Faces of Michigan

Deborah Orlowski: The desire to help others

Ask Deborah Orlowski why she is passionate about intercultural issues and she’ll relate growing up in a Catholic/Jewish neighborhood, her Jewish “second family,” her father’s love of jazz and her mother’s fascination with China. As an undergraduate at U-M, she participated in the first Black Action Movement (BAM) strike because, “For the first time in my life I had Black and Latino friends and I learned about the racism that affected them on a daily basis. Suddenly it wasn’t academic anymore. This was real, and it was happening to people I knew.”

After obtaining a BA in Sociology, her first professional job was with the Department of Social Services. The media portrayed her clients as lazy drains on society, but she realized the institutionalization of poverty and racism created huge impediments to her clients’ abilities to improve their lives. “We say we care about the poor and give sufficient opportunity to anyone who wants to work hard. In reality, it takes an extraordinary person to take advantage of those opportunities because of the barriers and hurdles we place in their way.” This experience created in her a passion to be a positive influence and to make a positive contribution toward eliminating these barriers. Towards this end, Orlowski’s work hinges on climate, acceptance and fair treatment. Being a teacher, it’s not surprising that diversity finds its way into almost everything she does whether it’s helping employees of an auto company understand that their “normal” behavior is creating a hostile work environment; running for School Board; teaching workshop participants how to help others save face; or reviewing the impact of a departmental procedure. “I have a dear friend who says he sees everything through the eyes of history. I see everything through the eyes of diversity.”

Dr. Orlowski began her employment at U-M in 1990 in what was then the Affirmative Action Office. Today she is a Training and Organizational Development Consultant, and Curriculum Lead at Human Resource Development (HRD) and has become well known for promoting the value of diversity within the University community. She founded the University of Michigan Diversity Consortium to bring together diversity practitioners from across the University. She is the only staff recipient of the Homer Neal Presidential Grant promoting diversity at the University. With the grant money she held staff dialogues on the Ann Arbor and Dearborn campuses using the video The Color of Fear as a starting point, ultimately leading to a series of ongoing conversations on diversity. She is the lead in assuring that diversity is addressed in all of HRD’s services, and assisted University Human Resources in developing the position and then hiring a diversity recruiter. It’s about leaving a legacy. She wants to make the world a better place and help people be better to one another. A colleague states, “Deborah’s method is to share a piece of herself with others in a way that makes them better, to equip them to make their environments better and to help them pass on the positive.”

A member of the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research, USA (SIETAR-USA), she has presented on diversity issues in Germany, Curacao, Japan, Canada and within the U.S. She was also one of a small group of people who created the founding vision for SIETAR-USA. Her work with organizations outside U-M includes numerous for-profit businesses and non-profit organizations. One of her proudest achievements was assisting Opera America begin their first discussions about diversity within the opera community. Since that project, Opera America has won an award for excellence in diversity.

“I am blessed with a diverse group of magnificent friends. We talk about typical things, but we also talk about hard issues like discrimination. Those conversations have been some of the most incredible experiences of my life.” The desire to help others have similar experiences led to her dissertation research into intercultural friendships among “unlikely allies.” Her research found that these friends appear to have always felt like outsiders within their own communities. “Are they outsiders because they recognize and reach out to people who are different from themselves? Or do they reach out to others because they already feel different and they’re looking for an ally?”

In addition to her staff position at U-M, Dr. Orlowski is a faculty member at Central Michigan University’s Off-Campus Programs teaching Multiculturalism and Diversity in the Workplace, and Women in Politics.