Thursday, May 26, 2011

Excerpt: About DIVERSITY EMPLOYERS Spring 2011 Issue

IMDiversity announces the release of Diversity Employers Magazine,cvr 2011spr 191x244.png40th Anniversary Issue, a special edition commemorating the company's 40th anniversary publishing year.


About this Issue

This magazine was originally envisioned as a special commemorative edition of THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Magazine. Concluding our company’s 40th anniversary publishing year celebrations, it would wrap things up with a retrospective of our best features and milestone moments, largely chosen and recalled by our founder, publisher and company CEO, Preston J. Edwards, Sr. It turned out to be something else.

The transformation of THE BLACK COLLEGIAN into this new publication was motivated by the needs of our expanded job seeker audiences, employer clients and career center partners, and by changes in the job market, workforce demographics, and technology. It would coincide with Preston’s announced transition into his retirement, as he steered us through the last of three planned anniversary issues. It felt like the end of an era.

But there is something appropriate to the timing of this issue. Falling as it does now, amid spring’s renewal, at the end of the academic year, it feels like both an end and a beginning, a graduation and a commencement.

As one might expect, this edition contains seasonal features emphasizing entry-level, student and recent college graduate jobs. But the issue contains more. As incoming editor, I’ve found both inspiring and sobering our two special, retrospective features, with Preston’s selections arrayed like gems commemorating some major moments and figures from our publishing past.

In a “Best of THE BLACK COLLEGIAN: 1970-2010” package that is in many ways deeply personal, he samples some of the themes and events that have driven him and influenced the publication’s character over the decades. Excerpted are unblinking examinations of the legacy of slavery and racial segregation; philosophical explorations of African American traditions and the values underlying a good life; and profiles of groundbreaking Black achievements and “firsts” in virtually every industry and sphere of American life – right up to the election of the first Black U.S. president.

Straight Talk from the Top” collects frank discussions with CEOs of major organizations about the vision and strategies that helped them become, in many cases, the national diversity leaders they are today. Conducted across three decades, the interviews show the evolving notions of workplace diversity. They illustrate employers’ movement beyond regulatory compliance and narrowly defined race categories in the 1980s to the strategic integration of diversity and inclusion as a fundamental business value – a necessity of long-term global competitiveness and sustainability.

As incoming publisher Preston Edwards, Jr. observes in his Publisher’s Message, such employers have come far in diversifying their workplaces. One ascending the corporate ladder today, he writes, “will see more women, African Americans, Latinos, Asians, indigenous peoples, gays and lesbians, Muslims, people with disabilities, older workers, veterans, among others” at all levels.

about_issueIn “Today’s Workplace: The Times They are a-Changing,” Chris Campellone concurs, but also notes that in a period of high unemployment, it is “Blacks and Hispanics who are shouldering most of the burden, with rates that are far outpacing those of Whites and Asians,” and women still make 81 cents on the male dollar. As far as we’ve come, we’ve still a long way go.

Explored in these features are questions likely to remain relevant in future editions of DIVERSITY EMPLOYERS: What are the hallmarks of those employers that are most proactive and successful in reaching their diversity goals, to the benefit of their organizational mission? What resistances and obstacles must be overcome? Indeed, what does “diversity” mean today, and tomorrow – the approaching era of the so-called “minority-majority” America, the post-Obama America?

The continued exploration of these questions and our company’s founding values will serve to guide the staff of DIVERSITY EMPLOYERS moving forward from this, our commencement.

-- Stewart Ikeda


Former Director of Online Content and Editor-in-Chief at IMDiversity.com, Stewart Ikeda is a new media planning, editorial, and diversity consultant, author of What the Scarecrow Said, editor of Diversity Employers Magazine, and VP of Online Publishing for IMDiversity, Inc.


FEATURES IN DIVERSITY EMPLOYERS SPRING 2011

Publisher's Message:
Diversity Employers Finding the New Beat

About this Issue

Message from the Founder

Diversity in the Workplace:
The Times They Are a-Changin’

Straight Talk from the Top

The Best of THE BLACK COLLEGIAN: 1970-2010

America’s Top Employers Help Match Jobs to Veterans

Building a Career While Making a Difference

Graduating and No Job: Now What?

Evaluating a Job Offer: Should I Say Yes?

Gallery of Advertisers

Friday, April 15, 2011

Premiere Issue: Diversity Employers (Incorporating THE BLACK COLLEGIAN)

Diversity Employers Cover

IMDiversity Inc. announces the release of the new Diversity Employers Magazine, incorporating and expanding the scope of THE BLACK COLLEGIAN), starting with its Winter 2011 Issue:

The Jobs and Top 100 Employers Issue

Career Planning and Job Search Issue, featuring The Top 100 Employers for the Class of 2011, "The Way Forward: The Road to Job Growth and a Stronger Economy" by President Obama, "Needed: Bilingual Health Care Providers," and more

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

BLACK COLLEGIAN Magazine to Cease Publication in Print

THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Magazine to cease publication in paper form after 40 years. The magazine will be succeeded by, and incorporated into, Diversity Employers Magazine, and wider online jobs and content network.

THE BLACK COLLEGIAN will continue to exist as an online entity, with an active website at www.blackcollegian.com and a Facebook group, and a dynamic jobs database featuring employment opportunities for entry-level job seekers and recent college graduates, at http://jobsearch.blackcollegian.com.