most people as “temporarily able-bodied” rather than able-bodied or not.
“At some point, if we live long enough, we will experience some (physical) loss,” he says.
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The L.E.A.D. Executive Certificate program is designed to help business managers who want to build inclusivity and equity in their organizations, but don’t know how to make change happen.
By keeping the “temporarily able-bodied” lens in mind, employees can advocate for relatively simple changes, like using microphones at meetings to help more people feel included.
Along with models like the diversity wheel, L.E.A.D. discussions themselves can be tools for fostering change. Bottomley says one of the course’s conversations examines pronoun usage. He includes his own experience with putting pronoun usage into practice.
“I stopped assuming people’s pronouns,” he says. “I got pushback from some, but other people thanked me.”
Using an inclusivity technique, like asking people for their preferred pronouns, can be one of the immediate benefits of L.E.A.D. professionals can take back to their organizations and put into practice.
“After your first two days of class, go back to your organization and practice,” Bottomley says. “There is a month between the first two classes. So practice.”
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The first L.E.A.D. class that graduated in June consisted entirely of Parkview Health employees.
As a L.E.A.D. graduate, Tim Cunningham, describes how this DEI advocacy has begun to take root inside his department of Nursing and Clinical Excellence at Parkview. On the agenda at last month’s nursing professional development meeting was an activity about stereotypes. Little cutouts of gingerbread people were handed out with instructions to write, “This is who I am” on one side and “This is who I am not” on the other.
With a knowing smile on his face, Cunningham describes the activity leader’s gingerbread person. The front reads, “I’m a nurse.” The flip side proclaims, “I didn’t go to nursing school to marry a doctor.”
Then he shares what his own cutout says.
“Mine was ‘I’m a male nurse; I am
not a doctor,’” Cunningham says. “Because working in the hospital, there were many, many times when I was in a patient’s room, and their phone would ring, and they would say, ‘I can’t talk right now; my doctor’s here.’”
After a pause, and with a slight shake of his head, Cunningham muses quietly, almost to himself, “
Not your doctor.” Even though he is often mislabeled as one.
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The first L.E.A.D. class that graduated in June consisted entirely of Parkview Health employees.
Cunningham says that the gingerbread stereotype activity elicited quite a buzz in the room that day as people broke into small groups to talk about the stereotypes they encounter. These strategies graduates, like Reynolds and Cunningham, learn in the L.E.A.D course help bring stereotypes, biases, and assumptions in the workplace out into the open and model appropriate ways to respond.
“When we label (someone), we don’t see the person for who they are,” says Reynolds.
Cunningham sees DEI change in the workplace similar to the ripples of change Mother Teresa described when she said, “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”
“It’s going to happen very grass root,” he says. “And it takes root and goes out throughout the system. I think that’s the only way it’s going to change is if there is one or two advocates within one of the departments who are continually pushing that out to everyone else.”
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The first L.E.A.D. class that graduated in June consisted entirely of Parkview Health employees.
L.E.A.D. may be the answer for businesses and organizations that not only value diversity and inclusivity, but also want to make tangible change happen.
“I would say if you go through this program, and you are not changed in some way, then you didn’t go through the program,” Cunningham says.
Learn more
To learn more about the
L.E.A.D. Executive Certificate, contact Lisa D. Givan at Indiana Tech, Vice President for Institutional Diversity, Equity and Belonging and Chief Diversity Officer, at
[email protected] or 260.422.5561, ext. 3436. A new cohort begins in September.
This article is made possible by underwriting from Indiana Tech.