Wednesday, March 24, 2010

What Motivates You?

Do you know what motivates you to get out of bed in the morning? Do you just stay in bed, or do you get up to better yourself? Maybe help others? Or maybe you get up for the opportunity to earn money.

As a leader it is crucial to have a goal set in your mind, a purpose for the task at hand. This purpose drives your group to accomplish what needs to be done. How can you be process oriented, inclusive, empowering, and ethical without a purpose? These many adjective that were listed are the major parts of The Relational Leadership Model. This model focuses on the idea of motivation and purpose.


What is your purpose?

We found a fun quiz from "The best career quiz site, period." Test Q.com to find out what motivates you to get out of bed in the morning, and determines your purpose for your Relational Leadership Model.

So find out..
What Motivates You?


Picture provided by: San Diego State University Student Life and Leadership Website http://sll.sdsu.edu/leadership/index.html 

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Personal Refelection on Change: Sarah Lee

Everyday changes are happening within people whether it is for the better or for the worse. Changes have the power to truly make a significant difference in someone’s beliefs, actions, or mindset. Personally, one specific event helped me to truly appreciate the importance of family, especially during hardships. 
Throughout middle school and high school, I moved several times due to financial issues within my family. I was never close with my parents and our relationships did not alleviate as I grew older but instead became worse. However, following my freshman year of high school, it was clear that my parents had declared bankruptcy. Still young and naïve, I was angry at my parents, simply believing that everything was their fault. Moreover, I was merely upset by the fact that I would not be able to purchase everything that I had always wanted or live my life how I used to. However, one night my parents approached me and the next few moments were a blur of words mixed with tears, of fear mixed with regret. My mother was apologizing that she was unable to give me the life that she had always wanted to give me. I was heartbroken and felt remorse for the times I was only thinking about myself.
It’s amazing how a person’s view can change when the veil of selfishness is lifted because after I had talked with them that night, I was no longer angry at them. Tribulations truly do bring people together; especially family members. I've come to realize that my parents were the ones who shaped my life. They are the ones that drive me to succeed. And they represent all the qualities I admire: sacrifice, determination, and unconditional love.


Picture Provided by Clip Art on Office Online

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Article: Privilege and Oppression

In XCEL this week we are reading the article below, it is a little lengthy but a very interesting read. Read it over and ask yourself, what do you think about this article? Do you agree with the author?

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
Peggy McIntosh
"I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group" Through work to bring materials from women's studies into the rest of the curriculum, I have often noticed men's unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to women's statues, in the society, the university, or the curriculum, but they can't or won't support the idea of lessening men's. Denials that amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages that men gain from women's disadvantages. These denials protect male privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened, or ended.

Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there are most likely a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of while privilege that was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.

I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was "meant" to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.

Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable. As we in women's studies work to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who writes about having white privilege must ask, "having described it, what will I do to lessen or end it?"

After I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious. Then I remembered the frequent charges from women of color that white women whom they encounter are oppressive. I began to understand why we are just seen as oppressive, even when we don't see ourselves that way. I began to count the ways in which I enjoy unearned skin privilege and have been conditioned into oblivion about its existence.

My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow "them" to be more like "us."

Daily effects of white privilege
I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life. I have chosen those conditions that I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined. As far as I can tell, my African American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of work cannot count on most of these conditions.

1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.

2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.

3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.

4. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.

5. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.

6. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.

7. When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.

8. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.

9. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.

10. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.

11. I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person's voice in a group in which s/he is the only member of his/her race.

12. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser's shop and find someone who can cut my hair.

13. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.

14. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.

15. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.

16. I can be pretty sure that my children's teachers and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not concern others' attitudes toward their race.

17. I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.

18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.

19. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.

20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

22. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world's majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.

23. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.

24. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the "person in charge", I will be facing a person of my race.

25. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race.

26. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children's
magazines featuring people of my race.

27. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or feared.

28. I can be pretty sure that an argument with a colleague of another race is more likely to jeopardize her/his chances for advancement than to jeopardize mine.

29. I can be pretty sure that if I argue for the promotion of a person of another race, or a program centering on race, this is not likely to cost me heavily within my present setting, even if my colleagues disagree with me.

30. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn't a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.

