Another long day. This morning instead of having our first Tuesday monthly meeting, we had a "Diversity Training," which I will now capitalize happily because it was definitely worth my time. The speaker was fantastic, Maura Cullen. My first thought about having to go to this meeting was ... it's 3 hours long. But, it wasn't 5 minutes into it before I was glad I was there and topics were being discussed. This wasn't just a simple, "We should be PC about caucasian and African American people around us." kind of talk. Here is the blurb they sent around in our emails telling us we will be attending, but like I said, I am glad I did. ----

"Dr. Maura Cullen, Educational Consultant

Maura teaches with such passion and conviction audiences are left with no choice but to act. She has a unique ability to capture people's attention but more importantly to keep it. The spirit and enthusiasm Maura creates aides others in making the bridge between their heads and their hearts, changing the "I can't" to "I can."

As a full time educational consultant and motivational speaker Maura provides training programs and keynote addresses on multiculturalism and leadership throughout the United States, Canada and Australia. She co-created two games focusing on issues of diversity: COLLIDASCOPE and ALTERNATIVES. Having worked in residence life for six years, she is familiar with the challenges facing higher education today. She received her master's degree from Springfield College (MA) in Counseling and Psychological Services and her doctorate in education at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, in Social Justice and Diversity Education.

About the Presentation:
"Toto We're Not In Kansas Anymore"

How do the Wizard of Oz, magic, cars and puppets help us to understand diversity? We are caught in times of political correctness, where "saying' the right things are worlds away from "doing" the right thing. Considered one of the most inclusive sessions on diversity, participants will explore race, gender, sexual orientation, age, socioeconomic class, religion, ability, and size discrimination in an interactive format. By using this approach, we can build coalitions, not blame, with groups who never thought they had anything in common with one another.

And that's all I have to say about that for right now.