DCI's Next Director

[TOC]

5 hours ago, Paul Milano said:

So, the effort will be largely the same, and I am looking forward to yet another excellent choice being made, as were the last two  Executive Directors (Chris Lugo and Monte Mast).  
 

How many years did they each stay?

[Paul Milano]

4 minutes ago, TOC said:

How many years did they each stay?

Chris Lugo stayed three years, leaving when he had family with health issues in Atlanta, so he moved there.
Monte Mast will have completed five full years when he leaves. 

[keystone3ply]

This is a wonderful, civil discussion as to diversity related to DCI's hiring practices.  However, I must say just a few miles south of the Indianapolis Circle Centre, there's some beautiful corn fields.  I'm thinking $150k per year & living in the middle of one wouldn't be so bad.  🤷‍♂️ 

Sending my application to the DCI HR office now... 😂 

[cixelsyd]

2 hours ago, scheherazadesghost said:

Point me in the direction of a multiracial woman in a leadership position anywhere in this activity. And I'm not being sarcastic, I'd like to meet them and pick their brain over shared experiences in and beyond this activity 'cause it's rough livin'. There are plenty of MMs in that category. How about gender nonbinary folx in leadership roles? I don't identify that way, but know people in the activity who do and I'm sure they'd like to pick their brains too. When these groups (among the others) don't see themselves in leadership, that often means that they have to be the vanguard if they want to pursue leadership, which comes with all kinds of undue hardships.

I thought that is what leadership is.

[IllianaLancerContra]

7 minutes ago, cixelsyd said:

I thought that is what leadership is.

I think that you have to grow leadership.  If you take a 22-yr old who may be a great drill cleaner & immediately make them Corps or DCI director, it is highly unlikely they will succeed.   It takes many years in increasingly more responsible positions to get the experience needed for success.  We are seeing a wide diversity within many Corps and these individuals are moving up.  But it takes 20 years to get 20 years of experience.  

[Jeff Ream]

2 hours ago, kdaddy said:

Have we seen that story "too many times" though? Do hires in the name of diversity really lead to hiring people that aren't qualified? I feel like that is a theoretical concern. Sure, maybe it happened to us once, therefore we turn that anecdote into "oh, it happens all the time." 

But moreover, I think the point is (or at least the point from my perspective): take great steps to build a diverse pool of candidates and pick the best person you can. You can't hire a diverse group of leaders without intentionally trying to build a pool of candidates with those different perspectives. 

 

I think there's some truth to this. I'm an engineering professor. Our profession woefully lacks diversity, particularly relative to our student body (sound familiar?). We do our damnedest to build a diverse pool of candidates for faculty openings, but it's just tough, because that diverse pool doesn't exist. For us, it's "no matter how much you try to mentor me, I can make $80K with a BS, why go through several years of grad school to make $95K as a professor?" That is, our faculty don't effectively reflect our students because "I don't want that job." So while I think there's truth to the idea that the job isn't attractive, there's more to it than that. 

As a white guy, I see myself doing all kinds of jobs, because white guys have all kinds of roles. Not everyone can say that. Without the pipeline of black engineering professors or hispanic women caption heads, it's not so easy for students to see themselves in that role, therefore they don't set themselves up to pursue it. I think some corps are making efforts to build a diverse group of designers and caption leaders. More to be done, and it should be intentional. And we can't let ourselves treat anecdotes of a bad outcome as common occurrences that keep us from building those diverse pipelines.

i'm not speaking of one offs in terms of hiring to hire not working out.

 

but here's a great tie in with the activity......except for a few ladies in the 80's, how many female snare players there in DCI until recently? few. there's a zillion reasons why, but there were few. it's only recently that you have seen that start to change. heck even into the 90's you didn't see a lot of female bass players. and now it's slowly getting to where you have female percussion caption heads. it can take years to build that pipeline, and in DCI, in so many areas it'll take time. but if DCI doesn't get a candidate considered diverse enough to satisfy everyone, it's not a failure on their part as described here. sometimes reality, which in this case takes into account how non diverse the activity has been as well as everything else may be a factor. i'll only consider whoever they hire a failure if they suck or have enough baggage to fill JFK

[scheherazadesghost]

37 minutes ago, cixelsyd said:

I thought that is what leadership is.

In my experience and that of my multi cultural cohort of leaders, it's different for us... if you'll note the remainder of the sentence you underlined. We have to constantly weigh whether that undue hardship is worth the researched and documented adverse effects that come with it.

53 minutes ago, keystone3ply said:

This is a wonderful, civil discussion as to diversity related to DCI's hiring practices.  However, I must say just a few miles south of the Indianapolis Circle Centre, there's some beautiful corn fields.  I'm thinking $150k per year & living in the middle of one wouldn't be so bad.  🤷‍♂️ 

Sending my application to the DCI HR office now... 😂 

LOL, I'm originally from Kansas. I even get the appeal of agricultural fields, esp at dusk. But sorry, as I've said in two other comments, I've tried the Midwest and can't swing it. I don't feel safe there.

Edited September 21, 2023 by scheherazadesghost
typos

[Jurassic Lancer]

1 hour ago, keystone3ply said:

This is a wonderful, civil discussion as to diversity related to DCI's hiring practices.  However, I must say just a few miles south of the Indianapolis Circle Centre, there's some beautiful corn fields.  I'm thinking $150k per year & living in the middle of one wouldn't be so bad.  🤷‍♂️ 

Sending my application to the DCI HR office now... 😂 

… and a few miles north is Carmel, and I’m not sure how far $150k would go there

[cixelsyd]

31 minutes ago, scheherazadesghost said:

In my experience and that of my multi cultural cohort of leaders, it's different for us... if you'll note the remainder of the sentence you underlined. We have to constantly weigh whether that undue hardship is worth the researched and documented adverse effects that come with it.

That seems to explain part of the challenge in getting diverse applicants.  Rather than a glass ceiling, we have a glass panel at the entryway.  You and Jeff Ream are just describing it from opposite sides of the glass.

[TenHut]

58 minutes ago, scheherazadesghost said:

In my experience and that of my multi cultural cohort of leaders, it's different for us... if you'll note the remainder of the sentence you underlined. We have to constantly weigh whether that undue hardship is worth the researched and documented adverse effects that come with it.

LOL, I'm originally from Kansas. I even get the appeal of agricultural fields, esp at dusk. But sorry, as I've said in two other comments, I've tried the Midwest and can't swing it. I don't feel safe there.

No one feels safe in Chicago. The rest of the Midwest is wonderful.