The Role of Education In Advancing a Diversity and Inclusion Breakthrough: Linking Education to the Workforce of the Future

The process to become an inclusive leader doesn’t start when a grown person enters into the business world. No, indeed it starts much earlier. It starts at the childhood stage and must be nurtured throughout the formative educational years. If we really want to accelerate equality in our society we all need to challenge ourselves to understand what biases we are passing on to our children. Children are not born with bias. They learn bias. The hard brain wiring contributes to the way any of us processes information, but it is the family that influences us the most as we develop, followed by our experience in the school system. Teachers at every level including the collegiate level must partner with parents to sow the seeds to produce citizens that believe in equality. This is not to let corporate America off the hook but rather to propose a collaborative effort between the individual, parents, teachers and business leaders.

If you follow corporate diversity and inclusion news, you’ll know that last year several CEOs from large corporations including Deloitte US, PwC, and Accenture took a pledge to support more inclusive workplaces. You can find the full pledge here CEO Pledge. Now, some universities colleges and even elementary schools are taking a cue from these corporations and signing pledges of their own At minimum they are starting the dialogue and engaging in the courageous conversations. And like their corporate colleagues, they are realizing the hard work has just begun.

In October of last year, the same group that launched the CEO pledge organized a Check Your Blind Spots Tour at several universities and colleges across the country. The tour’s goal was to help raise students’ awareness of unconscious biases and empower them to take part in diversity and inclusion conversations. The tour “bus” allowed students to participate in multi-media experiences focused on the issue of blind spots. Students watched videos, took tests, and were presented with educational content all in an effort to introduce them to the nuances of unconscious bias.

One of the stops on the Blind Spots Tour was Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Bentley University was the first university on the tour to sign the pledge. They had just hired Deborah Pine to be the Executive Director for its Center for Women and Business and I had the privilege of interviewing her. The Center for Women and Business helps corporations recruit, retain, and advance women in the workplace through action steps and thought leadership. When I spoke with Dr. Pine, we agreed that more universities need to step up and be bold. In fact, we spoke about the importance of starting the process at the grade school level. Grade school, middle school, colleges and universities need to build this culture within their organizations as a required skill if students are going to be prepared for the future.

You might be thinking what I’m sure many of the students on those college campuses were thinking during the Blind Spots Tour – that the millennials and Gen Zers wouldn’t need to be exposed to unconscious bias awareness education. After all, these generations have grown up aware of diversity issues much more than previous generations. However, as you know, we ALL have unconscious biases. The Blind Spots Tour simply set out to engage the students in a productive dialog around their own unconscious biases and inspire them to take what they learned into their daily lives. Millennials and Gen Zers care about social issues and are deeply concerned about the future. Research shows that 94% of Gen Zers believe companies should help address social and environmental issues. The diversity and inclusion issue is not new to these young people. College students have been talking about it. In fact, they are demanding change. According to UniversityBusiness.com, students from across the country have joined a nationwide movement demanding campus reform. As of 2015, students have presented lists of race-equality demands to 80 universities and colleges across the nation – TheDemands. This has resulted in a nationwide movement for campus reform regarding equality and inclusion. Another well-known movement called Concerned Student 1950 started on the University of Missouri campus to address race relations, workplace benefits, and leadership. This movement resulted in the resignations of the president of the University of Missouri System and the chancellor of the flagship Columbia campus.

Students are clearly organizing and activating. They are recognizing inequalities on college campuses and some universities are stepping up to address the issues. While universities like Bentley are leading the way in diversity and inclusion efforts, it’s going to take more than tour buses, petitions, and pledges to make real change. And greater involvement at the grade school level throughout the education cycle up into the collegiate level. Universities and colleges are going to have to commit to having courageous conversations within their halls and classrooms. They are going to have to infuse rigorous, researched curriculum into their interdisciplinary studies. It’s about time the education ecosystem (grade school to college) recognize that they must build cross cultural competencies in students who will represent the future workforce. The students who graduate from college today must leave school with the right set of skills for the job. This includes not only technical skills, but also the capacity to be inclusive, and to support and foster diverse perspectives and contributions.

Things are stirring at the grade school level as well. I recently had an opportunity to speak with a parent who is a champion for equality. Her children attend Greenhill, a private school in Dallas. “I chose this school because of the diversity”, said Toria Adams. To realize the fullness of the diversity, parents need to get involved. The entire ecosystem needs to be activated, she shared. Mrs. Adams went on to say, “We want to celebrate our diverse community while empowering our parents to talk to their kids about the social and racial issues that have been surfacing in today’s national dialogue. Many of our children are asking tough questions and we want to help prepare our parent community to have these important and courageous conversations with their children.”