What's Happening [05.01.12]

By Palma Joy Strand

I’m heading off to the annual conference of the Minority Student Achievement Network (MSAN) at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

From its website: MSAN is “a national coalition of 25 multiracial, suburban-urban school districts that have come together to study and eliminate achievement gaps that exist in their districts. MSAN districts have student populations between 3,000 and 33,000, and are most often well-established first-ring suburbs or small/mid-size cities. Additionally, the districts share a history of high academic achievement, connections to major research universities, and resources that generally exceed neighboring districts.” http://msan.wceruw.org/about/index.aspx

Translated: MSAN members are public school districts located in inner suburbs or smaller stand-alone cities—think Alexandria VA or Columbia MO. These school districts—think Shaker Heights OH and Paradise Valley AZ—are relatively affluent. Most of them—think Cambridge MA, Chapel Hill NC, Ann Arbor MI, and Princeton NJ—are located near well-known universities and boast high average levels of student achievement.

Hidden within these averages, however, lies the reason for MSAN’s existence: By and large, White students are doing well; Black and Latino students are not. The data, moreover, show that these gaps are traceable not to socioeconomics but to race and ethnicity.

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Global Oilfield Services Leader Will Create Employee Ombuds Program

Tom A. Kosakowski- Baker Hughes, the S&P 100 oilfield services company based in Houston, will create an Organizational Ombuds Office to serve its employees throughout the U.S., Canada, and Trinidad/Tobago. The primary job duty of the new positions is to, "Offer exceptional organizational ombuds services in accordance with the International Ombudsman Association's Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics, o3 [Organizational Ombuds Office] Charter, o3 Policy and o3 Handbook."

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Fuggetaboutit (and move forward) -- Mediation, New York-style

Listen LIVE on May 1st at 7:00pm CST at Blog Talk Radio.Call in to listen to Pattie and Brad at:(347) 324-3591

Patricia M Porter- Brad will provide overview of the New York Peace Institute, the city's largest civilian peacebuilding force -- which gets in the middle of thousands of neighborhood, family, community, and business disputes each year. The Peace Institute provides free mediation services, trains and credentials peace building professionals, and hosts events that raise awareness of creative ways to resolve conflict. Brad has worked to promote mediation in more than 20 countries, and he'll discuss how his international work influenced the development of the Peace Institute.

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FORGETTING ABOUT "IT"

Cinnie Noble- Intertwined with the notion of resilience and moving past the feelings and thoughts that emerge from our disputes is whether we can actually forget about what occurred. Or, do we store the emotional impact and the impressions we make about the other person and ourselves? It has been suggested in a previous blog that unless we unpack what happened for us in our interpersonal disputes we will carry the luggage around with us.

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