Hazel Pegues, Director of Diversity Focus in Cedar Rapids, spoke on Monday, July 13, 2009 to the Rotary Club of Cedar Rapids on the The Corridor’s Diversity Climate.
We are highlighting Hazel Pegues' presentation from Ripples from the Rapids, the weekly newsletter of the Rotary Club of Cedar Rapids.
Hazel Pegues joined Diversity Focus as Director in June 2008. On
Monday, she reported to Rotary the results of a Survey on Diversity based on
information gathered from September 15 to October 6, 2008 by Vernon Research
Group. The phone and Internet survey was conducted in Linn and Johnson
County. The study consisted of 600 respondents, aged 18-85 and with an
over-sampling of non-Caucasian subgroups. The margin of sampling error was
plus or minus 3.27%. The purpose of the study was to establish a baseline
measure of the community’s perception of diversity and inclusion and to
highlight issues that Diversity Focus needs to partner with the community to
improve. The intention is to survey again in three years for comparison to
the 2008 baseline.
In many of the questions, respondents were asked to rank factors on
a scale of 1-5. A mean rating of 3.5 or higher is considered minimally
acceptable. Overall diversity ratings (rating your community in terms of
embracing diversity) resulted in 54% of respondents ranking their community
“good” or “very good” with a mean diversity ranking of 3.5. Rankings in
Johnson County (3.79) were slightly higher than in Linn County (3.36).
Ratings were highest for Caucasian respondents and lowest for African-American
respondents. Non-Caucasians cited a large difference between the
importance of certain attributes and the community’s performance on these
attributes. Caucasians considered the “GAP” to be much smaller.
For example African-Americans considered the premise that diverse
populations are welcome and accepted to be the most important attribute of
community performance (4.85) compared to Caucasians (3.79). But
performance measurement on this particular attribute, perceived by
African-Americans, was only 3.36 compared to 3.79 by Caucasians. The
African-American GAP was 1.49 compared to a GAP of only 0.74 for Caucasians, a rather substantial perception difference of 0.75.
On the basic question of “What does diversity mean to you,”
73.5% of respondents said race or ethnicity and 23% said religion.
Socio-economic class was cited by 12%, age (10%), gender (9%), sexual
orientation (9%) and disability (2%).The majority of respondents said they were
either “very comfortable” or “comfortable” with people of diverse
populations. However, respondents were least comfortable in social
situations with people with disabilities, people of a different socio-economic
class or people of different sexual orientations, all classes that did not
register highly in response to the question of what diversity means. In
fact disability is not often seen as a dimension of diversity.The percentage of
survey respondents who have themselves felt discriminated against based on
intolerance of diversity ranged from 19% (law enforcement and child related) to
21% (employment) to 22% (at a store). An especially alarming rate was
discrimination involving law enforcement which was 46% in Linn County and 69% in Johnson County for African Americans surveyed.People of diverse backgrounds are reluctant to move to the Corridor and are less likely to remain in the area
long-term. A welcoming and accepting climate is an economic
imperative. We must foster diversity to develop a 21st-century workforce
and compete effectively in the global marketplace.
For more information on Diversity Focus and The Corridor's Diversity Climate, you are invited to visit their web site and download a PDF on the Executive Summary. If your group or company is interested in having someone speak on this subject, please contact Diversity Focus.
