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hello my name is stephanie creary and i'm an assistant professor of management
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at the wharton school university of pennsylvania and i'm very honored to have today here with us
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dr rohini anand who is currently senior diversity equity and inclusion advisor and former senior vice president of
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corporate responsibility and global chief diversity officer at sodexo thank you so much for joining me here
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today ravini i'm so happy to have you with us wonderful to be with you dr cleary just
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really delighted to be part of this conversation so what many people don't know is you
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and i actually know each other pretty well and our history goes back to 2008. in 2008 i was
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both a research associate at harvard business school and also a research associate at the conference board in new
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york city in new york city studying uh companies global chief global diversity and inclusion
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strategies and so you were somebody who had both been a presenter and an expert at the
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conference board sharing with your colleagues some of the good work that you all were doing at
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sodexo particularly as you wanted to uh think about um broadening your scope from u.s domestic focused diversity
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strategies to global focused strategies but then also um you were somebody who uh we had um at the time my my the
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professor i've been working for professor david thomas who's now president of morehouse college
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we've been doing a body of work that was focused on trying to understand how
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companies like yours were trying to scale these u.s strategies more globally and so one of the things that happened
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at that time and around the 2008-2009 period we started interviewing you and many of your colleagues at sodexo
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who had been doing some of the work in the us and certainly were focused um on the global strategy but where i
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wanted to start today was to talk a little bit about some of the early work that you did at sodexo
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because i think so much of that is related to uh the the experiences that many of us are having now
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um personally in our experience in our companies around racial justice but before we get there i
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want to note to everybody that um rohini and her ceo and her company they were kind enough to sign
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off on a wonderful harvard business school case study it's called shifting the diversity
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climate sodexo solution so you could read more about the extensive work that rohini and her
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colleagues did between the years of 1999 and 2010. we'll just preview a little bit of that here
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before we lapse into a conversation about the current time sound good rohini sounds wonderful stephanie great okay so
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let me take us back to around early 2000 2000 2001 and at that time michelle landell was president and ceo
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of sodexo north america correct right okay and he had recently hired his have he referred to his good friend ali
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lawrence uh to be sodexo's north america chief human resources officer and one of the things that
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really struck me when i had interviewed michelle way back when was he talked about this
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friendship that he had with ollie lawrence who described himself as an african-american male
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michelle andell was was uh belgium i believe no he's french he's french he is friends
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so michelle ondell was french and so he talked about some of his early learnings about racial
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equity and racial inequity came from this friendship that he had with ollie lawrence
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um and so it was really for him uh quite an emotional experience when in 2001 your company sodexo um
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was notified that a class action lawsuit had been filed in dc against sodexo which was called
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then called sodexo marriott services so i'm going to turn it over to you to talk
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a little bit about that um time period for the company and then you came in shortly thereafter
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so can you give us a little bit of a a reflection on what that felt like i know we're reflecting back
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uh 19 years but certainly i'm sure it was a very uh remarkable period in your
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career yeah so i actually thanks a lot i think that's that context is actually
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wonderful and really very relevant to what's happening today in the world around us for multiple
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reasons but i joined sodexo in 2002 and about six months after i joined the lawsuit was certified as a class
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action and we ultimately did settle in 2005 and there was a five-year consent decree after that
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but i would say that you know was a a discrimination lawsuit filed by african-american managers it was a
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promotion discrimination law stood and that certainly was a very painful time in the company's history
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but it was also a time of incredible learning incredible growth and i think much of this had to do with the
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leadership so with michelle and you know you're absolutely right i think this
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you know so it was his sort of personal transformation that brought him to an understanding
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somewhat of an understanding of race relations in the us i don't think that he will or
