Dear Jaye, Hamid, Christina, David, and Isabel,
Please find below the letter that the Executive Committee of the MED division sent to our members. In this letter, we express our solidarity with the full diversity of our members AND worked hard to identify specific actions that each of our members can take and our division is taking, to encourage the dialogue and interactions that this Executive Order so clearly hampers. I am sending it to your committee after reading the last paragraph in your message below.
With best wishes,
~ Miguel
On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 11:47 AM, Hamid Kazeroony <HKazeroony@inverhills.edu> wrote:
Dear Valued D&ITC Member, February 7, 2017
As evidenced by communication on many of your listservs and conversations, many of us realize that issues of diversity and inclusion have become quite salient at this time in our interconnected geopolitical world. The Diversity and Inclusion Theme Committee's (D&ITC's) mission is to provide learning and outreach opportunities that foster a more diverse and inclusive Academy of Management (AOM) community. As members of the Executive Committee (EC), we, like other AOM members, are feeling the direct impact of the Executive Order (EO) that was signed by the U.S. President on January 27, 2017 entitled, "Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States". We would like you to know that we are also concerned.
The question we have been deliberating is what we can and should do in our roles as members of the D&ITC to support all AOM members and make each one of us feel included. Our mission is internal – to help the Board of Governors and the leaders of the various divisions and interest groups (DIG) create a more inclusive AOM. In addition, because we report directly to the Board of Governors (BOG), we cannot take any independent action other than communicate with our "members" (i.e., send this message).
As you know, the President of the AOM has already sent messages to the membership (http://aom.org/About-AOM/Governance/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-the-Executive-Order-on-Immigration---Refugees.aspx) and to the leaders of the DIGs (but not Theme Committees). Reactions to President McGahan's letter on the AOM's Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/aomconnect/) have been rather acerbic, with more criticisms than suggestions. With that in mind, we have decided to take the following action.
We invite you to share with us specific suggestions for steps that either the D&ITC or the AOM should take in response to President Trump's EO. This can include anything, but specific suggestions will be more useful than general statements. (For example, "show some backbone" is less than useful.) Please send any suggestions to the D&ITC's Communication Coordinator, Jaye Goobsy Smith (jsmith53@citadel.edu), who will compile your suggestions before forwarding to the AOM leadership.
Yours in peace,
Christina Sue-Chan
David Kravitz
Isabel Metz
Current, Incoming and Past Chair, D&ITC
On behalf of the D&ITC EC
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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2017 09:43:31 -0000
From: Olga Ryazanova <o.ryazanova@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: MED Response to US Executive Order on Immigration and International Management Educators - creating voice and support
Dear MED Colleagues,
I know that a number of us have been concerned by the response of the AOM to
issues surrounding the ability of colleagues to travel to the US for the AOM
conference in August. Some have also expressed concern that more immediately
this order impacts upon members ability to travel to the US for the purposes
of collaborative research, teaching and the freedom to think, question and
share ideas with colleagues, students and others in the US.
The AOM headquarters have issued a detailed response, which does not address
these more immediate concerns, but does offer an assurance that if a member
from any country is unable to attend the conference due to an immigration
order that they can present their paper remotely. We will be asking the AOM
to consider in these cases that the conference fee be significantly reduced,
or waived. We are also asking that if a presentation must occur remotely,
that all MED members attending the conference physically make every effort
to attend such presentations to show solidarity for our colleagues. AOM note
that we are a non-political organisation and as such framed the response in
an operational way around the annual meeting.
As a committee we come from North America, Latin America, Europe and
Eurasia. In our day to day teaching and research lives we work with
students, businesses and researchers from a diverse range of countries.
Managing diversity, sharing, listening and acting on ideas and evidence is
both a challenge and opportunity in our professional lives. It can be
difficult to work with others. To understand or accept their different
perspectives. It can be a joy to work with others. It can be at the heart of
successful business and innovation to combine the different skills, ideas
and resources of others. For us, therefore, we see the debate around this
immigration order, as an opportunity to reflect on the power of diversity
and the need to listen to the voices of others, to protect the freedom of
educators to think freely, to share their ideas and to question the ideas of
others as this is at the heart of what it means to be an educator and
researcher.
In the recent letter of the President of the AOM, she notes that we do have
a core value that we believe is about the protection of academic freedom and
voice ("The AOM fervently values all its members. We are committed to
inclusion, supportive communities, and social and academic freedom as
fundamental and undeniable tenets of scholarly association." AOM letter re
the US Executive Order on Immigration, 31/1/2017). We therefore would like
to take some immediate practical steps to support this diversity value and
encourage members to share other positive ideas with each other. Here is
what we are doing and encourage others to think about.
1. Promote and actively engage in the Scholars at Risk movement
https://www.scholarsatrisk.org
Scholars from within the seven countries impacted by this immigration order
face real challenges in undertaking their research and education activities.
They face risk to their liberty and threats to their person as a consequence
of sharing their research ideas, questioning the ideas of others and being
active academic citizens. For example 27 academics from these countries are
currently seeking an emergency academic home due to immediate and active
threats to their life or person. Eight of the scholars at risk seeking
immediate help are from management, economics or finance backgrounds. 446
member universities inside the USA, Europe and Africa are actively working
to protect these scholars through the Scholars at Risk organisation. Seven
network organisations, with hundreds of members support this initiative
(though at present AOM is not one of these). We are committed to working
inside our networks to supporting this work and hope that others might
consider this a practical action to support the free exchange of ideas and
leveraging of diversity that is at the heart of business success.
At its core the Scholars at Risk organization is about "protecting scholars
and the freedom to think, question and share ideas". As academics and
members of AOM is this not something that we can all agree on as an
important value? Can we not seek to become members of SAR as an institution
(AOM) and encourage our universities to do the same?
2. MED Newsletter series: Global Voices - the Global World of
Management education 76% of all AOM members are from either North America or
Europe, yet these regions represent only 14.6% of the world's population
(http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/#region). These are the
voices that we hear from most readily at the AOM conference. We hear little,
therefore from representatives of the vast majority of the world's
population. Lets learn more about what are the approaches to management
education and research in these areas. To this end we plan to invite some
management educators from these regions to write a page on what the approach
to management education in their region is; what are the challenges they
face; what are the opportunities they leverage and how; what kinds of
research are they doing and need? Some may not be able to travel to the
conference for many reasons to share their ideas in person, but through a
global voices program we can learn a little about their management education
world.
3. MED Ambassadors
The membership committee are currently working on reviving the MED
Ambassadors program. The application process will be going live in the near
future and will be announced in future MED newsletters. MED ambassadors can
be a source of voice for their region, letting us know about their region,
to let us be an advocacy voice for their issues in AOM, to encourage MED
membership in their region (be our advocates), and to be a source that MED
members can call upon (a friendly informed voice) if they are looking to
connect into the region of the ambassador. Through friendly MED diplomacy we
can share ideas, challenge ideas, and learn to be more effective management
educators and development mentors.
We wish to stand in solidarity with the full diversity of our members (be
that nationality, creed, sexuality, political perspectives, disability and a
wealth of other features that contribute to diversity of the human
experience) in our common goal of advancing management education through the
development and sharing of our research and skills development as educators.
Sincerely,
MED Committee members, including
Peter Mc Namara, Chairperson
Barbara Ritter, Past Chairperson
Miguel Olivas-Lujan, Chairperson Elect
Paul Hibbert, Program Chairperson
Kim Gower, PDW Chairperson
Olga Ryazanova, Secretary