by Carly Bergthold | Jan 20, 2015 | News Slider
Business leaders from the Nashville area met Tuesday morning at Lipscomb for a discussion on workplace diversity in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The Lipscomb University Department of Communication and Journalism hosted the event in Ezell Center partnering with the Council on Workforce Innovation and National Organization for Workforce Diversity. Guest speaker Anthony Carter, Chief Diversity Officer at Johnson & Johnson, shared his ideas about diversity over breakfast. Carter discussed his belief that corporations should concentrate more on social leadership and global well-being. “Diversity is who we are,” Carter said. “And inclusion is how we work together. The beauty of that is how we pull all of that together to make sure that we are of best interest to our customers.” Carter views diversity as a social justice imperative, and pointed to Martin Luther King Jr. as a hero worthy of emulation. “His work,” Carter said about King Jr., “in fact his life, illustrates so accurately diversity and social justice. Think about it, Dr. King dismantled the barriers of segregation and transformed a nation.” Breakfast attendees came from all over Nashville to learn how to better support diversity in their own businesses, corporations and organizations. “Diversity really means everything, Lori Adukeh, executive director of 100 Black Men of Middle Tennessee said. “It gives people the opportunity to be different, and yet be the same, to collaborate, to be partners.” Attendees also discussed the increased productivity diversity brings. “Diversity, and workforce diversity specifically, really speaks to equality and opportunity,” said Jacky Akbari, director of employee services at the Nashville Career Advancement Center. “We’ve found that when there is a diverse...
by Brianne Welch | Sep 20, 2014 | News Slider
The Lipscomb University Department of Communication and Journalism hosted the inaugural Morality in the Media conference Friday. The conference consisted of a variety of journalists and speakers who talked about different aspects of the media. From the changing dynamic of the media and its consumers, to sessions about how to cover gun control issues and gay marriage. Department of Communication Chair Alan Griggs opened up the conference with a welcome to introduce the first speaker Kelly McBride. McBride is the Vice President of Academic Programs at the Poynter Institute. She discussed how the media has changed since the 20th century, and different trends in the media as it relates to consumers. “Students who are going into journalism, or any other form of communication, need to know that our ethics are changing,” McBride said. “They’re changing because the audience is changing.” McBride wanted to make it clear that young journalists need to be aware of their surroundings and paying attention to the changes in the world. “They constantly need to be developing new knowledge about how that audience is changing, and you do that by watching what technologies does the audience adopt,” McBride said. “In addition to all the knowledge you gained in your studies, you have to be adept enough at looking at what the audience is doing, how they’re doing it, particularly around technology.” Following McBride’s speech, there was a panel of guests who discussed the way the media covers controversial issues. The first issue was gun control. The speakers were: retired editorial page editor for The Tennessean Dwight Lewis, WREG-TV news director Bruce Moore, WSMV-TV news reporter...