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anyone will say that you know he fully understood it but i will say that he began his journey
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and his friendship with ali and the experiences that ali shared and that michelle you know being
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the sort of humble leader that he is was able to listen and to learn and to internalize some of
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those messages really helped in his growth so you know michelle actually grew up in
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um he was born in morocco he lived in africa for many years was you know leading the business in africa
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but had a very very different understanding of race outside of the united states and i think
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that different understanding of race continues even today with what you know we see happening in
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europe and france etc we can you know get more into that but that particular time period you know i
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think was it was an opportunity it provided a springboard it was a burning platform
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but i have to say that the organization could have just sort of stopped and said
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let's do these 10 things that we're required to do and we're done with it
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but i along the way i think that there were enough leaders enough of a critical mass
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that had begun to sort of personally engage in the topic that they and and reflect on the topic
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and they actually helped to change the culture within sodexo so it was a transformation a cultural
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transformation a systemic change to the organization processes policies systems individual behaviors
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and actions that ultimately impacted sort of this cultural transformation and you know i mean i suppose the proof
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is in the pudding in terms of you know the what it is today in terms of representation
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in terms of you know behaviors in terms of you know what our surveys say about how
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african-american employees feel about being at sodexo but also the named plaintiff in that lawsuit
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continued to stay at sodexo and you know i mean she says that i would not have if if this you know culture had not
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changed transformed the way it had so you know i think it was it was difficult but i do think that it positioned
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diversity equity and inclusion in a way that began it became an enabler for the business but also an enabler for
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changing the culture and the organization and you know clearly it had to be led from the top
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the leadership had to be completely committed and it wasn't like they kind of you know
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suddenly woke up and understood what you know what the issues were or what the african-american employees were
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going through it was a process and you know i can talk a bit about that process but it was a
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journey for each and every one of those leaders so we'll get back to some of the
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specific uh policies and systems that you put in place when i when we set ourself in the
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current time because i know so many individuals or leaders are interested in so when we're talking about systemic
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racism what do we mean by systems and how do we change it so i'm going to give you the
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opportunity in a little bit to reflect on the some of the specific two to three things you did and then
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do would you still do those things now but before we go there i want to actually bring up something
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else that i've been thinking about a lot lately as i said i've been thinking a
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lot about about your case actually watching the world unfold around us because i remember
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all of the work that it took for sodexo and for you and michelle to gain traction on
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talking about diversity in france in getting people outside of the united states to
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believe that diversity was not just a u.s thing that it was something that was meaningful
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in their own culture and so i will never forget uh this idea that uh for so many people
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around the world when you tried to talk about diversity it was that's a u.s thing that's not necessarily our thing
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and i look today there are a protest rohini in france there are protests in london
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there are protests all around the world in many of these jurisdictions where i know you and your
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colleagues at other organizations had a very hard time getting them to believe that diversity affected them as
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well so could you reflect a little bit on perhaps that journey the work that you
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had to do and maybe what you're thinking now is you're seeing all these countries
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embrace a black lives matter movement and certainly making it their own with respect to their own cultures and
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ethnicities yeah so i think that's i mean i think that's i've been thinking a lot about
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that and i and you know when we started this work when we started the global work you're
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right it was incredibly challenging and particularly challenging in europe where you know you
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you're not allowed because of data privacy issues to collect data on race or ethnicity
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but apart from that the word diversity the word well more so the word race or ethnicity does not translate
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within the context of many european countries where individuals are identified by
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their individual experiences so as an immigrant or of a particular nationality versus being identified by a collective
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identity as belonging to a particular ethnic group so given that there's no data
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on representation of how many you know black people there are for instance in the organization
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there is no acceptance around talking about these issues because they would you know say that
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this is a us issue we don't have race issues in this in our country and i remember clearly when they had the
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um youths riots and demonstrations around in in the um in the suburbs of of paris and you know with those
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demonstrations and when i pointed that out you know they would just sort of dismiss that as you
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know this is it's it has nothing to do with race it has nothing to do with color
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um it's all about culture as you know the french would say you know if you're the right do you have
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the right culture you're french or you're not friends so it's sort of um you know just the whole
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category of race and ethnicity does not translate in many parts of europe in fact
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and i believe it was it's in sweden where the word for race actually is synonymous with the
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word for discrimination wow so so i mean that that's a challenge and you're you know so we did you know
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we use many different ways to unpack that but i will say they're not that many organizations
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stephanie that actually do go deep in addressing issues of race in many countries like in in europe in
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particular because of data issues uk yes but not elsewhere now if we fast forward to today and and
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so yeah they saw me and i think i shared this in the case study that when i you know when they talk to me right
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there's they the europeans and particularly the french they talk to me they saw me as as indian because i am of
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indian origin and they embraced me and they shared all kinds of things some some stuff which
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was not very complementary to americans but when it came to issues of diversity they their god went down and they saw me
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as american and this was you know this is just a u.s thing you know it's irrelevant in our country
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you know see him and the other the interesting thing is there's a lot more inter marriage
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in in parts of europe in france for instance between blacks and whites so that becomes sort of a data point for them to
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talk about the fact that you know it's an integrated society right right so fast forward to today to be honest
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i have a lot of hope for what's to come in the u.s yeah i think just looking at the
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demographics of the demonstrators um and the allies that are there and the young generation i'm very
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hopeful right now not the same globally it is a movement i think there are people that are demonstrating
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you know in part in all parts of europe for instance but i'm not sure that that's being
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translated within organizations i think there's still compartmentalization between public and private
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you know they're doing this you know demonstration on the street but as far as we're concerned you know
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as an organization so i'm not sure how and what's going to change that it
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has to change because it is going to spill over into into you know organizations but i'm
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i'm watching to see you know how organizations start now addressing issues of of color race you know
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underrepresented populations within their organizations but um it's really helpful to hear and i
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know the points that you're making around data privacy it's as a researcher this is not
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um an area doing research in europe is is not easy uh particularly as somebody who studies diversity and inclusion
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i'm just not going to get the data that i want to get i can certainly get data on gender but the
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issues that i'm interested in aren't always about gender right right and so i think about even now as we're
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obviously living under the the other pandemic all right so not just the racism pandemic
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but certainly the coronavirus pandemic um i've seen a number of papers put out
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in the uk where they're uh i they refer b-a-m-e i'm not sure is the acronym for black asian and
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minority ethnic i believe right yeah individuals in society in the uk and so i see
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in the uk um you know papers that are suggesting that there's inequity in terms of who has to work and who's being
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negatively affected by the disease right so i think in the uk their census i think comes out if i'm not mistaken
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next year they're going to have their next census and the predictions are that you know
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about 20 to 25 of the percent of the population is going to be identified as being
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which is a massive number right in in the uk organizations are definitely addressing these issues
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in fact i was talking to an organization today which is you know 350-year uk-based organization
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and they were talking about how they're having these you know town halls with the ceo on race
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and then asking each of their leaders in each of their lines of business to have
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these conversations as well right so and they're not jumping to action they're doing these listening sessions
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so they really want to hear people's experiences and be able to internalize them
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so i'm thinking that you know i mean it's picking up there now sodexo um i know that this morning one
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of the leaders was actually doing a listening session talking about issues of race and you
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know they've had you know several anti-racism webinars history of race in the us leaders
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talking about making themselves vulnerable and talking about their own blind spots i
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you know organizations are beginning to have these conversations globally as well but i don't think in
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you know all parts of the world i think we still have a ways to go there okay so excellent so let's talk a bit about
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the work that has been done needs to be done i will tell you i've taken a very crude cut
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of organizations when people who have interviewed me have said you know is this is it are these statements these ceo
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statements going to work is diversity training going to work and you may not agree with my categories
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and certainly we can leave this open for discussion but i've given three categories of of companies
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um i will call the first group the veterans expo that's a company that for decades
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has had policies and practices in place to not only just manage diversity broadly but also
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specific to issues around race and culture and ethnicity i call those the veterans
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the the second group i refer to as the aspirants right those are the uh companies that perhaps in the last
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decade or so have started to have a conversation about diversity much of that conversation might be about
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gender um i think of a lot of the tech companies in silicon valley that's where
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they started and certainly it was because there was heightened attention to gender uh
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discrimination and sexual harassment um and in the last group i talked about these as the sideliners
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right and the sideliners are the the companies that are really maybe tiptoeing around a
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conversation about diversity and inclusion uh some are paying attention um some are less aware um
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and i think when i think about all these companies that have put out these statements around black
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lives matter and let's get rid of systemic uh injustice i've seen companies that fall
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into each of those three categories put out these statements what was the second
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what was the same the aspirants like aspiring yeah so i call the veterans the aspirants and the sideliners like people
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who are sitting on the sideline just watching everybody else play the game i'm most hopeful about the veterans i'm
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most hopeful about companies like sodexo and your capacity that your conformer company's capacity
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to actually begin to create structures and policies and effect change i'm not as i'm not as hopeful about the
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sideliners who haven't maybe they have a diversity officer maybe they don't have a diversity officer maybe if
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they have a diversity officer the diversity officer has no resources so that said can you talk a little bit
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about um where does one company start if it certainly does not have a lot of a huge
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platform around diversity inclusion where would they start and then let's talk about the companies
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that have already been doing the work maybe the veterans if we take those two questions
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what do they need to do from your perspective so i think if you talk about the the aspirants right so those are you
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know either just starting or i think there is a burning platform stephanie i mean this
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is the burning platform i mean i don't think that folks can be your sideliners anymore i just you know
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it's just not in this day and age in this country in particular um i you know i just don't think they
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can afford to be so i think it's the aspirants that are stepping up and i'm
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seeing so i'm getting a lot of calls you know leaders ceos struggling i mean people saying to me
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you know i had heard these stories but i'm just beginning to realize what my privilege looks like now you know
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i'm not sure where they've been but um but you know at least there is some
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realization that that you know something that's kind of work in them that they're beginning to kind
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of you know get the messages right um so i you know to me it really in terms of so that to me is a burning
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platform in terms of starting i do think the starting point needs to be to call out an address race
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now even companies like sodexo that did a lot of work over over the years there's always been
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this kind of reluctance to call out race right so it's always been you know diversity it's about everyone
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you know let's not leave anyone behind we talk about belonging we talk about inclusion
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which is great because that's the end goal but in order to get there you've got to
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you know you've got to you know cause paid is paid i mean there are issues of institutional racism
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i think that this movement is providing the platform to actually name it what it is and address it for
