The Babbling Bear celebrates the relationship between Lisa Nishii, Vice-Provost for  Undergraduate Education at Cornell University and the World Economic Forum. Tying ourselves to the heroic vision of the World Economic Forum is our best chance of eliminating the racist, transphobic, Eurocentric nation-states around the world and begin an era of social and climate justice.

Among her accomplishments:

Nishii is an expert on inclusion in organizations. Her research focuses on the complex interplay of organizational practices, leadership, and collective norms on experiences of inclusion. She is most passionate about workplace climate/culture, which is known to be one of the strongest determinants of human behavior at work.

Her research – which has been funded by the U.S. Departments of Labor and Education as well as private foundations – has shown that individual experiences of bias and harassment are largely eliminated in inclusive workgroup climates. Moreover, by developing and leveraging positive, heterogeneous network ties and reducing negative ones, people working in inclusive climates more successfully integrate diverse perspectives in ways that promote higher quality decision making.

Given the strong evidence she has found for the benefits of cultivating inclusive climates, she is currently conducting an ambitious quasi-experimental study to test the effectiveness of interventions designed to teach leaders how to be “climate architects.”

As Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education at Cornell, Nishii oversees a wide range of initiatives and programs across all eight undergraduate colleges and schools, ranging in focus from curricular and pedagogical innovation to student success, equity and inclusion, learning analytics, student advising, and beyond.

Nishii has been a key player in the university’s crisis management team in response to COVID-19; she co-authored Cornell University’s ambitious reopening plan for the 2020-2021 academic year and has been in the front lines of its implementation.

The Babbling Bear has only one criticism. The World Economic Forum website should be updated to change the outdated word “inclusion” to the more inclusive word, “belonging”.

In the future, the Babbling Bear hopes that President Pollack will be selected to represent Cornell as part of the Global University Leaders Forum of the World Economic Forum.

The exception often proves the rule when it comes to celebrating the virtues of the World Economic Forum. The mendacious, racist, and crazy Naomi Wolf, who is an anti-vaxxer, who was against lockdowns, and who also thinks abortion is not sacred, unfairly gives evil motives to the World Economic Forum, as well as to sacred billionaires, and the people of color in China when it comes to our educational institutions:

…this is a captured [Biden] administration and captured institutions that are allowing the CCP and their allies, the World Economic Forum, [and the] Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to cripple our country.

Wolf also spewed:

The COVID pandemic was used to strip us of our liberties and to conceptually terraform America into being ready to accept a CCP-style World Economic Forum-guided post-humane and post-constitutional world.

With brave leaders such as Vice-Provost Nishii who, along with the World Economic Forum, is seeking equity and inclusion (i.e., belonging), Cornell will become a true Global university and bring cooperation to a fragmented world.