Diversity Statement

Equity, diversity, and inclusion are key components to my work as an educator, researcher, professional, and community member. I commit to inclusive values where I work, serve, and live. As I advance diversity awareness research and scholarship I apply this research to my teaching and to communities to promote social change locally and globally.  

Research

I became interested in studying gender and power while conducting non-profit research in Ethiopia. While living there, I was invited to present at a federal government meeting where I was one of two women present among over 200 attendees representing all of the Ethiopian people at the federal level. From this experience, several questions followed: Why are women leaders still underrepresented in the upper levels of so many organizations and governments? How are women’s mindsets affected by the obstacles they encounter when pursuing leadership? How can we frame messages to effectively recruit women to leadership? What are the most effective ways to minimize women’s obstacles (e.g. sexual harassment) in the workplace? Below, I provide some examples of how my current research investigates these questions.

My research on women’s expected power and intentions to lead investigates why women may have lower desires and intentions to apply for leadership in male-dominated domains. I show that women, compared to men, expect less interpersonal power when applying to a leadership opportunity, but only when it is a male-dominated opportunity. This difference in expected interpersonal power explains in part why women may have lower desires to lead and intentions to apply to a male-dominated leadership opportunity, compared to men. Relatedly, my dissertation theorizes that women considering male-dominated leadership opportunities are more likely to be prevention-focused and think at lower construal levels than men. As such, I explore construal fit and regulatory focus fit between candidates’ social cognition and the recruiting messages they are presented as ways to increase women’s representation in the upper echelons of leadership. Other research I am involved with investigates the role of women’s construal level and leadership to highlight gender inequalities in perceptions of women as leaders. Building on the idea that power acts as a form of distance that leads people to be construed more abstractly, we find that female leaders are described using more concrete language than male leaders. This research contributes to understanding barriers women leaders may face; if we describe women more concretely, even inadvertently, we may be signaling that they have less power. In addition to this work focused on women’s leadership, I also have another stream of research focused on unethical behaviors (e.g. sexual harassment) that influence women at work (see research statement), and another project investigating attitudes toward bystanders who report racial discrimination.

In summary, I currently have eleven research projects that are relevant to workplace equity, diversity, and inclusion. More specifically, this research focuses on increasing women’s representation in leadership, understanding attitudes toward victims of discrimination, and increasing reports of unethical behavior (e.g. sexual harassment, racial discrimination) at work.

Teaching

As a professor, it is my responsibility to establish inclusive class policies, and to model respectful and inclusive behavior. To accomplish this, on the first day of class I discuss the concept of psychological safety and then I involve students in the process of creating a safe space for diverse student backgrounds, ideas and values, and I send a strong signal of belonging to all students with the mantra, “you belong here.” Such belonging helps students feel safe to share differing views and perspectives without judgment (for more information on the role of psychological safety in my teaching, see my Teaching Statement).

I also make an effort to give equal opportunities for voice to all students and I provide opportunities for students to give voice to their opinions and to express themselves in various forms. To accomplish this, I keep track of which students I am calling on and I align my pedagogical style with the learning needs of students. For example, to provide students  with different student learning styles the opportunity for unique student expression, in an Organizational Behavior class I encourage students to creatively demonstrate the art of persuasion (a class topic relevant to leadership) through various means (e.g. performance or visual art, media clips, storytelling, newspaper articles, etc.).

I have also been engaged in global education initiatives relevant to diversity and inclusion. Prior to pursuing a doctorate in organizational behavior, I visited multiple rural communities abroad to advocate for the advancement of women’s education while serving with global humanitarian organizations (e.g. CHOICE Humanitarian, Engage Now). This work revealed several gender inequalities: In Kenya I saw men physically assaulting women over trivial acts; in Ethiopia, I spoke with women who were ostracized and derogated from the rest of the community because of their menstrual cycles; in Bolivia, I noticed that indigenous rural women were often discouraged from attending school. To help these women in building their communities, our team of volunteers met with them to encourage them to become involved in women’s education initiatives that were sustained by local women. Many of these women’s groups continue as ongoing year-round gender equality leadership training programs which are part of a self-developing village model focused on building rural communities in Ecuador, Bolivia, Guatemala, Peru, Mexico, Kenya, and Nepal.   

