Coffee from Around the World in one Place

By Stacey Haire

Diversity can refer to a number of things including skin color, backgrounds, purchases or ideas. The Public Relations Coalition recognized in their January 2005 summit there are barriers to achieving true diversity in the workplace but the Coalition is committed to addressing the challenge. The Business Planning and Research International (the BPRI Group) conducted a survey in October 2004 that involved 362 PR and communications professionals who are members of the organizations that are part of the PR Coalition. The respondents to the survey saw three themes as best defining diversity: incorporating the ideas of others, involving people of all races and cultures and creating opportunities for all races and cultures.

There are many businesses now committed to creating diversity among their employees, products and advertisements. Some companies such as Starbucks go above and beyond when it comes to defining diversity. Starbucks describes diversity with their team members, customers, various community programs and their supplier diversity. Starbucks engages in community outreach efforts for suppliers, most notably through the regional affiliate of the National Minority Supplier Development Council. They have also partnered with other organizations to establish a model Supplier Diversity Training Program. Starbucks has also created various programs that give back to the community. The Starbucks Foundation helps to fund literacy programs in the U.S. and Canada. In 2008, The Starbucks Foundation began supporting young social entrepreneurs around the world. Other programs include Ethos Water Fund, China Education Project and a Gulf Coast Recovery program. Something interesting and fun for customers is the My Starbucks Idea. This program lets Starbucks customers shape the future of Starbucks by offering their input and ideas. This shows they can about the ideas of their customers and it welcomes diverse comments abut the company. If more companies were like Starbucks, a high percentage of people would know what it means for a company to be truly diverse in all aspects of its operations.

Diversity is all around us

Diversity is all around us
By: Kylie Fisher
"Whether we are shopping, looking for that perfect job, or even grabbing a bite to eat, diversity will change how we view our world. "

Many companies seek an advantage over their competitors by only hiring employees with the "look" or "personality" of the products they wish to promote. While this employee might have a great connection with one group of customers, this sort of profiling does not insure an appeal to the larger customer base. Therefore, most companies need a variety of personalities, genders and races to meet the needs of their customers or to attract new potential customers. One clothing store learned this lesson the hard way. Following the 2004 lawsuit against Abercrombie& Fitch, many companies have looked at their policies and procedures regarding recruitment, hiring, job assignment, training, and promotion. To avoid a similar experience with a million dollar lawsuit many employers, including WalMart and Wells Fargo, are trying to attract employees by stating the importance of diversity within their companies.

Diversity is a requirement for survival and/or success in today's society. In their efforts to attract a diverse population of employees, many companies have implemented new advertising and marketing campaigns promoting the diversity of their employee’s talents, while also emphasizing the company’s strengths and advantages to a perspective employee seeking to joining their team. I believe McDonalds is waging one of the most massive campaigns to promote diversity in the workplace. Some recent McDonald's advertisements promote the benefits of being an employee, in addition to, the different meal options for the different ages of consumers. By utilizing several commercials targeting different demographics, the intended message is spread faster throughout the target audience.

Komen for the Cure: A model for getting a message out to diverse publics

By: Simone Fraid

The Susan G. Komen foundation, now known as Komen for the Cure, is a wonderful non-profit organization that serves the cause of breast cancer awareness well. I have had personal experience with this organization over the years; I have walked in the Race for the Cure, I have volunteered at the Race, and I worked as the OU Undergraduate Intern for Komen for the Cure for a few months last year. They are always eager to spread their message to anyone who will hear it.

Breast cancer affects many different populations, not just the 45 year-old woman many people picture. On their web site, Komen lists certain risk factors and statistics for different groups.

Some of these categories are probably very surprising to people. For example, people often don’t think about men getting breast cancer, or the fact that a lesbian sexual orientation can be a risk factor for breast cancer. Komen works hard to make sure that people aware of the many diverse risk factors in order to properly.

The diverse audience of Komen’s message is reflected aptly in its range of publications. Brochures, Breast Self Exam Cards, flyers and more are printed in different languages, and are specific to different groups. It is interesting to note that they even have publications for couples with advice on how to get through breast cancer together. Also interesting is the fact that they have BSE cards in Arabic, Hindi, and Russian- languages not typically covered by organizations trying to do typical diversity outreach.

