By Mike Byrne

Fordham faculty and business leaders came together on March 9 to host the fourth annual “Diversity Leadership in a Global Society Conference.” Career Services organized the conference and aimed at opening a discussion on diversity.

Director of Career Services Stefany Fattor spoke about the focus of the day. “Our goal with the conference is to be an impetus to get all members of the Fordham community talking about the value of diversity and inclusion,” she said. “Our initiatives are about the celebration of difference and each student is different in their own way, so they truly are for everyone.”

The day began with an address from Rev. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the university. He thanked the students for participating in such an important event and commenting on the many problems facing students looking to enter the workforce.
“I think one of the things that stands in the way of creating a truly inclusive workplace is lack of confidence,” McShane said. “With a lack of self-confidence, you have to stare yourself down. You have to face your fears. You have to face your sense of ‘Do I belong? Do I have anything to offer?’”

McShane also spoke about how it is common to fear those who are different, but that we must overcome these fears by meeting new people and learning about them in order to create a productive community.

After the introduction, the group of students broke into different workshops led by Fordham professors. One workshop, entitled “The Bronx: A Great American Success Story,” was led by Dr. Mark Naison, professor of African and African-American studies. He spoke about his aims in leading the workshop.

“My goal in putting on this workshop was to expose students, faculty and staff to the history of the Bronx communities surrounding Fordham’s Bronx campus and the incredible resource those communities represent to everyone on the Fordham campus,” Naison said.

He presented many songs ranging from the 1940’s to the present that represent the Bronx’s importance in music history. His goal was to show the revitalization of the Bronx through a surge of diversity and vibrant community organizations.

Dr. Ann Higgins-D’Alessandro also led a workshop entitled “From Failure to Thriving: Transforming Feelings and Thoughts that Create Pathways to Success.” The aim of this workshop was to teach people how to better deal with their feelings in order to create a clearer path to success. “People need to deal with their strong feelings first, then move on to accurately assessing the situation and themselves and taking responsibility, and then to an analysis of the situation and finding alternatives,” she said.

Maria Aponte, diversity initiatives coordinator for Career Services, spoke about the founding of the diversity conference. “In the fall of 2012, I came up with the idea of creating a Diversity Conference that would encompass global and cultural initiatives and the importance of Fordham students being able to incorporate diversity in the workplace,” Aponte said. “The end result was creating a conference that would involve inviting employers to present on diversity in the workplace and their companies diversity programming.”

The conference’s relationship with various businesses is positive, according to Aponte, and she is optimistic about its future. “Our office has had the pleasure to work with such companies as Google, Deloitte, KMPG, City Year, Viacom, JP Morgan and Memorial Sloan Kettering,” she said.

Olivia Cooley, FCRH ‘16, helped organize this year’s conference and assisted in facilitating the workshops alongside other students. She commented on the many effective aspects of the day.

“The workshops that were offered throughout the day served to sharpen the focus on a specific aspect of diversity,” she said. She attended the workshop with Professor Hugo Benavides, chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Rose Hill, who spoke about how humans construct personal identities. “We had a very interesting and productive conversation about how things like language, race, class, gender and sexual orientation help shape our identities and therefore come to influence our everyday interactions, she said.

“The workshops held by the various employers in attendance served the purpose of allowing students to understand the importance of cultivating a diverse workplace and get an idea of how these various companies handle diversity-related concerns.”