Building relationships in a diverse department.(diverse work environment)

When you work with people every day, it's crucial to have a positive relationship with them. It makes for a more pleasant environment, improves communication, reduces stress, and decreases errors and turf battles--ultimately serving the students better.

Especially in today's more diverse work environment, assuming that others around you hold the same values, beliefs and attitudes can lead to trouble.

In a session at the October 2005 conference of the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators (NACWAA) in Kansas City, Dr. Pat Griffin discussed how differences in race, religion and sexuality can complicate working relationships in a department.

By understanding how to work better across the differences, administrators can find common ground and make each other stronger, Griffin said. Retired from the faculty in social justice education at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, she is now director of the "It Takes a Team" educational campaign at the Women's Sports Foundation.

Looking around the standing-room-only crowd, Griffin said she found it "amazing" that so many attended her session, much better than in previous years. "It's a really good indication that straight and lesbian women are discussing the issue, and men are no longer controlling women."

Why pay attention to differences?

Dr. Griffin listed reasons to pay attention to differences between people working together in a department: