On Thursday, August 17, the PRSA Volunteer Chapter hosted Maria De Moya’s workshop on Avenues to Greater DE&I in Public Relations Practice.
De Moya holds the title of Tombras Professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her endowed position is tasked with leading DE&I efforts at the school, and helping advance DE&I in the AD/PR industry. Her work and efforts in DE&I with the college are award-winning.
After her introduction, De Moya began her workshop with an informative “ice breaker” that would point out commonly overlooked privileges. We were all instructed to partner up with someone unfamiliar and stand about 10 feet away from the other. If De Moya spoke a statement one identified with, then take a step towards the partner. If one does not identify with the statement, then take a step away from the partner.
Here are some example questions:
- I come from a dual-parent household.
- I have never used government-assisted food services such as SNAP.
- I was born in the United States.
- I identify with the gender I was assigned at birth.
- I am of Christian faith.
- I have no physical disabilities.
The lessons of our activity were meant to familiarize us with a random person and the privileges we may not have known were in the first place. One of the many steps to DE&I is understanding one another’s differences and similarities and acknowledging how everyone got to where they stand today.
Next, De Moya’s presented a DE&I Roadmap with five educational checkpoints based on one’s understanding of DE&I. Her “stops” began with rudimentary education and then elevated to higher impactful initiatives and discussions.
As the definitions and initiatives were being explained, more people seemed to join the discussion. The presenter, De Moya, slowly shifted into a part of our group conversation. We went from being talked to about the importance of DE&I, to the individual journey of our own diversity or lack thereof.
Some may not have noticed, but that is one of the many reasons to have these discussions in our professional environments - to offer a safe personal discussion space for those feeling unseen, and to engage with others alike in order to educate all. We had all unknowingly reached De Moya’s final “avenue” of DE&I, “seamlessly integrated into your culture and operations.”
Lastly, we were handed a piece of paper with a question that read, “What do you need to move forward in your DE&I journey,” and given one minute to write a personal answer. Those answers would be quite different if asked before the workshop.
