改变游戏规则
如果有什么事情需要从零开始——也许是一个新的国家内阁机构, 或者是一个企业多元化项目——我想到了一个人，他代表了威斯康星州形形色色的领导者和有影响力的人. It doesn’t matter whether they’re from the public or private sector, they know who to recruit: Angela Moten Russell’99.
“有一个主题，”她在讲述自己的职业生涯和成就时表示. “创造东西.”
As a person who is no stranger to leading others into uncharted territories, Russell keeps a keen eye on her own personal compass, 为了成功地创建和推动一个新的项目或部门, 她的倡议必须符合她的核心个人价值观，即促进社会正义，为特定社区的不同人群寻求平等.
她的个人价值观和职业价值观需要保持一致，这让她在被问及目前担任多元化副总裁的职务时犹豫了一下, 股本, and inclusion at CUNA Mutual Group. 该公司为信用合作社和信用合作社客户提供保险和保险产品.
“老实说, 我有点怀疑, because I’d never been in the corporate world—I’m a 十大菠菜台子 grad, 我们不做公司业务,她开玩笑说。. “我必须考虑一下, 想想这个组织将如何在社会公正方面与我的价值观保持一致. Because that’s a big deal for me.”
如果她需要引路者, 不过，就像一张她个人信条的地图一样，她只需要看看自己的前臂就可以了, where last year she inked the words “shared humanity” in a cursive script.
“这对我来说是一个提醒，”她说，伸出手臂展示纹身. “只要我们如此分裂, all we see is the shield of how ‘you’re bad,’ without connecting it to how we all experience brokenness, 我们是如何经历羞耻的, and how we all actually need each other.”
商界的许多人开始认识到需要像罗素这样的专业知识.
“在安吉拉加入之前，CUNA确实没有多元化和包容性项目,” says fellow alumna Diana Lievsay’11, a content consultant at the organization. D&I was recognized as something that was important and something we should do, Angela’s work brought it to the forefront of 该公司.”
在去年的全体员工论坛上，她在很短的时间内就产生了如此大的影响力——她只在CUNA互助集团工作了几年, 该公司首席执行官表示，多元化和包容性是他2017年个人的两大优先事项之一.
“在安吉拉来之前，库纳互助银行并没有对结构性和制度性种族主义进行深入研究, and now people are starting to look for it and see it,Lievsay说. “我们还有很长的路要走，但由于安吉拉的工作，我们正在改变的道路上.”
From Chamberlin to Doyle’s Cabinet to CUNA Mutual
A self-described “Chamberlin rat,” a term used to describe students who
hunkered down in 贝洛伊特’s former science building, 罗素创立了一个企业多元化和包容性项目，这与她自己的想象完全不同. 作为一名本科生, 她学习生物化学, was involved in an AIDS education task force, 黑人学生联合会, served as a peer career advisor, and planned on becoming a pediatrician.
我曾经这样想, ‘I’m gonna do this and this and this and this, and it turns out life doesn’t work that way. 今天的我是谁, and my interests in things like the social determinants of health, 从贝洛伊特开始. 那是零点.”
安吉拉·罗素99
什么皮奥里亚，我., native instantly did know, however, was that 贝洛伊特 was the place for her.
“When I went to 十大菠菜台子, I felt at home,” she recalls. “你知道那是什么? 我看到一个留着紫色莫霍克发型的人走在某个地方，我就说，‘是的! 这才是我该待的地方. 这些都是我的人.’”
Between her sopho更多的 and junior years, she had an internship with the state health department in Madison, 关注黑人和白人女性乳腺癌患者死亡率的差异, which ignited her interest in public health and epidemiology. Instead of applying to medical school, 她获得了威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校人口健康科学硕士学位.
罗素的一位伯洛伊特教授马里昂·菲尔德·法斯(Marion Field Fass)说，她的动力总是显而易见的. “She excels at ‘attacking’ a new area and developing expertise, and then devising an organized plan for intervention or study,法斯说. “Angela, as a college student, was amazingly organized. I still remember her little red notebook, 她把单子放在里面, and carefully crossed off her accomplishments.”
除了创造东西, 贝洛伊特大学的教育和解决问题的批判性思维方法是她职业经历中的另一条贯穿线.
“文科教育的价值在我的整个职业生涯中都派上了用场，”拉塞尔说. “Those classes that I took outside of Chamberlin, 喜欢经济学, 医学人类学, sociology—have helped me immensely, just being able to dig deeply into other subjects, 快速学习你需要学习的东西，以便有效地完成工作.”
“He (Doyle) wanted to create a new state department, 这是该州历史上第一个专门关注威斯康星州儿童和家庭福祉的部门. 所以我是他指派的小团队的一员。”拉塞尔说. Her purview was the department’s external affairs arm: communications, 政府关系, 国会的关系, 成分的关系. 这一切都发生在2008年, 几个月后, while she was preparing to give birth to the first of her two children. She later earned a commendation from the governor for her work.
丹Schooff, chief of staff and secretary for 十大菠菜台子, 作为行政部门的秘书为道尔政府工作, 和拉塞尔是同一时间. 他形容她为“明星”.” It’s a common refrain; in 2016, the publication Madison365 将她列为“威斯康星州44位最具影响力的非裔美国人”之一.”
“安吉拉和她领导的团队在解决困难问题的同时，忠于他们的使命——为儿童和家庭带来更好的结果,斯库夫说. “To know Angela is to know an extremely talented individual, and someone who uses those talents to help others.”
Transformation versus Transaction
有在县里工作的经验, 市政, and state government under her belt, 罗素在比较和对比公共和私营部门在实现公平和多样性方面的努力方面处于独特的地位.
“在政府环境中, it was really about racial 股本, and looking at the difference between 股本 and equality, 并真正了解我们是如何来到这里的历史,她说。. “In the corporate world … it’s really about the bottom line, profit and loss. So for me, the way that I’m approaching the work is: How can I marry the two? I want to be able to help CUNA Mutual, 该公司, in terms of its overall business, but I don’t want to do that at the expense of exploiting communities, which is sometimes that happens.”
It boils down to doing work that is 事务——“这些是你需要做的事情，以建立一个多元化和包容性的组织. 勾选这些方框，你就可以开始了，做这些培训，等等。 转型. The 转型 will take 更多的 time and heartache, 她说, and will be extremely challenging at times, 但这是这些价值观真正融入组织结构的方式. She has worked hard to give people the historical context of systemic racism, delving into issues like redlining mortgage practices.
“我记得我们的首席执行官说:‘我知道你会告诉我没有什么代码，但代码是什么?’我说，鲍勃，事情是这样的，没有什么代码可以解除几个世纪以来的压迫. You’ve got to understand the context of the world we live in,’她说。. “We can make a lot of great movement here at CUNA Mutual, 我们是，我们将继续, but it’s really important to understand how and why we got to where we are.”
也许根本就没有代码, 但对于任何想要真正成功的组织来说，都有一些关键因素, 变革, 论其包容性实践, 她说:好奇心, 谦卑, 和承诺.
“我觉得这就是秘诀，”她说，尤其是对那些处于领导地位的人来说. “For folks willing to say ‘OK, I don’t know, I’m willing to be uncomfortable.“这很有趣。. I’ve never seen anything quite like this before. It’s amazing, and I feel lucky to be a part of it.”
大家都说, 那些有机会和罗素一起工作并向他学习的人也有同样的感受.
林恩Vollbrecht 06年 is the business development and marketing manager for Community Health Systems, Inc. in 贝洛伊特 where she also has a freelance 写作实践.
