Friday Zoom Forum to Focus on Emotional Intelligence and Race

People of color face unique challenges, and these are often amplified when navigating a corporate environment or institutional setting. Among the professional challenges for the BIPOC community are micro-inequities, bias, imposter syndrome, and code-switching.

On Friday, February 3, Central Washington University's Kuolt Distinguished Professor of Business Andy Parks will explore these challenges, as well as avenues toward mitigating them, in his upcoming talk Using Emotional Intelligence (EQ) to Navigate Race, Corporate America, and Higher Education. The latest installment of CWU's ongoing First Friday Leadership Talks series will be offered via Zoom from 11 a.m. to noon.

Parks has built his résumé out of his respect for the roles of mindfulness and emotional intelligence in business and leadership. After starting out in leadership at The Coca-Cola Company, Parks began guest lecturing at community colleges in the Seattle area before joining CWU-Lynnwood as a management professor in 2017. He later earned the Kuolt Distinguished Professor of Business designation for his commitment to sharing his experience with students, along with his ambassadorship through training and speaking engagements. Parks's presentation is noted for being open, warm, and delivered with vulnerability and humor.

CWU faculty, staff and students interested in gaining deeper understanding and perspective of the unique challenges people of color face in the workplace can register for Friday's workshop via MyCWU by accessing the Learning tab and entering "First Friday" into the Search for Learning field, then scrolling down to the February 2023 (CW-2687) event and clicking "enroll". Once registered, a Zoom link will be sent via email. Registration closes at 5 p.m. Thursday.