Leveraging our differences

As I was quickly glancing through today’s Detroit Free Press I was stopped in my tracks by an article reporting that the state of Michigan stood as the number one state in the Midwest (and sixth overall) for bias crimes post the presidential election. While none of these reported incidents have transpired on the UM-Dearborn campus, I thought it important to take a moment to reiterate the college’s commitment to being an inclusive and welcoming place for all. That isn’t to say that we must always agree or that we will always speak with one voice. On the contrary, disagreement, tension, and divergent points of view are both important and necessary. Indeed, work by scholars such as Professor Scott Page (a colleague on the Ann Arbor campus) categorically demonstrates the inherent power of diversity (here meaning not just race, gender, sexual orientation, religion but also class, levels of education, life experiences, age, etc.) in moving problems toward resolution and with more satisfactory results. Taking stock of this proposition I think makes it clear that this is indeed the case. Surrounding oneself with only like minded individuals, or with individuals who look and think only as you do, tends to limit the range of possible viewpoints and possible resolutions offered up for discussion.

As Page frames it,
…diverse groups of people bring to organizations more and different ways of seeing a problem and, thus, faster/better ways of solving it. People from different backgrounds have varying ways of looking at problems, what I call “tools.” The sum of these tools is far more powerful in organizations with diversity than in ones where everyone has gone to the same schools, been trained in the same mold and thinks in almost identical ways. The problems we face in the world are very complicated. Any one of us can get stuck. If we’re in an organization where everyone thinks in the same way, everyone will get stuck in the same place. But if we have people with diverse tools, they’ll get stuck in different places. One person can do their best, and then someone else can come in and improve on it. There’s a lot of empirical data to show that diverse cities are more productive, diverse boards of directors make better decisions, the most innovative companies are diverse. Breakthroughs in science increasingly come from teams of bright, diverse people. That’s why interdisciplinary work is the biggest trend in scientific research.

For me, one of the most rewarding aspects of my professional life, and one of the attributes of this campus that I am most proud of is our diversity (broadly defined) and our commitment to inclusion. With this in mind I proudly write that CASL students, staff, faculty, and alumni are leaders and exemplars of these ideals and we are committed to abiding by a code of respect for others. In so doing we hope to set an example for civil discourse, an appreciation for the contributions of all, and the mutual respect that is central to a healthy society. And because the UM-Dearborn community is interwoven into the fabric of southeastern Michigan we aim to model responsible, respectful behavior and to use our influence in a positive manner to speak out against this tide of bias crime and intolerance and to educate those around us about the value and power of inclusion and diversity.