Last week was a really good week for my doctorate! I had a wonderful morning at De Anza College on Thursday 1/17/08. It started with the faculty deans meeting where I got to see the deans in action discussing what I call "budgeting and finance" issues the entire time. I was amazed at the complexity of the financing for release time and vocational education both for figuring out how MUCH money you get, and the the ACCOUNTING AND PAPERWORK...you need a high IQ and lots of patience to get these rules they came up with. At least 1/2 hour was just discussing how the release time calculations work, and it was time well spent because it's hard to understand and almost impossible to get right (requires predicting the future).
Then I had wonderful lunch with Carolyn Wilkinson-Greene who is Dean of the Social Sciences Dept. at De Anza. I got her name from President Brian Murphy who told me she was implementing some of the work that Lisa Delpit has done. Carolyn was a wonderful storyteller, and told me how she is good friends with Lee Mahon, and that Lee had hired her to implement an equal opportunity grant in 1979 at Santa Clara, and later after joining the faculty at De Anza, she would be the first Affirmative Action Leadership Change Officer for De Anza from 1990-93. This position covered both hiring faculty and curriculum development. After that period, she went back to teaching and while she was teaching International Studies a Math Teacher (white) came to her saying there were african american students "falling through the cracks". Carolyn asked him to provide her with data and sure enough 50% or more of the pre-algebra and algebra african american and latino students were "failing" (either getting F's or dropping out). That's when she came up with the idea for Math Performance Success. The initial program she came up with was a) a counselor sitting in the classroom 100% of the time with the kids, b) an african american teacher without a math background to sign up for the class - to show them adults have trouble with math also, and c) some tutoring help from a student tutor (peer). It took a long time to convince the faculty of the Math/Sciences dept. , but in the end they decided to run a pilot. Carolyn convinced the counseling dept. to release an african american counselor for the pilot, and convinced an african american english teacher to sign up for the class. She also asked the counselor to recruit a diverse class (25% african american, 25% latino, 25% asian, 25% white). The results were that 95% of the students completed the class with all A's and B's. The following fall the class rolled out as a sequence of 3 classes (algebra, int. algebra, statistics) with the last class, statistics, being a transferable class to a 4 year college. That was in 1997. The program is still there, but Carolyn says it is not serving the same population and we agreed that it is probably because of the lack of recruiting that the african american counselor was doing. They have a new dean, Jerry Rosenberg, who Carolyn says is working with her to revitalize the program. I asked if I should sit in one of the MPS classes, and Carolyn thought that was a great idea. I am in the process of getting Jerry's email now and will send an email later this week.
Then on Sat. 1/19, we had our monthly cluster meeting with Nicola Smith and Lee Mahon. It was a very lively session, and we talked for over an hour about KA's and the relationship to study guides and the quality of the guides. Nicola and Lee took notes and will give that feedback to the faculty meeting. I will also give that feedback to the Equity Council since we are going to cover the same thing next month. Then, after the break, we started working on "Elements of a research proposal and report" by David Walonick, PhD, that Gloria Willingham has sent to us for the RRI on "Demystifying the Research Process". We started with Chapter 1 and everyone in the room had to state their introduction (statement of the problem, purpose of the study, significance of the study, and the research question). It was really useful to hear what everyone else is doing - I taped the whole session on my brand new digital audio recorder that I purchased at Office Max and it was really good quality. I listened to the entire 3 hour meeting again!
I was so inspired that I talked to Nicola after the meeting and asked if I should start writing down my ideas about the dissertation using the format we discussed. Nicola said it would be interesting to keep a "diary" of how my dissertation ideas grow and change over the course of the program. So, I spent a few hours today thinking about it and bouncing ideas off my husband and I've attached my FIRST draft (see below)! It's not very techical and pretty incomplete, but I wanted to get my ideas down now, and then think about it for another 6 months and maybe update it then.
I also found out from another student, Jonathan Brennan, that his wife is running 2 programs at Foothill College called Mfumo and Pass the Torch aimed at the same kind of "at risk" students as MPS. I am trying to connect with either Jonathan or I may go to Judy Miner, President of Foothill College, whom I worked with on our joint undergraduate program in Psychology.
http://www.foothill.edu/services/mfumo.html
http://celebrityforum.net/services/torch/index.php
I also called Marilyn Cook, Asst. Superintendent of the PAUSD, again with no response. I called Burton Cohen, Asst. Superintendent, who called back and said he would call this week. I missed Becki Cohn-Vargas's, Asst. Superintendent, call and she will be out for one week, so I will try again this week to get Marilyn and Burton and next week to get Becki. Having a lot of trouble getting my IRB approved by PAUSD. It was approved by Fielding in December 2007.
Last week Lee Mahon approved my KA contract for Systems Thinking and Intervention as a joint KA with Public Policy with Lenneal Henderson. I have a draft of a contract and hope to finalize it this week. I have purchased $500 worth of books for Systems Thinking and look forward to starting that (after I finish my reading for SID).
My plans for this week and next week include:
1) YMCA leadership conference in Napa this weekend
2) Finish Lisa Delpit's book Other People's Children
3) Finish Gender & Ethnicity in Schools by Peter Woods and Martyn Hammersley
4) Finish
The difference: Discover the hidden ways we silence girls by Judy Mann.
I hope to start writing my overview after that.
- June
Introduction
Statement of the Problem
Cultural misunderstandings happen every day in business settings. They also happen in political settings throughout history. Many of these misunderstandings happen because the participants in a discussion are not aware of the need to understand someone else’s culture before they can judge or even understand what the person is saying.
Because global technology has made the world much smaller creating everyday situation at work and at school requiring people of different cultures to interact without leaving their countries, young people who are in college today, aged 18-26, need to learn skills and have tools when entering the workforce that previous generations did not need to have.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to identify the skill sets and tools that young people need to learn when entering the workforce and how higher education can assist business in developing these skill sets and learning these tools to be more effective in the future workplace environment.
The study will be mixed method research to the following parties:
I. Human Resources Directors at the top 50 Public companies doing business in the State of Hawaii.
a. Hawaii was selected because the population is already very diverse
II. Deans at the top 50 Business Schools in US in the US News and World Report
III. Deans at the top 50 Law Schools in the US in the US News and World Report
Significance of the Study
Flexibility and communication skills with more than just the culture one has grown up in is becoming a requirement for success in the workplace. Employers will want new graduates from universities to have familiarity with communication issues that can arise from multi-cultural or multi-faith issues.
Universities will need to change their curriculum to address this change in the marketplace. This study will recommend changes to curriculum to address this need.
Research Question
I. Human Resources Directors at the top 100 Public companies doing business in the State of Hawaii
a. Do you have a diverse workforce that includes employees who were born and raised outside the US?
b. If so, what % of total employees are born and raised outside the US?
c. Are there any communication or management issues that arise from this diversity within the workforce?
d. If so, what are they?
II. International Studies Dept. heads at the top 50 Business Schools in US in the US News and World Report
III. International Studies Dept. heads at the top 50 Law Schools in the US in the US News and World Report