In summary, I apply several techniques in the classroom to ensure all students have opportunities to voice their opinions and perspectives with psychological safety. I have also taught classes to promote the education of women’s rights in multiple countries.  

Professional Activity

As a professional conflict resolution specialist (e.g. mediating legal cases in the state court), I interacted with clients of diverse backgrounds (e.g. racial, socioeconomic). At Brigham Young University’s J. Rueben Clark Law School, I was trained to mediate various legal cases as a neutral third party, becoming an expert in neutrally reframing a conflict when diverse perspectives became contentious. Through a global training and consulting firm, The Arbinger Institute, I was also trained to help clients value others’ diverse perspectives. I have used this professional background in conflict management to develop a toolkit of experiential class exercises (e.g. reframing statements without judgment, knowing what types of questions to ask and when, active listening, perspective taking, etc.) that teach students how to be effective conflict managers at work, and in their lives more generally. I use these exercises to enhance students’ openness to others’ unique views and to help them acknowledge blind spots in their own perspectives. These types of exercises often lead into other important conversations about implicit bias and implicit values.

I also use my professional expertise to demonstrate how to manage contentious dialogue. For example, when discussing conflict as a class topic (e.g. in a Negotiations or Organizational Behavior course), I ask for volunteers, inviting students to role play a workplace dispute. Utilizing my professional expertise, I demonstrate the role of the manager for the enacted conflict to provide students with a model for resolving conflict. Next, I provide students with the opportunity to practice this model in class. A similar exercise may also be used in a Teams class to lead into a discussion on managing and valuing diverse perspectives in teams and groups.

In summary, my professional background in conflict management has provided me with several tools to be inclusive, and opportunities to navigate, and constructively embrace, the conflict that often comes with strongly held diverse perspectives and values. I use these skills to help others (e.g. students) embrace diversity, too.   

University and Public Service

I contribute to equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts by mentoring future women leaders. For example, while living in Oceanside, California, I volunteered four years as a leader for the Young Women’s Organization. For approximately three hours each week I met with local young women of various ages (e.g. 11-18), cultural backgrounds, and sexual orientations, to lead their classes and activities (e.g. community service, recreation, life skills, personal values, etc.). The obstacles these young women encountered varied: teen pregnancies, drug addictions, imprisonment, bullying, family domestic violence. I gained insight and understanding from the diverse experiences encountered by these young women and their parents.

At the University of Utah, I have also had the opportunity to mentor undergraduate students, graduate students, and executives by presenting and discussing diversity research at Women In Business events and Diversity and Inclusion events. In addition, I have had opportunities to mentor other students in my PhD cohort by sharing teaching and research resources, including them on research projects, and training them in the same way my mentors have taught me.

Last year I was also asked to advise a team of researchers promoting and researching income-share agreements to advance equitable education and increase the number of University of Utah graduates. Income-share agreements finance college degrees by obligating students to pay back a portion of their future income for a set number of years, as an alternative to taking out a student loan, to cover unmet financial need. The University of Utah is one of the first large institutions to offer income shared agreements (ISAs). However, as there are currently only a small percentage of eligible students that are taking advantage of ISAs, and there is still limited research available to guide successful ISA implementation, I volunteered to investigate students’ perceptions of ISAs, the intersectionality between gender and ethnicity on ISAs, and message framing strategies for increasing enrollment. This project was funded by the Office of the University of Utah President, Ruth Watkins, who presented our findings at the College Completion Summit, a conference bringing together presidents and senior leaders from public universities that have significantly advanced their college completion rates. 

I grew up with parents who were service-minded people, who valued the importance of political awareness, cultural diversity, and community engagement. I have childhood memories of fundraising for political campaigns, giving my room to foreign exchange students, and shoveling neighbors’ snow-filled driveways. We also worked as a family to save the funds to travel to complete service projects abroad. These experiences opened my eyes to inequalities from a young age. While my family endorsed cultural openness, our family culture was influenced by the patriarchal culture shared by much of Utah. Women in Utah (like myself) often feel pressured to choose either motherhood or a career. I have been told on various occasions that I am a role model to these women. For example, as a career-driven mother, I welcomed our third child into the world while I began my doctoral studies at the University of Utah. Other potential PhD candidates who are also mothers, have told me that this inspires them to think creatively about combining motherhood with a career.  

In summary, through various community volunteer efforts and university service, I continue to mentor and lift women and other minorities to become future leaders.