31. I can choose to ignore developments in minority writing and minority activist programs, or disparage them, or learn from them, but in any case, I can find ways to be more or less protected from negative consequences of any of these choices.

32. My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people of other races.

33. I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race.

34. I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.

35. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.

36. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones.

37. I can be pretty sure of finding people who would be willing to talk with me and advise me about my next steps, professionally.

38. I can think over many options, social, political, imaginative or professional, without asking whether a person of my race would be accepted or allowed to do what I want to do.

39. I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.

40. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.

41. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.

42. I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to experience feelings of rejection owing to my race.

43. If I have low credibility as a leader I can be sure that my race is not the problem.

44. I can easily find academic courses and institutions which give attention only to people of my race.

45. I can expect figurative language and imagery in all of the arts to testify to experiences of my race.

46. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have them more or less match my skin.

47. I can travel alone or with my spouse without expecting embarrassment or hostility in those who deal with us.

48. I have no difficulty finding neighborhoods where people approve of our household.

49. My children are given texts and classes which implicitly support our kind of family unit and do not turn them against my choice of domestic partnership.

50. I will feel welcomed and "normal" in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.

Elusive and fugitive
I repeatedly forgot each of the realizations on this list until I wrote it down. For me white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one's life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.

In unpacking this invisible knapsack of white privilege, I have listed conditions of daily experience that I once took for granted. Nor did I think of any of these perquisites as bad for the holder. I now think that we need a more finely differentiated taxonomy of privilege, for some of these varieties are only what one would want for everyone in a just society, and others give license to be ignorant, oblivious, arrogant, and destructive.

I see a pattern running through the matrix of white privilege, a patter of assumptions that were passed on to me as a white person. There was one main piece of cultural turf; it was my own turn, and I was among those who could control the turf. My skin color was an asset for any move I was educated to want to make. I could think of myself as belonging in major ways and of making social systems work for me. I could freely disparage, fear, neglect, or be oblivious to anything outside of the dominant cultural forms. Being of the main culture, I could also criticize it fairly freely.

In proportion as my racial group was being made confident, comfortable, and oblivious, other groups were likely being made unconfident, uncomfortable, and alienated. Whiteness protected me from many kinds of hostility, distress, and violence, which I was being subtly trained to visit, in turn, upon people of color.

For this reason, the word "privilege" now seems to me misleading. We usually think of privilege as being a favored state, whether earned or conferred by birth or luck. Yet some of the conditions I have described here work systematically to over empower certain groups. Such privilege simply confers dominance because of one's race or sex.

Earned strength, unearned power
I want, then, to distinguish between earned strength and unearned power conferred privilege can look like strength when it is in fact permission to escape or to dominate. But not all of the privileges on my list are inevitably damaging. Some, like the expectation that neighbors will be decent to you, or that your race will not count against you in court, should be the norm in a just society. Others, like the privilege to ignore less powerful people, distort the humanity of the holders as well as the ignored groups.

We might at least start by distinguishing between positive advantages, which we can work to spread, and negative types of advantage, which unless rejected will always reinforce our present hierarchies. For example, the feeling that one belongs within the human circle, as Native Americans say, should not be seen as privilege for a few. Ideally it is an unearned entitlement. At present, since only a few have it, it is an unearned advantage for them. This paper results from a process of coming to see that some of the power that I originally say as attendant on being a human being in the United States consisted in unearned advantage and conferred dominance.

I have met very few men who truly distressed about systemic, unearned male advantage and conferred dominance. And so one question for me and others like me is whether we will be like them, or whether we will get truly distressed, even outraged, about unearned race advantage and conferred dominance, and, if so, what we will do to lessen them. In any case, we need to do more work in identifying how they actually affect our daily lives. Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that racism doesn't affect them because they are not people of color; they do not see "whiteness" as a racial identity. In addition, since race and sex are not the only advantaging systems at work, we need similarly to examine the daily experience of having age advantage, or ethnic advantage, or physical ability, or advantage related to nationality, religion, or sexual orientation.

Difficulties and angers surrounding the task of finding parallels are many. Since racism, sexism, and heterosexism are not the same, the advantages associated with them should not be seen as the same. In addition, it is hard to disentangle aspects of unearned advantage that rest more on social class, economic class, race, religion, sex, and ethnic identity that on other factors. Still, all of the oppressions are interlocking, as the members of the Combahee River Collective pointed out in their "Black Feminist Statement" of 1977.

