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A Critical Reflection on Servant-Leadership Through the Lens of Gender and Race-Ethnicity
No full textTo date, gender and race-ethnicity as social identities are underexplored in the servant-leadership literature. In our critical reflection, we problematize this gap by discussing some underlying assumptions about the promise of servant-leadership flattening relational hierarchy and rendering women an advantage. This paper integrates a review of 51 journal articles published from 2009 to 2023 that explore servant-leadership related to gender and race-ethnicity and researcher paradigms that define constructs of gender and race-ethnicity. Our discussion is guided by two broad questions: 1) How are gender and race-ethnicity explored in the servant-leadership literature? 2) How do servant-leaders conceptualize or experience their own gender or race-ethnicity in relationship to their leadership? We make sense of the mixed findings of servant-leadership related to gender or race-ethnicity and their implications through these lenses. Further, we propose future pathways to advance our understanding of the complex intersection of identity and servant-leadership
Leading Innovation: Inspiring Teams and Cultivating Culture
No full textBreakout Session #1
“Leading Innovation: Inspiring Teams and Cultivating Culture explores the dynamic realm of innovation, focusing on leaders’ roles in inspiring and enabling their teams. The presentation draws insights from industry leaders like Disney, Google, Amazon, and many more. The focus is to guide attendees in cultivating a culture of innovation within their organizations. Throughout the presentation, many examples from companies are shared. These examples make the concepts come alive and facilitate attendees’ thinking about how they could apply them in their own organizations. This presentation also encompasses a diverse array of tools and techniques, offering a comprehensive overview of fostering innovation in the workplace. These strategies are versatile and applicable to organizations of any size, age, or industry. Whether an organization is a startup or an established enterprise, these proven techniques can be tailored to suit its unique context, enabling attendees to drive innovation and stay at the forefront of their industry. The aim of the presentation is to empower attendees to become innovative leaders who inspire innovation within the teams they lead
Technology and Ethical Responsibility
No full textChaired by Anthony Fisher, Ph.D. (Gonzaga University)
Since the advent of the atomic bomb 80 years ago, technology has empowered humankind with world-ending capabilities. These capabilities have continued to multiply over the decades, culminating in the development of artificial intelligence. AI is the ultimate technology, “our final invention,” in the words of some, invoking thoughts not only of the power of AI to help us invent more things, but also the idea that invention might end along with us. All of which might provoke the question: should we really be doing this?
Whenever we see the word “should” we are seeing ethics enter the conversation. Ethics is becoming increasingly important due to the world experiencing inflection points on several long-term trends. One of the longest-term of these trends involves humanity’s growing power due to technology. Technology gives us greater efficiency of action, greater scope of action, and greater determinacy of outcome. In the past, humans were involuntarily constrained by their lack of power; now, greatly empowered, we must learn to be voluntarily constrained by our own good judgment. This is as true for individuals as for civilization itself.
Described in another way, what were once constants in society are becoming variables; or, metaphorically, civilization is changing from a solid to a liquid. Fixed relationships are changing, becoming fluid; what was once taken for granted is no more. In some cases, this might be a liberation from past oppressive norms, but in other cases it might be like randomly mutating an organism – some radiation might be tolerable, but a bit more leads to cancer, and a bit more leads to swift death. If we don’t want civilization to completely liquefy and go down the drain, we need to figure out new ways to maintain as constant those things which must remain constant, while also melting and moving those things which need to be corrected, and then “fixed” into a new place.
This is why technology ethics has become one of the most important topics in the world right now: what we previously had decided for us in our weakness must now be decided by us through our voluntary choice. And if we can choose to have anything – which is the desired endpoint for AI, after all – then it becomes very important not only to choose the right things, but even more so to want the right things. We need to want good outcomes and not bad ones. We need to want not just to avoid bad technology, not just to achieve neutral technology, we need to want truly good technology – and someone has to make that happen.
Which brings us to responsibility. Everyone has a responsibility to live an ethical life as an individual to the best of their abilities, and those with more power are more responsible for what they do. Again, as individuals, as technology empowers us more and more, responsibility rises along with it, and for groups of people as well: organizations, nations, and ultimately all of humankind.
Given the situation at hand, the only solutions are either to weaken ourselves, to decrease our power and thus, like in the past, have more of life decided for us involuntarily (this might happen by our choice or it might be forced upon us by natural or human-made disaster), or to dramatically increase our emphasis on ethics, to the extent that we actually determine how to fix the array of moral problems before us and stop society from going down the drain.
This requires a multi-level, multi-vertical, socio-ethical solution. There are the four levels described above: international, national, organizational, and individual. There are also multiple cross-cutting vertical focus areas: political, religious, educational, cultural, economic, and so on. The objectives of the solution are social and ethical: to give people awareness of problems, the facts needed for understanding the problems and imagine possible solutions, the ability to evaluate solutions as better than others, and the ability to implement these solutions in a reasonable and effective fashion – and to do all of this faster than any solutions of similar magnitude have ever been implemented before.