With as important of a cause as breast cancer is, it is wonderful that Komen has done so much to reach out to so many. It is fitting that an organization fighting a cancer that affects so many would mirror that in its publicity and messages for so many.

Here is a great example of a targeted effort by Komen.

Diversity at OU

Diversity at OU
By Dara Hollingsworth


I decided to look at diversity efforts in higher education. Most of us can probably agree the OU is not the most diverse school in the country. According to the Princeton Review, 74.4 percent of the student population at OU is Caucasian. By comparison, just 57.6 percent of students are Caucasian at Temple University which ranks Temple fifth in the diversity rankings of the Princeton Review.

I started to think that maybe the OU and Temple’s diversity numbers have something to do with the population of the states or cities they are located in. According to 2006 Census data, 78.3 percent of Oklahomans are white and 82. 4 percent of Norman residents are white. Temple is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The census data says that 85.7 percent of Pennsylvania residents are white, but only 45 percent of Philadelphia residents are white.

This led me to start thinking about the public relations efforts of OU. I’m sure that I’m not the only one that has noticed that OU makes an effort to include minority students in the pictures on the Web site and in pictures in the information they distribute. OU’s prospective students Web site also has a page that is all about diversity at OU. The Web page talks about diversity enrichment programs at OU. I looked for a similar page about diversity on the Temple Web site, but I was unable to find anything. It seems that, by using some PR tactics, OU is making an effort to become more diverse, but when we’ll see the results of those tactics remains to be seen.

Accepting diversity in the workplace.

By Nick Holmes

When thinking about diversity, one might think of how everyone comes from a different background, culture, ethnicity, gender, has had different experiences in their lives, etc. However, one’s sexual orientation is something often taken for granted when talking about diversity. Often, people talk about the differences between men and women in the workplace, but issues with LGBT community members aren’t talked about often.

Many people in our everyday lives consider themselves a part of the LGBT community. Luckily, modern businesses are taking note and ensuring that their organizations are accepting and supportive of anyone, no matter how they define themselves. Ernst & Young was the first of the “big four” accounting firms to be certified by the Human Rights Campaign. One of their internal mottos for accepting this community is “making LGBTA inclusiveness real every day.”

Ernst & Young created “People Resource Networks” for their lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people and their allies (LGBTA) to establish a “gender identity/expression” category within their antidiscrimination policy. The accounting firm believes in the value of fostering an “open and inclusive office environment.”

Ernst & Young is one of many companies striving to promote diversity in the workplace. They understand that not everyone is the same and that their employees need to feel as if they can be themselves at work, without worrying about what their supervisor might say if they found out too many details of their personal lives. Organizations like this are promoting equality among their members, without forcing everyone to “conform” and accepting that we are a very diverse species.

Can the Peace Corp restore America's reputation abroad?

R.Y. Douglas

“People in other countries don’t hate us because of our values- but rather that they are disappointed with us because we aren’t always true to those values.”
-Subcommittee Chairman Bill Delahunt



Two of the Peace Corp’s primary functions are to promote better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served and promote better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

The Peace Corp should be more relevant today than ever due to the declining reputation of America in many parts of the world. The mission of the Peace Corp to promote cross-cultural understanding could serve as a “global” public relations campaign that could restore the reputation of the U.S. as a nation that values diverse relationships and thrives on multicultural communication. The outreach tactic of the Peace Corp to promote the U.S. as a nation that reaches out to all people of all walks of life who reach out a hand in need has been lost as of late but is still inherent to the purpose of the organization.

It is obvious from the organization’s Web site that their main interest is in working with diverse populations. Many different ethnic groups, young and old, men and women are all present on the site. I also was struck by the use of a global map on the home page to illustrate their interest in serving diverse communities around the world. Today, international service has the potential to emerge as a characteristic intrinsically bound to being American.

Carstarphen's Campaigners: They're Here, You're Not Watching

Carstarphen's Campaigners: They're Here, You're Not Watching