Professional Development

What would we DO?

David Mason Jr.

Our headliner event for 2017-2018, “What would we DO?” was a great success! We met at the Full Frame theater at American Tobacco Campus. We had about 60 people who watched skits, discussed them, and then discussed how to change them.  One sketch had an employee being loudly upset when a colleague with a gender-neutral name turns out to be female.  Another had a single dad being told that he would have to work some nights, and he would have to find a (female) relative to watch his child.

DiversifyIT co-chairs Jason Gordon (back), and Bryn Smith (front). Martay Smith (right) is our HR sponsor.

Dr. Ben Reese, head of Duke’s Office of Institutional Equity

Gender-surprise skit before the surprise – these employees are discussing a problem, and who they should bring in to fix it.

 

Gender-surprise skit after the surprise – note the unhappy body language of the character on the far end of the table. Two of the seated characters did not realize that the helper character was female. One was just mildly surprised, but the other was actively belligerent. After the reset, one of the other male employees challenged the angry one in the moment, and the dialogue changed considerably.

 

Pictured: DeAnna Hall, with microphone. After each skit, the audience had the opportunity to ask questions and suggest variations on the skit for resetting.

 

Tracy Futhey, chief information officer and VP of Information technology.

 

Bryn Smith, co-chair of DiversifyIT

 

Duke IT Intern Interview Training

DiversifyIT

At Duke, IT leaders are making a concerted effort to recruit and develop diverse IT talent as part of a new internship program in the university’s Office of Information Technology (OIT).  This summer, the DiversifyIT group helped facilitate an interviewing skills training workshop for the interns.  The workshop included tips and tricks for interview preparation, what to wear, the importance of body language, discussions around common interview questions, how to answer tough questions and a mock interview.