Inclusion and Diversity Special Events
Dr. Karen Cardozo – Cultivating Career Diversity events
Sept. 26-27, 2024
Programs are sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences and the Graduate School. Please contact Shaila Mehra (shailamehra@vt.edu) with questions.
Dr. Karen Cardozo has, over the course of a long career in higher education, traversed the realms of contingent faculty, tenured faculty, dean, career center director, and coaching/consulting both privately and within institutions. She holds an MA in Higher Education Administration from Harvard University and PhD in American literary studies, U Massachusetts – Amherst. Cardozo has published in journals such as American Studies, Profession, and Signs, as well as “Academic Labor: Who Cares?” in Critical Sociology (2017). Her newest co-edited book is the open-access Higher Education Careers Beyond the Professoriate (Purdue UP, 2024) and her next book, PhreeD: A Guide for Academics Who Want to Get a Life, is forthcoming in 2025.
CULTIVATING EQUITY AND BELONGING BY SUPPORTING DIVERSE PEOPLE ON DIVERSE PATHWAYS
Who: Graduate Program Directors, Graduate Program Coordinators, and Graduate Faculty
When: Thursday, Sept. 26, 9:30-10:30 am
Where: GLC Multipurpose Room
Drawing upon her expertise in leadership studies and experience transforming three underutilized career centers into thriving career and life design hubs (Williams College, Hollins University and Northeastern University), Dr. Cardozo will discuss the cultural and structural shifts, as well as innovative internal and external partnerships, that optimize graduate outcomes. Sharing insights from a decade of PhD coaching within institutions and in her private practice along with recent findings from her new book, Cardozo will explain why supporting PhD career versatility is not only inextricable from other DEI efforts, but a primary vehicle for engendering genuine belonging as well as a wider array of satisfactory career and life outcomes. There will be ample time for discussion of ways to implement these approaches into graduate advising and the graduate student experience at VT.
CULTIVATING ALL YOUR OPTIONS: A WORKSHOP ON CAREER VERSATILITY
Who: Graduate students in all programs and all disciplines at Virginia Tech
When: Thursday, September 26, 2-3:30 pm
Where: GLC Multipurpose Room and Zoom
Academic labor issues call for versatile thinking about career trajectories, especially for current graduate students being socialized into the industry of higher education, which is undergoing significant changes. In this workshop, you’ll learn more about the major shifts in higher education workforce and career pathways as a result of wider economic and social changes. Dr. Cardozo will then move into a discussion of the mindsets, skills, and strategies required to foster agility and resilience in these disruptive times. Participants will be introduced to Dr. Cardozo’s 3 Bridges Method to identify fitting opportunities across sectors. Throughout, we will parse the distinctions between a job, career, calling/body of work, and hobbies/avocations to help participants design a work/life configuration aligned with their own needs and values.
FREEING THE DARK HORSE: ACADEMIC CULTURE AND CAREER VERSATILITY FOR BIPOC/MINORITIZED GRADUATE STUDENTS
Who: Graduate students in all programs and all disciplines at VT who identify as underrepresented, minoritized, and/or BIPOC
When: Thursday, September 26, 4-5:30 pm
Where: GLC Multipurpose Room
This workshop draws from Dr. Cardozo’s recent book to explore the distinctive experiences of minoritized students in higher education and how those experiences shape their goals and desires for what a fulfilling professional life can look like. We will discuss various strategies to affirm your identity and agency when coming up against the “brick wall” of institutional structures (Ahmed) and developing healthy boundaries while living in The Shadow of the Ivory Tower (Baldwin). We will take an affirming approach to empowering you to build your own authentic body of work. Ultimately not subject to institutional mandate or sanction, your body of work is an idiosyncratic portfolio you can take with you wherever you go. It’s the only way to ride through precarity and uncertainty toward freedom, fulfillment, and success on your own terms.
This is intended to be a space for honest conversation, community-building, and action planning.
This workshop is in-person only and participants will greatly benefit from also attending the hands-on “Cultivating All Your Options” workshop on Sept. 26 from 2-3:30 pm in the GLC Multipurpose Room.
Creativity, Community, and Critical Self-Care: A Toolkit for Woman of Color in Academe
Who: Women of color faculty at VT
When: Friday, Sept. 27, 9:30-11 am
Where: Cascades Room, The Inn at Virginia Tech
The ambivalent position of women of color has been overdetermined in educational institutions designed by and for white men. In conjunction with a cultural, economic, and policy landscape that has not yet evolved — in either public or private spheres — beyond relegating caregiving responsibilities primarily to women, and women of color in particular, we are faced with the structural conundrum of balancing our own needs and goals against excessive demands placed upon us. In this session we will discuss how to meet the challenges of this historic moment by adopting the creative mode of life design, finding supportive community, and establishing sufficient boundaries to engage in self-care as a radical act. Thinking like an experimental designer, striving for connection, and prioritizing wellbeing need not detract from getting “stuff” done. Such modes or orientations are vehicles for achieving success on your terms.
This will be a space for honest conversation, community-building, and action planning.