provides teaching notes and sample questions that can be used to debrief the exercise with students after it is completed.
I. The Exercise Structure and ImplementationThis exercise presents students with a fact scenario involving two employees at a fictional social media company called Smithereen, Inc. 1 One employee, Randy, is a software developer who is experiencing problems in the workplace, some of which are related to workplace comments related to sex and race. 2 The other employee, Sandy, is Randy's manager and a longtime employee of Smithereen who has been with the company since its founding. 3 Each student is assigned one of these roles and then tasked with meeting to discuss/negotiate the employment issues raised by the scenario.
A. Overview of the Fact Scenario 4Randy is the only African-American employee on her team and also one of the few people who comes from a humbler economic background and did not attend an elite private university. Because of this, she feels ostracized at work and is uncomfortable with comments from other employees about race, sex, and economic status. In her mind, the working environment is unprofessional and Sandy has done nothing to fix it. Additionally, Sandy frequently talks with her about issues of race, sex, and diversity at the workplace. While Randy realizes that Sandy means well, these conversations make Randy uncomfortable because her views on these issues do not align with Sandy's.Sandy cares deeply about issues of race, sex, and diversity in the technology industry. She realizes that Smithereen has problems in this area and that they stem from the leadership of the founder and CEO. Unbeknownst to Randy, Sandy has raised these issues with the CEO and has been rebuffed. Additionally, she has observed some of the same instances of unprofessionalism as Randy and has tried to manage them but has not received the support she needs from the CEO. In fact, one of the members of the team 1 For the exercise, see the Appendix.2 Id.
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