Panelists discussed the importance of addressing race in higher education and in corporate America in a live PBS teleconference entitled "Racial Legacies and Learning" in Collis Commonground yesterday afternoon.
The studio audience and viewers around the country saw brief videos on efforts to build racial harmony in various settings in addition to the panel discussion. Outside viewers faxed and called the conference's 1-800 number during the question and answer session.
Mildred Garcia, an administrator at Arizona State University-West, expressed the importance of "educating our students to live and work in a diverse world."
Carol Geary Schneider, a panelist who is involved with the Association of American Colleges and Universities, said education about diversity should come from nation's institutions of undergraduate learning.
"It's important that higher education do more," she said.
Rachelle Hood-Phillips, chief diversity officer of Advantica Restaurant Group, Inc., discussed her corporation's impressive turn-around in the diversity of the Denny's restaurant chain.
"America is still very racially sensitive," she said. "You [have to] eliminate all those structures that impede diversity."
One of the brief videos shown on the program featured the town of Albion, an ethnically diverse enclave within Michigan. Citizens in town expressed their appreciation of their town's diversity, with several interviewees saying the climate had improved in the past 10 years.
Derald Wing Sue, a diversity psychologist, said it is important to confront people's prejudices, regardless of their age or ethnicity.
"I don't believe anyone can be raised in the United States without cultural biases," he said.
The discussion over diversity in corporate America was led by Hood-Phillips, who discussed Denny's progression from being sued for discrimination multiple times to having one of the most minority-friendly workplaces in the nation.
She said the Denny's executive board now consists of 42 percent women and minorities, and that Fortune Magazine recently rated it the number two company for quality of employment for blacks, hispanics and Asians. The panelists all hoped for more corporate successes like this one.
The teleconference was presented at Collis by the Office of Student Life and the Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action office.