One factor seems clear about all of the interlocking oppressions. They take both active forms, which we can see, and embedded forms, which as a member of the dominant groups one is taught not to see. In my class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.

Disapproving of the system won't be enough to change them. I was taught to think that racism could end if white individuals changed their attitude. But a "white" skin in the United States opens many doors for whites whether or not we approve of the way dominance has been conferred on us. Individual acts can palliate but cannot end, these problems.

To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political surrounding privilege are the key political tool here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance by making these subject taboo. Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that systems of dominance exist.

It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already.

Although systemic change takes many decades, there are pressing questions for me and, I imagine, for some others like me if we raise our daily consciousness on the perquisites of being light-skinned. What will we do with such knowledge? As we know from watching men, it is an open question whether we will choose to use unearned advantage, and whether we will use any of our arbitrarily awarded power to try to reconstruct power systems on a broader base.


Peggy McIntosh is associate director of the Wellesley Collage Center for Research on Women. This essay is excerpted from Working Paper 189. "White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women's Studies" (1988), by Peggy McIntosh;
available for $4.00 from the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, Wellesley MA 02181 The working paper contains a longer list of privileges. This excerpted essay is reprinted from the Winter 1990 issue of Independent School.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Personal Reflection on Change: Danielle Knudsen

Here is another reflection on change and leadership by one of our XCEL Consultants Danielle, telling how she discovered her goal in life, which can help motivate and inspire you!

During my senior year of high school I had mapped out my plan for my education at Binghamton University. During high school I felt pressured to have a career goal in mind before beginning college. Like most freshman, my lifestyle and mindset changed drastically upon entering college. Far from the small-town atmosphere in which I grew up, I felt free and independent. The choices and possibilities for my college path soon seemed endless. Seeking to learn more about myself, I abandoned my plan and began to discover what I want for my future.


I entered college planning to begin studies toward a program in medicine. I had not realized that chemistry and calculus at Binghamton would require an immense amount of dedication in order to receive perfect A’s. I spent many hours in the library, studying day after day. The stress and pressure made me question whether a science-related major was truly the right path for me. Many of my friends who were involved in pre-med goals seemed to truly know that they wished for a career in medicine, therefore all the dedication seemed worthwhile for them. I began to question my plan; I realized I may have been glamorizing the idea of having a plan for my future. I increasingly realized that a medical path was just not the right path for me at this point in my life.


During the summer after my freshman year, I committed to thinking about my plan. I realized that I liked the comfort of having a goal, yet a goal in medicine was not the right choice for me. I decided that the best choice would be to enter sophomore year without any plan. It was hard to commit to changing my mind and deciding to find myself by testing different areas of study. During sophomore year I decided to take a variety of courses in order to expand my opportunities. I completed first semester of sophomore year loving my English and History courses. I juggled the possibilities of majoring in either English or History. The change to courses geared in reading and writing proved to be very worthwhile for me. I felt like I was beginning to excel and enjoy my courses.


Throughout my sophomore year, I began to contemplate a career in education. I enrolled in the Johnson City Mentor Program, by which I realized that a career in teaching is the right fit for me. The program entails serving as a mentor/tutor to an assigned student for fifty hours each semester. The Johnson City Middle School has low socioeconomic standing; therefore many of the students require extra attention that they lack in their home lives. I was assigned to work with a seventh grade student named Ashley. I worked closely with Ashley in order to improve her study skills, organizational abilities and social competences. Serving as a role model college student, I helped encourage Ashley to strive to graduate high school and one day attend college. My impact on Ashley’s achievement in her classes was evident by the significant improvement in her test scores and attendance record. At the end of the program, Ashley wrote me a card thanking me for being her mentor. In Ashley’s words, “I wish I can be just like you when I grow up. You are so smart and you always make me smile.” These words truly touched my heart. I realized that I truly hoped to continue serving as a role model for more students in my future.


