Diversity Workshop

Today I went to my second Diversity workshop. Our first assignment was to find out information (family, food, travel, etc) about our classmates by holding conversations in the middle of the room. One of the women I was chatting with commented that I look "too young to have two children". I never know what to say when people say that. Since this was a professional situation, I didn't necessarily want to share my age and almost felt defensive about her comment.

Diversity as a topic is something that I admittedly need to learn more about. I am aware of what diversity means, I'm certainly familiar with the diversity initiatives in my office and we talked about it extensively in leadership group, but I feel as though its an area that I want to develop. I think sometimes that is slightly ironic since I studied women all through college, looking at women through history, in different countries and in different situations. Perhaps I feel like I need to learn more about diversity because I dont' feel as though I'm "diverse" as the word is most commonly applied. Perhaps I feel like I need to learn more because I feel uncomfortable in certain situations, not knowing the right thing to say not to cause offense. Diversity is seemingly the newest buzz-word on campus, and since it is so important, I feel like I should learn more about it, especially since it is a major focus in my grad program. Next paper: motivation and diversity!