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what it is rather than wrap it in this pretty wrapper that becomes sort of palatable
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to you know to the privileged and palatable to the you know dominant group and you know the
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oppressors so i think it's it's i think for the first so i think it's really the starting point is really
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to to acknowledge that there is an issue and let's just have a dialogue about race
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and even veterans have not really done that in the same way we've sort of come to it in a different
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way and along the way kind of had the conversations about race but now is the time to just
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put it on the table have the conversation have listening sessions you know without jumping to immediate
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action because part of this is just you know you know being able to hold the space
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for some safe dialogue and to be able to listen and then from there so that to me that's the starting point
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you know to do that and raise the awareness within your organization um about issues of race so broad
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you know not just about trainings but you know have the you know listening sessions and be able to talk
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about it have facilitated dialogue on the topic and then from there i would say you know moving on to
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you come putting in place the initiatives that need to to you know occur in the employee life
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cycle to ensure that bias conscious and unconscious is not just unconscious it's
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both conscious and unconscious bias do not you know impact employee decisions so you know at every point of the life
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cycle of recruiting can you give a couple of examples at recruiting and promotion for example i
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think people are generally interested in those sure yeah yeah absolutely so i think if you
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unpack the whole sort of recruiting process right it goes from you know sourcing
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to your phone screening or resume screening phone screening you know forwarding on the resumes by
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the recruiters to the hiring manager and the final hiring decision and i think every single step in that
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process needs to be examined for bias and mitigated by putting in place initiatives to to not allow that bias to
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seep into decisions so what that looks like is maybe incentives for recruiters first of all targets for recruiters to
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say you have to present a diverse candidate slate to the hiring manager because a hiring manager can't
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hire um unless there's a diverse candidate slate so to to have that as a target 50 of your
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slate has to be women and or minorities however you define that within your context
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um and then putting some accountability around it because just having the targets is not enough
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the recruiters have to have accountability and a part of their uh variable compensation should be
00:25:10
linked to that account to those targets so that you know we're clear that we are presenting a
00:25:15
qualified diverse candidate slate to the hiring manager um i then think that you know it as i
00:25:22
said each point needs to be examined but one of the other things that you know we've done is for the hiring
00:25:27
manager to provide you know unconscious bias training to recruiters and hiring managers now unconscious bias
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training it's in itself is not that effective but i do think it's one tool to raise awareness along with
00:25:42
other processes and policies so that you know you can mitigate bias so i think it
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you know it's a holistic approach to it but for the hiring manager for instance
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having some you know targets there in terms of and scrutinizing the hiring decision so at
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sodexo we actually had a review panel and the review panel looked at every hiring decision
00:26:05
looked at who were the candidates that were sourced what was the candidate slate that was
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you know who were the finalists forwarded what was the candidate slate and then who did the hiring manager hire
00:26:18
and really scrutinizes that whole process so it's not just the hiring manager
00:26:23
and also having a diverse uh interview panel so i would say you know targets and
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incentives for recruiters um diverse recruiting interview panel targets for hiring managers and we
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actually you know at sodexo many companies do this link you know those targets to
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um incentive compensation to variable compensation which we did as well globally sodexo had a target of you know
00:26:51
all candidate slates for certain senior level positions had to have fifty percent women
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the whole man yeah fifty percent women in the candidate's slave yeah the candidates late that's the
00:27:03
thing so forty and so the target was 40 women by 20 25. um and i last i saw was in senior leadership ranks was that
00:27:14
34 so you know inching up there so i think that's sort of in the in the recruiting
00:27:19
bucket in the promotion i think it's the same thing i think you know i mean looking at using a dni lens to look at
00:27:27
succession planning discussions to look at you know i mean i think all too often these discussions
00:27:34
happen in a vacuum or unconscious bias comes into the discussion but also having objectives for so for
00:27:41
instance globally at sodexo the senior executives have a target of um ensuring that a
00:27:47
certain percentage of their successors are women or other in underrepresented groups
00:27:53
so you know ensuring that managers are held accountable for developing that talent for retaining that talent
00:28:01
and then putting in place initiatives to advance you know women and other underrepresented groups so you know
00:28:08
women and minorities in the us is it's not about fixing you know minorities are fixing women
00:28:16
it's not that they necessarily need more skills it is about making them visible to the
00:28:23
organization it is about getting them you know sponsors and mentors so that they can you know the
