​COVID-19 could amplify the persistent lack of diversity in higher education—but the pandemic also gives us a chance to fix it

​It hit me when the university president’s e-mail landed in my inbox: “We will be suspending all classes, sending everyone home and all instruction will take place remotely.” The national emergency prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic had just upended everything! As a board member, I felt that one of my worst nightmares had been realized. Suddenly, students lost their campus connections and had to move to online instruction. It wasn’t clear what freshman classes would look like or if prospective students would even be able to complete common admissions requirements such as providing certified transcripts or standardized test scores. Read more...

Hosted by the Baltimore Metropolitan Women Business Center (BMWBC)

Just 31 percent of women say they are proud to call themselves ambitious, according to a 2020 survey from American Express and The New York Women’s Foundation. 
However, despite their hesitancy to claim the label publicly, more than half of survey respondents said they do identify as ambitious.

In other words, while most women are ambitious, they don’t want to admit it. This is because when women speak up and pursue their goals, they often experience something called the backlash effect in which people perceive them as less likable, hirable or promotable. Research has shown avoidance of the backlash effect, not a lack of drive, is what keeps many women from self-promoting and fully embracing their ambitious side.
While the responsibility of addressing these shortcomings lies first and foremost in workplace culture, here are some strategies you can use to take ownership of your ambitions.

1. Identify your ambitions in communal terms.Although goals are often driven by individual interests and values, framing them in communal terms—that is, how they can benefit your company or cause as a whole—could help you feel more comfortable sharing and openly pursuing yours.

2. Share your goals with allies.Although you might experience the backlash effect by sharing your ambitions publicly, confiding in a few trusted allies can give you a valuable support system. These individuals can serve as both cheerleaders by encouraging your progress and advocates by calling out biased reactions to your ambitions.
3. Celebrate your accomplishments.Acknowledging your accomplishments publicly can be uncomfortable, but getting into the habit of celebrating your achievements in private could help you take more ownership of them. 
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Start by keeping track of your accomplishments in a daily journal, and be sure to appreciate your own ambition. As you start to feel more comfortable with the process, try sharing some of your wins with your allies. Read more..

The Baltimore Metropolitan Women Business Center will be hosting a "FREE" MICROLEARN: The Real Estate Industry webinar. July 29, 2020, at 1:00 pm.
Get registered today at edacwbc.ecenterdirect.com. or share it with someone who can use the information. Hope to see you soon.
This is event is powered by the MSU EDAC, SBA, and BMWBC

​ ReadShut-in at home as Covid-19 swept the U.S., Instagram cofounder Kevin Systrom was growing frustrated by the confusing and unreliable data on the spread and scale of the disease. So the creator of one of the world's most viral companies—now one billion-plus users strong—began building a site to track the virus. "I kept asking 'if I was running a state or a country what stat would I want to know?" said Systrom in a Zoom interview during the Forbes's Under 30 hackathon, with partner Rocket Mortgage, in support of the city of Detroit. Through his research, he learned about a metric called Rt. Well known in epidemiology, it measures the rate that a virus spreads from person to person. "If R is less than one, then the outbreak shrinks. If it's larger than one, it grows exponentially—and that's a bad thing." Read more..