In her opening remarks at the 2026 Academy of Management (AOM) Annual Meeting on July 31, Ivey Business School Professor Zoe Kinias reflected on the origin story of the Teaching Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Professional Development Workshop (PDW).
Kinias recalled how the late Columbia Business School (CBS) Professor Katherine Phillips founded the workshop in 2019 with CBS Professor Modupe Akinola and Harvard Business School Professor Michael Norton, who were also present in support of the 2026 AOM PDW. The 2019 gathering convened a small group of 16 business-school faculty to “figure out how we might support each other and elevate our teaching DEI topics,” she said. The group then began meeting annually to share demonstrations, experiences, and insights, support one another, and discuss strategies for managing new challenges, including those caused by the global pandemic, changing political dynamics, and wavering levels of institutional support.
Now, some seven years later, the work of this group continues, while the community of scholars surrounding it steadily grows. That gets to the heart of why these annual meetings matter, Kinias noted. “We want more people to be able to engage with this. We want you to share with one another and be honest with each other. Say, ‘This is what’s working. This is what I’m struggling with. How can we figure things out together? How can we do the best that we can in this space, in whatever our contexts may be?’”
Kinias then turned the workshop over to its featured experts: Professor Martin Davidson from the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia; Instructional Consultant and Professor queen jaks from the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley; Professor Merrick Osborne from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University; and Professor Amelia Stillwell from the David Eccles School of Business, University of Utah. For the next two hours, the experts took turns leading the audience through teaching demonstrations, group exercises, and a larger conversation about DEI instruction in business school. Here are the highlights.
Teaching demo 1: Practicing empathy, inclusion, and teamwork
When MBA students first arrive at Darden, they’re divided into small “learning groups” that last for the remainder of the year. The pressure’s on to work together effectively, but it’s not necessarily clear how to do that—especially if the students have widely different personalities, perspectives, and life experiences.
To help students work through this challenge, Davidson co-authored a case study, “Opening Week at Darden,” that replicated the scenario they were facing. He shared the case as part of PDW’s first teaching demonstration of the day.
The case focuses on a five-person learning group during the first week of business school at Darden. The members of the group—Jackson Bates, Xiao Wong, Samira Shah, Reggie Williams, and Jocelyn Ellis—represent different backgrounds, academic expertise, personal identities, and professional goals, which are outlined in the case.
Turning to PDW attendees, Davidson asked each table to assume one of the five personas and discuss three questions:
- What makes it tough to connect better with your teammates?
- What actions could you take to strengthen your relationships with your teammates?
- What are the risks and rewards of taking your action steps?
The case was designed for an MBA orientation session, but is also useful as an early class in a DEI course, Davidson later explained. The simplicity of the table questions is by design; when developing a DEI course, it’s important to make the content and experiences “simple and understandable, accessible in a way that guides students,” he said. “Moreover, the course ought to have an overarching framework that tells students where the class is going.”
He added that posing questions that encourage open, honest dialogue is an important feature of any DEI courses. In fact, despite what cultural trends might signal, many students are eager for the opportunity.
“I find that even in these times, people are thirsty for this conversation,” Davidson said. “What they need is a space where they can safely engage with it, and where there can be debate and disagreement. And we can do that through our design and through our stance as instructors.”
Teaching demo 2: Riddle me this
Picture this: You’re a consultant for a firm called Equiconsulting, and you’ve just been tasked with helping a fast-growing software company work through a thorny problem.
This is the puzzle to solve in “The Catalyst Co. Conundrum: A Consulting Story,” a case study that queen teaches to MBA students as part of a DEI-focused business communications class.
As the case describes, the company, Catalyst Co., is in a unique situation. On the one hand, the business is thriving: It recently won a Green Innovator Award, sales of its flagship product are growing, and its CEO, Anya Sharma, was just named a “30 Under 30” leader. However, Catalyst Co. has recently come under scrutiny after a software engineer’s open letter on Medium went viral. In the letter, the engineer accused the company of age discrimination and offered screenshots of internal emails as proof. Meanwhile, Sharma talks frequently about “meritocracy” in the company, but employees say they don’t know what that means. Rumors run rampant that promotions aren’t given to the highest performers; they’re based on favoritism.
The consultants have three deliverables to execute over seven weeks. One, they have to choose and justify five datasets to inform their analysis and recommendations for the company. Two, they have to craft a leadership brief that responds to the CEO after tensions run high mid-project. Three, they have to present evidence-based recommendations in an executive summary and a 5–7-page report.
But there’s a twist. The point of this case study is not to come up with the perfect recommendations for Catalyst Co. Rather, it’s a “very, very good opportunity to diagnose equity challenges,” explained queen.
