OUR STORY
CultureALL DEI Planning is powered by nearly two decades of experience and insight working with a team of Ambassadors through CultureALL. Representing more than 50 distinct cultures, these Ambassadors deliver discovery-filled diversity experiences for people of all ages. CultureALL DEI Planning taps into these connections to expand your employees’ capacity to accept and adapt to the changing workplace and marketplace. Visit CultureALL.org to learn more about our organization and how you can support CultureALL programming in Iowa schools and communities.
Our Focus
CultureALL DEI Planning focuses on providing meaningful opportunities to put DEI theories into action. When implemented, these actions elevate attitudes and behaviors so that everyone in a business or community feels valued and inspired to participate. Our experience has shown that raising employees’ confidence and comfort when experiencing differences will result in greater prosperity and quality of life for all.
Our Values
Practicing inclusion is a set of behaviors — deepening our awareness, examining what we think we know, treating others as they want to be treated, creating space for them to present their authentic selves, and being intentional about including them in decisions.
Personal interactions can be challenging when we’re in conflict, but it is this commitment to each other that gives us strength to move through resistance and inspires us to sit in the discomfort until we are able to move beyond it. We are stronger when we trust each other and work together.
Expansive thinking increases our networks, broadens our perspectives, and pulls in the help and resources we need to continuously improve. We don’t accept business as usual. We adapt, recreate, and learn to serve our community even better than before.
Our Staff
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Sherry Gupta
IDI® Qualified Administrator
Intercultural Communications Professional certificate from ICI
Sherry brings 35 years of experience in the DEI field as an interviewer, researcher, and facilitator of cultural diversity learning. In 2005, she founded CultureALL to help clients create productive, inclusive cultures. The approach she created engages participants in authentic, interactive experiences designed to build emotional competence rather than a lists of “dos” and “don’ts.” Clients include corporations, K-12 schools, colleges, professional associations, and social agencies. Sherry is an Intercultural Communications Professional, certified by the highly acclaimed Intercultural Communication Institute in Portland, Oregon. Through this six-year certification, Sherry studied with leading figures in the intercultural communication field.
Chad Cardani-Trollinger, PhD.
Founder, The Institute for Leadership Studies
IDI® Qualified Administrator
ESCI® Facilitator
Chad is an award-winning instructor, an ethical, just, and inclusive servant leader, and is fully committed to helping individuals, teams, organizations, and businesses get from where they are to where they want to be. He is a faculty member in the Iowa State University Leadership Studies program, founder of Preserving the Academy and The Institute for Leadership Studies. With a Ph.D. in Education, Chad leverages 25 years of professional experience in Training and Development, Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, and Higher Education Administration.
Anthony Stevens
Quantitative Psychologist
IDI® Qualified Administrator
Anthony is a published statistician, teacher, coach, and professional musician who believes we learn best by interacting with others. As a quantitative psychologist, he teaches at the DMACC Urban Campus. His work on “Culturally Relevant Algebra Teaching: The Case of African Drumming” has been published in the Journal of Mathematics and Culture. Anthony lectures and performs in Iowa schools and colleges frequently. His instruction spans the subjects of I.Q., individual differences, mathematics, social studies, African American history, and music appreciation. He also is the percussionist with the music groups Vaya Con and The Bone People. His African drumming lineage is from Guinea via Mamady Keita and Monette Marino. Anthony believes all aspects of learning follow the African drumming mantra, ‘If you can say it, you can play it,” adding that “rhythm is central to all life and living things. The master drummer understands that intuitively. Through it, we can come to know the state of a person and find unity in the crowd we play to.”
Tara Widner, PhD.
Leadership Coach
IDI® Qualified Administrator
StrengthsFinder Facilitator
Tara believes that leadership is an intentional and reflective process of effecting positive change in our communities. She is a Certified Leadership Coach, a certified StrengthsFinder Facilitator, and a certified facilitator of the Intercultural Development Inventory. Her specialty is global leadership and cultural competency. She presents frequently at national and international conferences and has created a new model for teaching global leadership. Tara joined the Leadership Studies faculty at Iowa State University in the fall of 2016 and is the Director of the Vermeer International Leadership Program.
Yolandi Carrick
IDI® Qualified Administrator
Yolandi was born and raised in South Africa and witnessed the dismantling of apartheid policies that had institutionalized racial segregation and oppression. Living and working in the US for more than 20 years, she's a business development professional competing in male-dominated construction industries. She is skilled at creating inclusive environments and employing the power of empathy to generate understanding and awareness. As a CultureALL Ambassador, Yolandi shares her own personal stories with audiences in her Cultural Diffusion workshop to educate and celebrate the way cultures merge and spread around the world.
Reviews
“I found the experience in working with CultureALL DEI Planning to be very eye opening and powerful. Having the opportunity to work with someone one-on-one, in a confidential and safe space, to review my personal survey results allowed me to dig deeper into my own knowledge of diversity, equity and inclusion. Leaving those conversations with an intentional and customized action plan designed for me has already proven incredibly valuable as I continue to personally grow and develop from a DEI perspective.”