Championing DE&I: From Capitol Hill to College Campuses
4:00 - 4:30 pm
30 Years Down: Where We Go from Here on Disability Inclusion in the Workplace
2020 marks 30 years of the Americans with Disabilities Act. While strides have been made, there is still much work to be done to ensure people of all abilities have the same opportunities to participate in all aspects of life – their job included. As a member of the House of Representatives, the Congressional Task Force on Down Syndrome and champion of the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act, Eastern Washington’s esteemed Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers will shed light on the additional ways we, too, can be vocal champions for the disability community and how to use policy to promote equity in workplaces everywhere. This timely conversation with Congresswoman Rodgers and SHRM Foundation Executive Director, Wendi Safstrom, will empower you to boldly address today’s inequities, not just during October’s National Disability Employment Awareness Month, but year-round. You will gain practical takeaways to foster disability inclusion both in and out of the workplace.
4:30 - 5:00pm
Rethinking Our Thinking: Academic Findings Support Bold Change
Organizations are struggling to break barriers that hold them back from being truly diverse, equitable and inclusive. But do we actually understand why? In this session, we turn to academia to unpack the latest findings from SHRM’s Together Forward @Work research on racial inequity in the workplace. In true academic form, these experts will share the process of using existing knowledge to draw conclusions, make predictions and construct explanations—to get to the crux of these diversity, equity and inclusion issues. This session will help you rethink what you think you already know. You will not only discover new ways to apply this research in your day-to-day work but grow—personally and professionally—from this eye-opening dialogue about what this data truly means for the work world. This newfound insight will equip you to take bold action and create meaningful change at your own workplace.
Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Cathy McMorris Rodgers is Eastern Washington’s chief advocate in Congress and a rising star in American politics. Since first being elected to the House in 2004, she has earned the trust of her constituents and praise on Capitol Hill for her hard work, conservative principles, bipartisan outreach, and leadership to get results for Eastern Washington. As someone who grew up on an orchard and fruit stand in Kettle Falls, Washington, worked at her family’s small business, and later became a wife and working mom of three, Cathy has lived the American Dream, and she works every day to rebuild that Dream for our children and grandchildren.
Cathy served as Chair of the House Republican Conference from 2012 to 2018. Cathy was the 200th woman ever elected to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Since being elected to Congress in 2004, Cathy has focused on moving legislation based on the priorities she hears in conversations with the people of Eastern Washington. Her mission is to restore trust and confidence in representative government and the rule of law, and lead as a trust-builder, ability-advocate, and unifying force to get results for hardworking men and women in Eastern Washington.
Wendi Safstrom
Wendi Safstrom is a senior non-profit leader committed to serving the public through philanthropic program management, cultivating strategic partnerships and managing and developing high performing teams. She has both association and nonprofit management experience including; national program development and administration, membership strategy, marketing and product development, grant management, development and donor stewardship, and leading cross functional teams. Safstrom currently serves as President for the Society for Human Resource Management Foundation (SHRM Foundation), where she leads the development and implementation of SHRM Foundation's programmatic, development, and marketing and communication strategies in support of SHRM Foundation's new mission and vision, creating growth plans and ensuring alignment with SHRM goals.
Prior to assuming the role at SHRM Foundation, Safstrom served as Vice President at the National Restaurant Association and National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation, where she led the development and implementation of their Foundation's most recent five-year strategic plan, and was responsible for all Foundation programming, including workforce development initiatives, scholarship and event management, community relations and engagement initiatives. The NRAEF's philanthropic programming supported a number of audiences including high school youth, veterans transitioning from service to civilian work and life, opportunity youth and incumbent workers. Of particular note, she led the implementation of the restaurant industry's premier high school career and technical education program, growing the program to over 2,000 public high schools, engaging over 150,000 students annually, nationwide. In 2016, she served as lead project director for the development of a $10 million contract awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor to develop the hospitality industry's first apprenticeship program, and was instrumental in the Foundation's reorganization and relocation of operations from Chicago, Illinois to Washington, D.C., transforming the staff and culture.
Safstrom has also held human resource management roles with the Leo Burnett Company and Hyatt Hotels Corporation in Chicago, Illinois. She has a BS in Business Administration from the Eli Broad School of Business at Michigan State University and was recognized as a member of the 2014 "Power 20" by Restaurant Business Magazine as a leader in philanthropy within the restaurant industry.
Dr. Eden King
Dr. Eden King is the Lynette S. Autrey Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Rice University. She is pursuing a program of research that aims to make work better for everyone. This research– which has yielded over 100 scholarly products and has been featured in outlets such as the New York Times, Good Morning America, and Harvard Business Review– addresses three primary themes: 1) current manifestations of discrimination and barriers to work-life balance in organizations, 2) consequences of such challenges for its targets and their workplaces, and 3) individual and organizational strategies for reducing discrimination and increasing support for families.
In addition to her scholarship, Dr. King has partnered with organizations to improve diversity climate, increase fairness in selection systems, and to design and implement diversity training programs. She is currently a Senior Associate Editor for the Journal of Management, an Associate Editor for the Journal of Business and Psychology, and the 2019-2020 President of the Society for I-O Psychology.
