By now, you’ve received an invitation to attend an IT Services diversity film festival on July 21. As part of the FAST team that is hosting this event, I’d like to give you some perspective as part of the FAST team and hopefully encourage you to attend.
As JP reminded us in his invitation, Miami University and the greater Oxford community have embraced the topic of diversity through the 50th year anniversary of Freedom Summer. Despite the considerable distance we have come, we all recognize that there is still much left to do. And that work begins with us.
In IT Services, we work with diverse people every day, but not all of them are our clients. To be the best service organization we can be, we first need to understand the challenges within our own unit. Taking that first step helps us extend the same attitude of respect to our clients.
And that was the starting point for the Service Excellence FAST team, a.k.a. SE 1406.1: to plan an event to raise awareness of diversity within IT Services and begin the conversation.
We quickly realized two things:
1. We wanted our event to honor the diversity in all of us.
2. We didn’t want this to be “just another diversity event.”
We have envisioned a series of events, all under a simple theme of Be Different: a theme that reminds us that being different makes us better and stronger. (And you may have noticed that it plays off a successful advertising campaign for a well-known technology company.)
So for this event, we weren’t looking to do some role-playing games along with a boring PowerPoint. Most of all, we weren’t looking to repeat the cringe-worthy “Diversity Day” episode of the TV show The Office (remember the index cards on the foreheads?) No thanks.
We wanted something that spoke to all of us, to truly start a conversation about respect for all.
So as a result of planning and collaboration, we are ready to launch our first event. Dr. Ron Scott, Associate VP of Institutional Diversity, graciously offered his time to help with the conversation, and our team has pulled together what we think are some inspiring and thought-provoking videos for the IT Services Film Festival. And there will even be free popcorn and drinks.
We need you there to make this conversation count. And we hope that you’ll agree with us that it’s a good thing to be different.
Please visit MiamiOH.edu/BeDifferent to view a trailer, sign up for the film festival, and learn more.
One response to “Be different.”
Looking forward to the event! While I hope everyone in the world cares about diversity, I find it especially important in our line of business. To embrace our differences, in all of their forms, is essential to creating tomorrow’s leaders and making the world a better place for us all. My thanks to the team for all their hard work in making these events come together!