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Gender and careers

magdakaspary Uncategorized

I was listening NPR this morning and the news was about To Get Women To Work In Computer Science, Schools Get Them To Class

I was driving my 3yo daughter to daycare and I immediately started thinking:

Are we aware of diversity challenges in the social work profession? Are we interested in discussing it? Do we want to get more “people” in human sciences – despite of their gender?

Why do we have gender-driven conversations?

Why do we discuss diversity in Computer Science and not in Sociology, for example?

If we focus to have equal opportunities in computer science for all genders, what else are we communicating?

What is the underline? What are the drivers, cause and consequence?

We need to ensure free access to computer science to whomever wants to pursue the profession.

AND, we need to ensure that all fields of knowledge/professions are equally important.

NHRMA 2014

magdakaspary Uncategorized

I am heading Polsbo, WA to attend a Liberating Structures workshop that I was nicely invited by Keith McCandless.

As the idea emerged, I decided to write one page a day, so here it goes before I go!

Today I want to write about NHRMA 2014, a very special conference I attended this week in Spokane, WA.

So many learning lessons there.

First of all, I learned how to pronounce “Spokane”.

(Well, humbly, I need to say that I already knew it, since my faculty and friend Mary Kay Woolson came to my home a few weeks ago to meet my newborn son and taught me how to pronounce SpokAne :))

I also learned that Spokane is the birthplace for the Father’s Day celebration!

I learned “how to make 600 people sing happy birthday to you” even when is not your birthday! Well, only a fantastic and energetic person like Krisann Hatch, the conference master of ceremonies is able to make it! I will never try!

Moreover, my biggest learning is the power of being part of a community. I tried to translate this idea in my 2 minute speech while I was receiving the Sharon Koss Student Award:

“There is an African proverb that says: you need a village to raise a child. If I can add an idea to this proverb is that first, you need heart full people to grow this village. What I have been learning as a member of LWHRA is that heart full people make the whole difference in your life. I am very thankful to my lifelong mentors Nancy Kasmar, Sara Dnell and Nathan Deily for their amazing support (they probably don’t know about the ‘lifelong’ part). I am thankful to NHRMA for this outstanding event and opportunity. I am honored for receiving the Sharon Koss Award, a continuous legacy of a person that did so much for the HR profession and its professionals.”

NHRMA Conference was in its 76th edition this year. It speaks for itself.

My wish is that we continue to nourish our villages – local or global – so that we only have great opportunities (and children!)!

My first daily page

magdakaspary Uncategorized

Friday, Oct 3rd 2014. 7:45am. Here I am in front of my computer with a coffee. Emails to answer, things to do as usual. My 3 month old son is sleeping, my husband and my 3 year old daughter are already on the road.

Silence! Just me and my coffee in front of my computer! Magic moment.

By the window I see a sunny Friday arising in Seattle. Yes, a sunny Friday in Seattle in October!

Why am I writing?

This is a habit that I’ve been trying to develop. I usually write in my mind and that’s it. But a few minutes ago, I read James Altucher post about “Can You Do One Page A Day?”

WOW. It seems a life changing event. What a luxurious invitation.

Well, I am on board.

I’ve been thinking of writing, bought books about it here and there, started blogs, thought of attending a Natalie Goldberg workshop. Each one of these steps seem to be intermittent attempts driving nowhere. Or, as I prefer to think, they are part of a waltz piece called my writing: isolated in a singular step they don’t make sense; but connected, these singularities are part of an evolving process.

  1.  What I am always amazed by is to observe the flow of convergent events that are dancing like a waltz, and at the right moment this convergence allows something to come. – Only at the right moment. –
  2. It makes me think, as a species, what are we aware of? Are we aware of an illusionary idea that we drive and decide everything in our life? Or, instead, we may accept to take the right and possible step at each moment and be enlightened by the flow we will create for us, around us – at the right moment.

Cant wait for tomorrow.

As James Altucher said on his post, “this is my page today”.

Thank you so much, James.