Tom C. Hogan, DM, SHRM-SCP
Dr. Hogan is a scholar-practitioner, strategic adviser, consultant and an executive leadership coach. He is a champion of and an internationally recognized subject matter expert on diversity, equity, inclusion, and civil discourse. He is an enabler of executive leadership and organizational excellence. His distinction is the ability to promote transformational leadership development by creating incidents of cognitive dissonance and opportunities for self-reflection, self-discovery and self-awareness by using the arts as an agent-of-change.
Dr. Hogan is a Professor of Practice in Human Resource Management at the Pennsylvania State University, School of Labor and Employment Relations. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in-residence and on-line. His signature class is Ethics in the Workplace. Dr. Hogan’s action research interests include Global Leadership Development, Global Diversity and Inclusion, Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability, and the convergence of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and human beings in the workplace. He is the founder of the School’s Academy of Human Capital Development and served as Director from 2011 - 2018.
Currently, Dr. Hogan serves as a Scholar-in-Residence at the Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State, College of Arts and Architecture and serves as a member of the Community Advisory Council. In March 2019, he was selected to serve as a scholar for the Penn State Student Engagement Faculty Academy for Academic Years 2019 – 2021.
In this role, he will conduct research and serve as a faculty champion for student engagement and engaged scholarship, and serve on a steering committee responsible for designing, developing, and deploying a university-wide student engagement portal. The portal will incorporate Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
He has been appointed to serve as Diversity Director and voting board member of the Pennsylvania SHRM Council for a two-year term beginning January 2020. In August 2019, he was selected to serve on the 2019 – 2020 Governance Committee of the Penn State Alumni Council. The Alumni Council is the governing body of the Penn State Alumni Association where he is serving a three-year term as an appointed member.
Dr. Hogan has over 30 years of experience as a practitioner and has served in leadership positions in higher education and the corporate sector. Prior to joining the Penn State University School of Labor and Employment Relations, he held the position of Interim Associate Provost, Office of Faculty Affairs at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC). Prior to working for UMUC, he spent 23 years with AT&T in a variety of assignments including sales, sales support, business development, marketing and human resources. In his last assignment at AT&T, Dr. Hogan served as Director of Strategic Talent Acquisition and Retention, Workforce Diversity and EEO/AA.
Dr. Hogan currently is a member of the U.S. Technical Advisory Group of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). In this role, he is involved in developing and representing the U.S. position on global HR standards to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). In December 2016, he was appointed to the ISO Work Group responsible for developing a global HR standard on diversity and inclusion. In November 2016, he was appointed and continues to serve on the SHRM Diversity and Inclusion Special Expertise Panel. Dr. Hogan served on the SHRM 2016 Ethics/Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability Special Expertise Panel. Dr. Hogan also served on the Penn State University President’s Commission on Racial/Ethnic Diversity from 2015 – 2018. He was elected Co-Chair for Academic Year 2017-18. He served as a Scholar-in-Residence at the Penn State University Sustainability Institute from 2014 – 2019. He provided leadership on the implementation of the Penn State University 2016 – 2025 Strategic Plan as a member of the Stewarding our Planet's Resources Steering Committee and the Infrastructure and Support Steering Committee from 2017 - 2019.
Dr. Hogan earned a Doctor of Management Degree (International Operations emphasis) from the University of Maryland University College and a Master of Public Administration and a Master of Regional Planning Degree from Penn State University. He earned a BA Degree in Behavioral Sciences from Point Park College. In August 2017, he graduated from the Georgetown University Institute of Transformational Leadership with a certificate in executive leadership coaching.
Alexander Alonso, Ph.D., SHRM-SCP
Alexander Alonso, PhD, SHRM-SCP is the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM's) Chief Data & Insights Officer leading operations for SHRM's Certified Professional and Senior Certified Professional certifications, research functions, and the SHRM Knowledge Advisor service. He is responsible for all research activities, including the development of the SHRM Competency Model and SHRM credentials.
During his career, he has worked with numerous subject matter experts worldwide with the aim of identifying performance standards, developing competency models, designing organizational assessments, and conducting job analyses. He was also responsible for working on contract task orders involving the development of measurement tools for content areas such as job knowledge (like teacher knowledge of instructional processes) and organizational climates (like organizational climate forecasting in military health care).
Dr. Alonso received his doctorate in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Florida International University in 2003. His works have been recognized for their contribution to real-world issues. They include being recognized by the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology (Division 14 of the APA; SIOP) with the 2007 M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace for the development of the federal standard for medical team training, TeamSTEPPS; being awarded a 2009 Presidential Citation for Innovative Practice by the American Psychological Association for supporting the development of competency model for team triage in emergency medicine; and receiving the 2013 SIOP Distinguished Early Career Contributions for Practice Award.
Throughout his career, he has published works in peer-reviewed journals such as Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, Journal of Applied Psychology, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, People and Strategy, Personality and Individual Differences, Quality and Safety in Health Care, and Human Resources Management Review. He has also authored several chapters on community-based change initiatives in workforce readiness, as well as co-authoring Defining HR Success: A Guide to the SHRM Competency Model in Practice.
Dr. Alonso also served as a columnist analyzing major trends in the workforce for The Industrial Psychologist and HR Magazine. In addition, he has served on several professional society boards including the SIOP and the Personnel Testing Council of Metropolitan Washington.