In the past, when queen has revealed this learning goal to students, it’s made them uncomfortable. “They didn’t like that feeling,” she said. “But what I had to get across to students was: Stop being so number-focused. It’s going to get you lost, and you’re not going to be able to see the bigger picture. You have to see everything from different angles.”
Panel discussion: Words of wisdom, advice, and encouragement
After the teaching demonstrations, a panel discussion explored how faculty were adapting their teaching approaches to different institutional, political, and classroom contexts. Davidson, jaks, Osborne, and Stillwell participated in the panel, which was moderated by Rice’s Jones School of Business Professor Sora Jun and generated several important insights:
Build a foundation based on values. When teaching DEI in conservative or religious environments, it’s important to focus first on the topic of ethics or responsibility so students recognize what they have in common, explained Stillwell. “We all have values,” she said. “They might not be the same values. But they drive our decision-making … and have a common language we can use and that everyone can get behind. By the time we get to the topic of sustainability and DEI, we all understand that values have a place in business and that’s important.”
Emphasize research. An issue that Osborne and his colleagues have encountered is “people believing that we’re trying to indoctrinate them or make them think a certain way,” he said. His solution is to give students peer-reviewed research to read at the start of the course, explaining that these academic studies form the basis of his course. “I know it’s a little dense for the students, but it’s a really useful starting-off point to talk about the challenges that still exist,” he said. “And I think it creates more of a conversation space than a pedagogical one.”
Make conservative students feel welcome. On the first day of class, Davidson talks about the conservative perspective on diversity, both in terms of supporting it and opposing it. Then, he assigns students to take a side and engage in a debate. “It turns out to be an opportunity to bring in ideological diversity and signal to students that, ‘Oh, if I’m conservative, I’m still welcome in this discourse,’” he said. Along similar lines, Osborne has his students talk about their different majors and backgrounds to get them more comfortable talking about diversity in general. “I’ve found that helps lay the groundwork for conversations later where folks said, ‘I believe this’ or ‘I believe that,’” he said.
Don’t shy away from so-called “bad” words. “We talk about privilege,” said Stillwell. “I very directly talk about race. I talk about gender. And I try to really lean into distinguishing between what is data-based and what is me expressing my values.” If, in this process, tensions start to rise, Davidson will acknowledge them directly. “I say to the room, ‘Wow, this is a big one. What do you all think about it?’” he said. “It legitimizes the conversation, but it also makes people feel safer.
Pose a provocative question. Osborne gets his students talking by asking a controversial question. “I ask them to talk to each other about something like, ‘What should we do about Confederate monuments?’ Or, ‘Can we read “Huck Finn” out loud in a class?’” he said. “Questions like that actually get people energized and help them understand the material.”
Acknowledge your humanness. Instructors need to create psychological safety in a DEI classroom, and that includes dispelling assumptions that students always need to be perfect. One of the best ways to do that: Talk about your own mistakes. “As a white person, I verbalize mistakes I have made in the past or microaggressions I have committed,” said Stillwell, “and the things I have learned from them and the way I have responded professionally that allowed me to move forward.”
Link inside exercises to the outside world. Classroom exercises are more valuable when students understand how they translate to the real world, said Davidson. “I’ve sometimes made explicit that, ‘This is an exercise, but this is about what you’re going to do outside,’” he explained. Meanwhile, Stillwell assigns exercises that are required to take place outside the classroom. For example, she’ll have students put themselves in a situation where they’re a minority and write a reflection paper about it. Or she sends them on field trips to “force them to engage with someone who’s different from them outside of the class,” she said.
Understand it’s okay to pull from experience. “Regardless of what frameworks you use, it comes down to the actual interaction that takes place,” said jaks. “That’s always going to root from who you are and what you know. And so that’s where I put my focus.”
Keep your DEI colleagues close. “Our main source of support is each other,” Stillwell said. “We got us and we have an incredibly strong group of faculty who teach this. So don’t be afraid to teach it. Because, in some cases, I think teaching DEI as part of management—as opposed to on its own—is the most effective thing that we can do. And just keep your homies close.”
Take the long view. The stock market is a good analogy for social progress in DEI, noted Davidson. Over 100 years, despite setbacks from depressions or recessions, it has gone up. “So, even though we’re in a moment now where there are challenges, focus on the structural changes. Continue your career so you get promoted and gain status in your institutions, because that’s where the change is going to happen. It will coincide with the arc of what’s going to be needed in the market. And you will be prepared to deliver on it.”
Wrapped (for now)
Norton concluded the session humbly, thanking the presenters and current workshop organizers, Jun and Osborne, as well as Professor Sa-Kiera Hudson and Dr. Alexandra Figueroa from Berkeley Haas. The energy in the room was strong and hopeful, as the community planned for future connections.
