identities and organizations

There's no doubt that a large part of our identity is tied up with the organizations in which we're enmeshed. One organizational practice that regulates and controls members' identities is giving members an explicit set of guiding values and morals. You can get a sense of SJSU's values from its mission statement, strategic planning, organization charts (where are the faculty and students on these charts?), and other formal documents, which provide both explicit and implicit value statements.

Intersecting identities refers to the idea that social categories such as gender, race, class, age, dis/ability, sexuality, and others combine in complex, fluid, and sometimes contradictory ways. For example, my father is from a working class family and was the first in his family to go to college, much less earn a Ph.D. His background was very different from the students at Cornell University, where he got his first teaching job, but very similar to the students at Delta College, his last teaching job. For him, teaching at Delta was easier and more rewarding than Cornell because he could relate better with the Delta students. Now a retired professor, some aspects of his identity put him in a privileged class (male, highly educated, white, straight), but his age and disability (inoperable esophageal cancer) make him nearly invisible when he goes to the grocery store or the bank.

We all bring multiple identities to our organizational lives. The authors of your text suggest that one strategy for negotiating these multiple identities is to be mindful. Consider the various aspects of your self that you bring to your organizations and how those organizations influence your identities.

~ Professor Cyborg