This winner of this year’s Jeff Small Pioneer Award is the Diversity and Inclusion Committee. While this award has been traditionally given to an individual, this year we are excited to recognize a group that has been innovative and progressive in their work to better the Lund community. The committee members – pictured here on the right, (BACK, left to right) Heather Simmons, Graham Kidder, Jess Kell, Nori Efremovski, Toni Yandow, Sarah Dandelions, Jamie Tourangeau, (FRONT left to right) Veronica Douglas, Kelsey Francis-Fath, Jamaica White, and (not pictured) Megan Foster – have been incredible pioneers at Lund over the past year.
The Diversity and Inclusion Committee was established in 2014 in direct response to the cultural evolution exercise Lund took on as an agency at that time. It has continued to be very active throughout the past 4 years. After careful reflection and assessment of our agency needs, the committee this year decided to pursue bringing more formal training in the areas of diversity and inclusion to Lund. CQ Strategies was selected to conduct the training series which consists of multiple sessions with different foci. This series is ongoing and has been very impactful already.
The committee meets bi-weekly and has representatives from different areas of the agency. Many members have been on the committee since its inception. All of this work is in addition to their regular job duties. This an active committee that keeps moving forward. They do not let the difficulty or sensitivity of the work stand in the way of getting it done.
Congratulations to the Diversity and Inclusion Committee on winning the Jeff Small Pioneer Award 2018 and thank you for everything you have done, and continue to do, for Lund.
As usual, the committee took on the Jeff Small Pioneer Interview questions in order to give insight into their pioneering spirit. This year, since it was a committee of answers, it reads a little differently!
Present for Interview: Sarah Dandelions, Nori Efremovski, Megan Foster, Jess Kell, Graham Kidder, Heather Simmons, Jamie Tourangeau, Jamaica White, Toni Yandow.
On committee but not present for interview: Veronica Douglas and Kelsey Francis- Fath.
Interviewer: What did you have for breakfast?
HS: Water. TY: Coffee JW: Granola and almond milk. JK: I didn’t have breakfast yet. MF: Luna bar. GK: Coffee
Interviewer: What pie are you near?
JW: I would say rhubarb personally. One because I grow it, two because I have it in my freezer and three because I love rhubarb pie.
(When questioned about what sort of pie might be geographically closest)
MF: Pumpkin?
HS: Apple?
JK: But we’re trying to be diverse so we would be looking at recipes outside of Vermont and not just the traditional Vermont apple pie. So it would have elements of a traditional apple pie with lots of other bigger suggestions included.
TY: I had a peanut butter pie this weekend and a raspberry chocolate chip pie that were amazing.
JW: I haven’t pie for a while. The last time I had pie was at Rokeby Museum fundraiser. There was so much pie. I had rhubarb.
HS: You had rhubarb when you were there too?
JW: Yep!
HS: (to interviewer, concerned) Did that really answer your question?
Interviewer: Describe the color yellow without using visual references,
TY: Warm
HS: Ray of smiles
(Interjection from interviewer to explain more about the questions due to concern from the committee that these were trick questions. General reassurance that there were no wrong answers and that these are indeed real job interview questions used by hip companies to seek out evidence of 21st century learning skills. This is a very intentional and considerate committee!)
JT: I would just say sunshine. Bright.
Some further discussion of the question and possible answers and recap for Jamie who had just entered.
JT: (bringing it back) How about just summer?
Interviewer: Who is your favorite pioneer?
TY: I’d say my mom. (Former ED of Lund Theresa Tomasi) She did a lot of work with Child Welfare at the hospital. She had a literal Act of Congress written so that she could adopt my sister, Troi. There are so many things that she has done that to me are pioneering. She’s a single parent who adopted 27 children by herself, including children of color, back in a time when it was frowned upon to be a single parent and a time when adopting transracially was just not done.
JW: In Vermont, Madeline Kunin.
HS: I think of Nelson Mandela.
TY: Yes, I was thinking of him too.