00:28:30
organization can see this talent and has someone advocating for them you know for decades we've had men
00:28:38
who've informally sponsored other men for instance you know in a very um so i think you know it we just need
00:28:45
to formalize these initiatives to kind of make sure that everyone has access to sponsors or mentors so those would be
00:28:54
some of the initiatives yeah i'm now going to ask you the question that i'm asked most frequently
00:29:01
and i am certain you have been answered this asked this question frequently and that is what role does merit play
00:29:08
of this conversation so when we start talking about making people visible and diverse
00:29:14
meaning inclusion is that a conversation that's aside from a conversation about merit do we just
00:29:19
sort of throw that out the window or how do you relate these two ideologies if at all yeah i think i mean
00:29:26
that's a that's always an interesting conversation right so at the end of the day and this is
00:29:32
where it's sort of a you know important distinction and sort of a tricky one
00:29:38
because at the end of the day we want to hire the best qualified candidate that's really the ultimate goal but the
00:29:46
way i look at it is if you have two candidates and the two candidates each have ninety percent um you know in terms of
00:29:56
this is the threshold is ninety percent each of the two candidates has ninety percent of whatever is needed
00:30:03
one is a male the other is a female then you start looking at those things that differentiate the two candidates
00:30:11
and one of the things in favor of the woman is you don't have that many women in your
00:30:16
organization or your team you know you need that diversity of thought within the organization
00:30:22
in order to be the best organization most productive so you give a certain additional weight
00:30:29
to that woman we're not talking about you know anything that is sort of that
00:30:34
she's not qualified it's it has nothing to do it's basically looking at that threshold
00:30:39
of uh you know of qualifications and so so i see it i mean i don't see the two
00:30:47
being at odds with each other uh so so many companies right now have big plans aspirational and if i can
00:30:57
just stephanie can i just add one more thing to that it also depends on how you define as what the
00:31:04
criteria are for a position right yeah and the criteria for a position includes you know my life experiences so
00:31:12
let's not change that so right right absolutely um so so many companies i was just talking to
00:31:22
a chief diversity officer the other day she's been in her company for two decades and she has gotten a number of
00:31:28
cold calls from a lot of companies that are looking to steal her away because apparently
00:31:32
blephara chiefs diversity i'm sure they're trying to pull you out of uh what do you i think you're referring
00:31:37
to i'm not retirement that's my retirement so there are all these open positions
00:31:42
for division what's the value of a diversity officer or what's the potential value that a
00:31:49
diversity leader could bring uh to the company i think we all realize you can't just take one
00:31:55
person and make them the figurehead and and and leave it at that but what can we
00:32:00
be hopeful for that a chief diversity officer might bring to the table that might help us uh to move forward as
00:32:06
a company broadly on diversity uh broadly on issues of diversity inclusion but i think also on issues of
00:32:12
racial injustice and racial equity yeah so i think you know i mean so this almost relates back to the
00:32:18
question you asked about what veteran companies can do right and one of the things that
00:32:23
concerns me stephanie is that as companies start changing their cultures um and become more inclusive
00:32:31
you know or see themselves as more inclusive they start feeling that now you know
00:32:37
diversity is part of our dna we can integrate it into everything we we do and we don't need to really call it out
00:32:45
so we don't need you know performance objective around diversity we don't need somebody
00:32:50
you know responsible for diversity and i think that's a really slippery slope
00:32:54
because just as easily as you know you gain this traction you can lose it so i think it
00:33:00
gives a false sense of you know sort of comfort to say that now it's part of our dna and integrated
00:33:06
and i mean i i think you really have to examine yourself and make sure that that is actually the case so
00:33:13
having said that i think there is you know not just today i think there's tremendous value
00:33:19
to a chief diversity officer really being able to engage a cultural transformation in the organization it's
00:33:26
somebody who you know has this lens that they bring to the conversation that you know others may not see now we
00:33:34
talk about white privilege and you know folks are saying well i really didn't ever know
00:33:39
right so the role of the chief diversity officer is to you know to be that person that
00:33:45
you know calls out some of these things um and you know basically is sort of you
00:33:52
know um spurs the organization on to take action now is it entirely the role of the chief
00:33:59
diversity officer obviously not i think the role of the chief diversity officer is to strategically seed allies to
00:34:07
change people's mindsets so it's not coming from his or her or their voice but is coming you know
00:34:14
from change agents within the organization you know i think that there is you know today of course there's
00:34:22
tremendous tremendous value and importance but it's not just a symbolic thing
00:34:29
i think there's true value to the business and and i'll say that you know
00:34:34
you know michelle hired me right in 2002 and you know he took quotes and quotes a
00:34:39
bit of a risk because this was an african-american uh a lawsuit filed by african-american
00:34:45
managers i'm not african-american um you know and so to hire somebody that they may not identify as being an
00:34:55
ally to them was a big risk that that he took um so i mean i think that it doesn't matter
00:35:04
what the race or gender is of the person but i think what is really important is the ability to
00:35:10
listen to make yourself vulnerable to build these strong partnerships and to not believe that you know when
00:35:18
you know you know everything because um you know i think it's important to to
00:35:23
be able to hold the space for the voice of employees so um i don't know did i answer your
00:35:29
question in terms of the value yeah i would just say that beyond just the current situation and what's
00:35:38
you know happening in terms of black lives matter and addressing issues of race which i think is critical
00:35:44
i think there's also this huge benefit that the business can have you know so there's a massive benefit to
00:35:50
the business and the brand if it's done right and and we know that you know addressing issues in the
00:35:56
community is absolutely you know it's about purpose-driven leadership today so it
00:36:01
has to be no one has to sorry go ahead so now if i might add um i think it's really important that
00:36:08
companies show the value for diversity by ensuring that diversity leaders chief diversity officers have
00:36:16
budgets because they're supposed to be accessing allies and many of them are outside i
00:36:22
