By Grace Waddell
If just last year someone were to tell me that I would be on the executive board of PRSSA right now, I wouldn’t have believed them. I used to be somewhat shy and scared to incorporate my opinion and perspective into group discussions, so now that I’m in the position that I’m in now has been very productive and eye-opening to me to see where I have come from just in the past year. The position of Director of Diversity and Inclusion has put me in a place where I need to do a good amount of research and learn about the steps I need to take to be in a leadership position involving DEI. Focusing on Black History Month was pretty much my first task in this role, and I have learned so much in the past month about Black History Month and DEI than I think I ever have.
Obviously in high school we all learned about the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King Jr., but there is a lot more to remember and talk about when celebrating Black History Month. Being the Director of Diversity and Inclusion, I did a good bit of research learning general facts about Black history, why people celebrate it every February and why it is important to society. People should recognize and appreciate the contributions that African Americans and the Black community have made to society over the years. There are so many things we wouldn’t have today without some of these contributions, and they deserve to be talked about and learned. Recognizing where Black history had its unfortunate start and seeing where it has progressed to is worth the celebration. With so many factors from politics to pop culture, Black history is making a positive impact on what America is today.
One of the most important lessons I have learned from this position just in the first month of having it is the importance of being able to have these productive conversations that can sometimes be uncomfortable to listen to and speak about. How are we supposed to make improvements and fix things if we can’t even speak about the problem to begin with? After the PRSSA DEI panel February 15, I was able to see why these conversations need to be had and why it is important to hear everyone’s perspectives about these tough topics. Urkovia Andrews, assistant director for service-learning at Georgia Southern, and Karla Redding-Andrews, vice president and executive director of the Otis Redding Foundation, who both work in diverse environments, incorporated some great insight into what it is like to involve DEI into the workplace, and this is a great lesson for all college students to learn that also is not taught enough.
There are still so many students who are about to graduate who haven’t even heard of DEI. After college graduation, your education journey has come to an end, for the most part, and you are, what everyone says, “in the real world.” A part of being a true adult and maturing is realizing that people are different from you, and that should be handled in a proper, respectful manner. Being in a diverse work environment means that people need to have a decent understanding of what DEI is, and everyone should be taught that before leaving college.