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Hello.
My name is Christopher Achua.
My students call me Professor
Achua or Dr. Achua,
and my friends and
colleagues call me Chris.
I teach in the Department
of Business and Economics
at the University of
Virginia's College at Wise.
My teaching has always centered
around three disciplines;
strategic management, marketing
and organizational leadership.
Throughout the years, my
interests have been in
engaging students in real
life learning opportunities.
This interest led me to
create and direct programs,
such as the Center for Entrepreneurship,
Leadership and Service
and The Small Business
Institute at my university.
These programs focused on
developing students leadership
and entrepreneurial skills by applying
theory to real world situations.
Though these programs are
no longer in existence
due to funding constraints,
the message and the goals
of programs such as these
are still relevant even today.
My presentation today
focuses on the topic,
"Why Today's Leaders Must
Embrace Diversity or Else".
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Simply stated,
diversity is the inclusion of all groups
at all levels in an organization.
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What is the reality
of these changes?
Let's focus on some of the
legislative and cultural trends
that have led to the
multicultural society
that we are all a part of
here in the United States.
In 1964, the United States government
passed the Civil Rights Act.
The Civil Rights Act outlawed most
types of employment discrimination,
which brought into the
workforce minority groups,
African-Americans, Hispanics
and Asian-Americans,
that had been left
out previously.
In 1990, the United States passed
the Americans with Disabilities Act.
This act outlawed discrimination
against people with disabilities.
This meant a lot of employers had to make
their facilities handicapped accessible
with walkways and driveways
that could accept wheelchairs.
Again, this brought
a lot of people,
who were formerly left
out of the workforce,
into the workforce.
Then you have increased immigration
into the United States.
Unlike recent times,
the American philosophy has
always been to embrace diversity
and engage in
constructive immigration
of people from
different countries.
This open immigration system,
I shouldn't say open
immigration system,
just liberal immigration system,
led to more racially and
ethnically mixed populations
coming into the United States.
This has led to a demographic
mix in the United States
that results in more racial or
ethnic groups in the population,
greater gender diversity
in the population
and greater age diversity
in the population.