Finally I felt very confident with my goal to become a teacher. I felt like my path in education was for the right reasons. I could honestly see myself teaching in my future. Abandoning my path toward medical school was one of the best changes I have ever undertaken. Testing the waters to find a better-suited major had turned out to be very worthwhile!

photo: (c) Ian Britton - FreeFoto.com

Friday, March 5, 2010

Being a Leader by Changing your Ecological Footprint

Recently in XCEL we used this awesome quiz to make us aware of the affect we have on our environment on the Global Footprint Network website.

How does this website work?
It lets you know your ecological footprint, such as how many worlds it would take to sustain your way of living if everyone lived like you. It may seem extreme, but it has to do with the fact that the United States is a developed country that produces a lot of waste. The reason we are able to have one world, and not 5 as you might get in the foot print, is because many people do not live like us in the United States. Many countries are impoverished and underdeveloped, and do not make as much of an impact, or "footprint", on the world.

Take the quiz and find out your footprint!
Ecological Footprint Quiz

Comment back and tell us:
What is your footprint?
Does this make you want to change how you are affecting the world?
What actions can you take to lower your ecological impact?

Take a look at the "explore scenarios" portion at the end of the quiz to get some ideas on how you can change your environment for the better. 

It is a really interesting discussion and we would love to hear your feedback. You do not just need to take a stand to be a leader, you can be one by just setting an example for others. Start setting an example by helping out your environment!

Here are a few ways you can do it:
        1. Recycle more
        2. Buy more used clothing
        3. Ride your bike or take more public transportation over driving alone, carpool!
        4. Purchace more used clothing if you need to shop

To find more scenarios on how to help out your environment take the quiz and read some comments!


photo: (c) Ian Britton - FreeFoto.com

Monday, March 1, 2010

Personal Reflection on Change: Erica Romero

As a team we decided to each do a personal reflection on a major change that has happened in our life. Here is Erica Romero's reflection on how becoming a Vegetarian has changed her life:

Let’s make one thing clear—I’ve never loved a big, juicy steak. My mother always had an issue come dinnertime, when my father would request a prime rib and I would stare off, barely touching my food. Once I came to college, I knew I had to follow my heart and convert to vegetarianism. Making this change when first entering college was pretty challenging and I admittedly didn’t get the proper nutrients initially, but gradually I’ve learned what to supplement with my meals and couldn’t see eating any other way. I’d love if reading this leadership blog could in some way inspire you, and if it can make you a little closer to realizing that you’d like to become a vegetarian, even better! So what are the main reasons to become a vegetarian??

YOUR HEALTH:
Our nations top three killers: heart disease, cancer, and strokes. It has been scientifically proven that vegetarians have "lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease, lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer".
  • vegetarians have a 20% lower rate of mortality from all causes
  • meat is full of traces of antibiotics, hormones, toxins, etc
  • obesity and its related diseases are very very rare in vegetarians

THE ENVIRONMENT:
Clear cutting in forests in order to make room for cattle grazing at our current rate will leave us with NO AMERICAN FORESTS in 50 years. The burning of these forests releases 50-100,000,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere per year. (Along with hazardous CO2 released by burning oil and petrol in factories and abattoirs associated with meat and dairy production). There is much more energy in grain (what is fed to the animals) than energy consumed by the humans that eat these animals. In fact, 20 vegetarians could live off the land required for one meat eater.
  • if all Americans became vegetarian, it would free enough grain to feed 600,000,000 people (the population of INDIA)
  • the water used to produce 10 pounds of steak is equivalent to the average consumption of water for an entire household for an entire year

THE ANIMALS:
Easy enough--put yourself in their shoes! No matter your view on our neighbors and co-inhabitants of this planet, no living thing deserves to be treated with the indecency that an average cow or chicken is treated with every second of every day in America.
  • each year 15,000,000,000 land animals are slaughtered for food
  • unwanted male chicks (because they can't lay eggs) are gassed or pulped while their sisters go to the battery sheds
  • cows would naturally live up to 20 years but are slaughtered after 5-7 years when their milk production begins to fall
Going vegetarian is a life choice and not as difficult as you may think. Basically everywhere you go there is an option for you and hopefully all of your vegetarian friends. This article is of course just a friendly suggestion hoping to shed some light on an environmentally friendly “change” to consider.

Photos: (c) Ian Britton - FreeFoto.com