Greetings colleagues,
I am writing to alert you to a conference on diversity teaching and
training to be held on the Fairfax campus of George Mason University
this coming summer - July 13 - 15. I have provided some information
below and you can learn more at the conference web site:
http://somweb.gmu.edu/diveduc07/default.html
Briefly, we hope to bring together three groups of people: (1) educators
who teach classes on workforce diversity in institutions of higher
education, (2) practitioners who do diversity training in the workplace,
(3) scholars who do research on diversity teaching and/or training. The
activities will include research presentations, facilitated group
discussions, and possibly workshops. The topics of the discussions will
be determined by participant interests - all registrants will be invited
to complete a survey of their interests and I'll set the topics of the
discussions after seeing their data. I'm looking for thoughtful people
who want to discuss best practices of diversity teaching and training
with others, with the hope that we will all learn how to do a better
job. I hope the result will be more effective teaching, more effective
training, and more relevant research, along with ongoing collaborations
among participants.
This is not a commercial conference - we are charging a minimum
registration fee and not paying anyone for presenting. We have arranged
for low-cost rooms at two local hotels and even have on-campus housing
($90 for two nights) for those on a tight budget. We are catering the
initial (Friday evening) reception and dinner, along with breakfast and
lunch on both Saturday and Sunday.
One motivation for organizing this conference was to give potential
contributors to the AMLE special issue on diversity teaching/training an
opportunity to present their work and get some feedback before the
September 1 submission deadline. (I emphasize that editorial decisions
will *NOT* be affected by presence/absence at this conference!)
Naturally, other people are also welcome to present their work. So if
you would like to present research on diversity teaching or diversity
training, please submit it to us. (Submission instructions are on the
web site.)
We plan to cap attendance at 100. For that reason, and to help with our
planning, I hope those of you who plan to attend will register sooner
rather than later.
Best regards,
David Kravitz
--
David A. Kravitz
Associate Professor
School of Management
Enterprise Hall, MSN 5F5
George Mason University
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
Telephone: 703-993-1781
Fax: 703-993-1870
E-mail:
dkravitz@gmu.edu
Web: http://www.som2.gmu.edu/dkravitz/index.htm