HS: The girl who refused to stop going to school and she ended up being shot – Malala
JK: Christine Hallquist. I was at her party the night she won the nomination and I had my 14 -year old son with me who is transgender. In that moment when she became the candidate for governor, the first transgender candidate for governor in the country, that raised the bar for what transgender people can achieve and see themselves as. From so low, to one of the highest offices in the country. That was a pretty monumental moment to observe and observe my kid watching that, literally seeing the bar raise in front of him.
NE: I think for me, comes Obama. I felt the freedom he had in his speeches when he was addressing many types of diversity issues. He was someone people really looked up to and he was not afraid to address whatever was difficult at the time and when he was challenged, he didn’t shy away, he really gave straight answers. For me, being in the United Sates for all the time I have been, it was really liberating.
SD: I cannot decide between Rosa Parks and Calamity Jane.
Interviewer: If you had to unload a 747 full of jelly beans, how would you do it?
GK: (immediately) I think shop vacs!
TY: That’s a great answer.
HS: Are the jelly beans in containers?
Interviewer: No they’re loose in the plane.
JK: Do we need to get them into something?
Interviewer: Yes, you need to unload them into a means by which they can be transported elsewhere.
HS: To be eaten again?
Interviewer: No, because of sanitation concerns. They need to be preserved in individual beans but not for eating purposes.
HS: That’s what I needed to know.
NE: First, we as a team have to have designated roles. If we are doing this as a team, then all of us have to have a specific role within the team so we make certain that all the jelly beans come out safely.
HS: Well the pilots’ windows open so I would go with Graham, and having assigned roles, we put the vacuum through the pilots’ windows. Because if you open the door, they are all going to fall out and we’re not going to get them all. If we can slowly bring the vacuum all the way through, we would be able to save all of the jelly beans.
GK: You could just build a giant, airplane size vacuum container with a huge tube.
JT: We need the vacuum from ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’.
TY: We need a brand new septic truck, a pumper truck. You could suck them all and put them all into a truck.
JK: So we’re going to have to write a grant to get the truck.
TY: We need to put out an RFP….
Interviewer: How many cows in Canada?
(more discussion to address concerns about trick questions!)
JT: Well none because Canada spelled out does not have cow in it.
GK; I guess it depends on whether we are talking about English or French speaking part of Canada…
JK: Probably more than there are…it’s a big country with a lot of open land and I think there are a lot of farms. The cities are spread out.
TY: Can we research it online? Interviewer: No!
JK: I think there are more cows than people in Canada, like Vermont.
MF: In Vermont there’s four cows per person. If we got the population of Canada, we could work it out if there is a similar ratio.
JW: Doesn’t it get cold up there? Do cows like it up there?
JK: They like Vermont but they’re probably not in the Yukon.
TY: Yes they are.
JK: Yeah?
TY: Don’t you watch ‘Dr. Oakley: Yukon vet’? She sees cows all the time.
JK: Ok so there’s cows in the Yukon.
JW: Are we talking male and female cows? Bulls too?
HS; Do you usually have this many people asking questions?
NE: I know that I don’t know. I’ve never been asked this question and I have never thought about that. So I know that I don’t know.
TY: I’m feeling that I want to look it up.
JT; I’m just thinking – as many as there need to be. There are as many in Canada as there are. It is what it is and we will accept them for that.
JK: And they make lovely local cheeses in Quebec.
JW: But they don’t have cows in Quebec.
Interviewer: They make lovely local fromage in Quebec. Ok moving on from the cows…
Tell me an inspirational story from your work at Lund
TY: The training series that we’re doing with CQ Strategies and the TAD talks.
NE: I am kind of new in this committee but the highlight for me is that this committee exists, and that we are here to address issues that are hard and something that people in their professional daily lives have a tendency to push aside. We bring them to the surface.
JT: To add on the training component, what was a high highlight for me having staffed a lot of them with Toni was the response of staff and the engagement and how excited people have been and how involved and enthusiastic about continuing to get training. That was amazing to see. CQ Strategies specifically said that there were very impressed with our staff and the level of engagement in all the training sessions. They felt really great about Lund as an agency because of that. That’s pretty cool.
JW: I would agree with Nori, it’s so important to have a place to have these conversations and being here and being able to do this work. The organization has really embraced the work that we have been doing and taken it to the next level.