get contacted all the time by companies who want me to give a talk or want me to get on some
00:36:28
external counsel they need the resources in order to do this work and many don't
00:36:34
have them at all and they're being asked to i think take on a huge issue without sufficient resources so
00:36:42
i'm going to add that to the conversation absolutely sure they have a substantial
00:36:47
budget that matches the ask of them i think sometimes we just don't treat uh
00:36:53
the diversity office like a business unit in business union budgets to function and i think we certainly need
00:36:59
more of that what would you do and the positioning i would agree and the positioning
00:37:04
too stephanie you know where this position reports to you know to have somebody in that role
00:37:10
reporting you know like five levels down from the ceo i mean just it makes no sense because this is a
00:37:16
strategic role it's a role of influencing it's a role of partnering with leaders
00:37:21
and it needs to be positioned as such because otherwise it you know it's not
00:37:27
effective so here's my last question and it's certainly a selfish one um uh so i have spent the last 14 years
00:37:36
really trying to understand corporate diversity and inclusion initiatives and so if anybody asks me a question around
00:37:42
what should companies do i can lay out um i can lay out a lot of ideas because i've been blessed to have
00:37:50
people like you on my side willing to open your brains and your insights up to my
00:37:56
curiosity um what's interesting is all the work that educational institutions are trying
00:38:02
to do so i think of my own institution i think of academia as a whole um certainly we have a very there's a
00:38:10
different model in academia we have a you know governance structures where faculty
00:38:15
have a lot of a say in terms of what happens but we also have an administrative structure and a student culture and
00:38:22
student life and students who really want to be in an environment where they're
00:38:27
they have the same advantages that employees have um can you do you have any recommendations
00:38:35
uh to educational institutions universities and colleges as they're trying to also
00:38:41
broaden their uh expertise and their platforms around uh diversity inclusion systemic racism what
00:38:49
are you what are your thoughts on this yeah i think that's a really important
00:38:53
question you said there's a real plethora of chief diversity officers and what i'm seeing is a lot of education
00:38:59
institutions hiring chief diversity officers i think there was an announcement recently
00:39:04
harvard finally hired a chief diversity officer so i think there's you know a lot of
00:39:09
educational institutions that are realizing that they too need to you know address
00:39:16
this topic in a more sort of you know sort of organized consist systemic kind of manner and that
00:39:27
somebody responsible for it might help to get them there and you know many of them are reporting to the president for
00:39:34
instance of the institution so i mean i i think you know again this is it is it's a it has to be a systemic
00:39:43
solution it has to be holistic it has to you know i think education institutions have to address it at
00:39:49
multiple levels obviously in curriculum to make sure that that lens is in the curriculum
00:39:55
in role models that are faculty right and how many tenured faculty there are that
00:40:01
are faculty of color versus not so i think that's you know key piece of it um i think in the student body but i
00:40:09
think it's sort of it's all interconnected right so as a student i mean my kids when they were looking at
00:40:14
at universities i mean they turned down ivy leagues some some ivy league schools because they
00:40:19
didn't see a reflection of themselves in those schools so that for the millennials i mean
00:40:24
that's an extremely important criteria today but you can only get a diverse student
00:40:30
body if you have those role models in the faculty of their curricula that reflect their life experiences and
00:40:36
stories so i think all this kind of you know knits together and then of course in the administration
00:40:42
but i think again it's you know it's a system you know an academic institution is a system
00:40:48
and it needs to be addressed in a in a holistic manner but it does have to be role modeled
00:40:56
and the commitment does have to come from the top and i think you know there's different
00:41:01
structures in politics and in academic institutions but you know i but i i mean i personally think that the
00:41:09
benefit you know to the brand is incredible i mean you have to be known as an organization
00:41:16
that really holds up that's held up as a know beacon for race relations for diversity and
00:41:22
inclusion is going to be a magnet for future student enrollment it's just going to happen so
00:41:28
so that's so you know this stuff better than i do but it's great coming from you rohini
00:41:37
that's really great coming from you uh so final words what um would you like
00:41:44
and different people i think are going to certainly enjoy hearing uh your perspective certainly
00:41:50
people who you would consider colleagues people who are professors at other institutions
00:41:55
my students will be watching this video um obviously you know we've talked a lot
00:42:01
about the current times we're facing i call them as many scholars have called them two
00:42:06
global pandemics one of covid19 the coronavirus and the other called racism and certainly these are
00:42:15
contextual things that are happening here and now but i think some of the issues and
00:42:18
challenges we've talked about transcend the current time um so in closing i just wanted to give you a
00:42:24
chance to leave us with what your thoughts are today uh maybe they're what your same thoughts
00:42:30
were five years ago um go ahead yeah so i think i'm more hopeful today than i have
00:42:36
ever been i'm more hopeful because of the demographics that i see amongst the movement
00:42:43
and the demonstrations i'm more hopeful because of the young population you know who are
00:42:50
taking a stand and you know for them this is about purpose it's about values it's
00:42:56
not just about business case so i think that's sort of a pivot that organizations are going to have to make
00:43:01
you know we've all been focused on the business case and i think the pivot is
00:43:04
going to be this is you know who we are as part of our values so i'm extremely hopeful and i think
00:43:11
that if we just look at the movement globally and if we look at who's participating
00:43:16
these are change agents i think everyone it doesn't yes it comes to the top but i think it
00:43:21
you know this seed change can happen at all levels so i'm really hopeful that
00:43:26
you know folks wherever they are will kind of look within and see how they've you know the role
00:43:32
that they play in bringing about some change and addressing racism in this country and
00:43:38
and more broadly diversity equity and inclusion globally excellent well said dr rohini and thank
00:43:45
you again for allowing me to lean on you whenever i have been curious and certainly for
00:43:52
your willingness and your generosity and sharing your expertise and your insights
00:43:56
with a broader audience thank you so much for joining us today thanks doctors created thank you it was
00:44:01
a pleasure bye bye bye you