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Babson’s Jane Edmonds Panelist at National Race Amity Conference

National Centering for Race Amity

Babson’s Vice President of Programming and Community Outreach, Jane C. Edmonds will be presenting at the National Race Amity Conference in Quincy, MA November 17-19, 2016.

Edmonds will be participating in the keynote panel Friday November 18, 2016 on Intersecting Business, Finance, and Law with Access, Equity, and Social Justice moderated by Shirley Leung of the Boston Globe. Other panelists include: Robert Hildreth, Founder Inversant Social Entrepreneur and Economist, Carolyn Jones, Publisher, Boston Business Journal, Walter Prince, Partner, Prince Lobel Law Firm, Raj Sharma, Private Wealth Advisor at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, Private Banking & Investment Group.

This year’s conference, held by the National Center for Race Amity, takes an exciting and different approach called in-conference-action. Conference proceedings will be shaped by with an introduction to the steadily growing and highly regarded approach to organizational and community change called “Appreciative Inquiry.” Appreciative Inquiry (AI) explores the transformational power of positivity and relationships – and the kind of change that happens when strengths meets strengths. It is a proven process that makes real the principles and values that underpin the Race Amity movement.

Babson’s Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Sadie Burton-Goss will also be speaking at the conference.

Mission of National Center for Race Amity

Race relations in America will not substantially improve unless the public discourse on race moves beyond the blame/grievance framework to one that recognizes and celebrates our ability to overcome racial prejudice through association, amity, and collaboration. While the tradition of racial oppression was unfolding, a parallel tradition, largely hidden and poorly understood, was demonstrating some of the most positive qualities to be found in American history. This, “The Other Tradition”, of close collaboration, amity, and love has served as the moral and spiritual counterweight to the dominant tradition of racism that occupies so much of our national history. The Other Tradition offers a new entry point for the public discourse on race. Race Amity is the mission of our actions and object of our work at the National Center for Race Amity.

Jane C. Edmonds

Early in her career, Edmonds was appointed by Governor Michael S. Dukakis as Chair of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (“MCAD”), the civil rights law enforcement agency for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

She later founded and ran her own consulting firm, Jane C. Edmonds & Associates, Inc., a workforce development and diversity leadership firm serving clients in the private, public and non-profit sectors for more than twenty years.

In 2003, Edmonds served as a member of Governor Mitt Romney’s cabinet and as head of the Department of Workforce Development responsible for oversight of three line operating divisions and several centrally-managed functions, and for the flow of over two billion dollars in federal, state and tax revenues within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Sadie Burton-Goss

Dr. Goss brings twenty years of experience teaching and practicing the art and science of diversity and inclusion. As an entrepreneur she founded Goss Associates and guided Fortune 1000 companies, educational institutions and small businesses to further their missions and strategies through the effective leadership, engagement and leveraging of the richly diverse talent in their employ.

As the first in her family to attend college, she earned her PhD from Lesley University, an MS from Lesley College’s School of Management and a BA from Wellesley College.

This informed her work as Founder and Managing Partner for Goss Associates, Assistant Vice President at TJX Companies and Corporate Director of Organization and Management Development at Liberty Mutual Insurance. In senior leadership roles she designed, developed and delivered strategy-driven diversity and multi-cultural initiatives in government, technology, healthcare, and financial service organizations, bridging differences and leveraging strengths. As an entrepreneurial leader educating other entrepreneurs, she served as sales and marketing faculty and coach for MassHousing’s Minority and Women Owned Business Development Program and on advisory boards for the Massachusetts Affirmative Marketing Program and for the Center for Women Entrepreneurs. International entrepreneurial engagement included the South Africa Trade Mission sponsored by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.