As we look at the landscape of organizations and actors attempting to help the world with ethical solutions today, we can see how they start to fit into these categories. Some categories are more filled with solutions, and others are less filled, or even empty. Given these circumstances, this presentation will begin to describe the landscape of approaches to AI and responsibility and then examine if there might be some tractable and impactful areas where effort might be added in order to accelerate the needed ethical work to keep up with the rapid growth of AI
Augmented Lawyering
No full textChaired by Anthony Fisher, Ph.D. (Gonzaga University)
Developments in artificial intelligence (“AI”) impact clients, lawyers, and society. With all its promise and peril, AI raises several considerations for modern lawyers, including how AI makes decisions, how AI is being regulated, and what AI means for the future of work. With these considerations in mind, lawyers must incorporate AI in their advice to clients – and in the way they render legal services. Fundamentally, AI is not quite replacing human lawyers, but it is augmenting them. This augmented lawyer – who embraces AI without over-relying on it – must incorporate AI in client advice while also considering the ethical constraints on lawyer use of AI.
The rise of AI is significant in part because of its rapid development and growth. Technological innovation may occur incrementally, in small developments not felt in our daily lives. But in key points in human history, we identify technological change so radical we call it a revolution. Take, for example, the Agricultural Revolution beginning over 10,000 years ago, which some have characterized as the first economic revolution, in which we shifted human labor from hunting and gathering to cultivating land and farming. In the Eighteenth Century, the Industrial Revolution brought new means of production, allowing for machine manufacturing of goods and leading to large-scale changes across society. And now, the rise of AI marks a new era of major change.
In the last seventy-five years, computers have automated some processes previously limited to human intelligence. The capacity to create, store, and process large amounts of data, coupled with increased processing power, have made this rapid development possible. Just as the Industrial Revolution relied on machinery to overcome the limitations of human physical ability, the AI Revolution harnesses computers that appear to surpass the limitations of human intelligence.
No doubt, these economic revolutions disrupt labor, markets, and society. They also disrupt existing legal structures. At the same time, the law also shapes and facilitates revolution. In the Agricultural Revolution, novel legal concepts of private property and ownership may have played an important role in the shift to farming. In the Industrial Revolution, free markets and a lack of regulation of working conditions to environmental impacts led to unfettered development. Now, AI has the potential to bring growth and new possibilities, particularly with its impact on our legal structures and the practice of law. It is this dual role of the law – as the facilitator of change but also the target of disruption – that creates a tension in the legal profession.
On the precipice of an AI revolution, lawyers must grapple with how to advise clients and ethically use AI in rendering legal services – while also playing a role in shaping the future of the law. New technology, like AI, may very well create new problems. But these new problems rarely eliminate old problems; instead, they bring to light flaws and issues existing in our current systems. Simply automating the status quo will perpetuate and ossify the shortcomings of the status quo. This is true in all areas where AI may be deployed, from the criminal justice system to hiring decisions to autonomous vehicles. For the legal system, core concepts of fairness, due process, and equal protection may be undermined by AI when safeguards are not in place.
Several considerations come into play, including the extent to which decisions can be made by AI, the landscape of ever-evolving AI regulation, and the future of work. This presentation explores the impact AI is having on lawyering, both from the aspect of client advice and the practice of law itself. It explores AI as a possible revolution and the issues it raises in law, policy, and society. It also addresses special AI considerations for the modern lawyer, including AI decision-making, AI regulation, and the future of work
Closing Remarks
No full textClosing remarks from director of Gonzaga\u27s Institute for Informatics and Applied Technology, Dr. Jay Yang, with a reception to follow
Welcome
No full textWelcoming comments from Jay Yang, Director of Gonzaga University\u27s Institute for Informatics and Applied Technology
Dresses and Dreams: the important work of a charity supporting adolescent girls in lower socioeconomic standing.
No full text“We believe in making dreams real, every day. The Princess Project promotes self-confidence and individual beauty by providing free prom dresses and accessories to high school teens who could not otherwise afford them. Our effort is made possible through invaluable support from volunteers, donors, sponsors and the community.” Poverty may eliminate milestone opportunities (e.g., attending prom) for teens. Missing these kinds of opportunities not only decreases moments of fun but may also be a risk factor for lowered self-esteem and diminished school connection (Twenge & Campbell, 2002; Tess, 2011). Missing milestones disconnects adolescents from the school community and may lead to lowered self-esteem; as they feel they cannot keep up with their peers in a social context. This poster will offer evidence that participation in milestones like prom is important for multiple reasons, will offer an overview of one charity that provides prom dresses to teens living in poverty, and will end with a call for more such support for our teenagers
Your Zip-Code, Your Future
No full textPrevious research has shown that public resources are fewer and living conditions are significantly lower for working class neighborhoods in America compared to middle and upper classes (Lott, 2012). Where a person is born and grows up directly affects their future successes and how far they move from their neighborhood (Crowder and South, 2005). This project will analyze the differences in quality of life and access to public resources among four zip codes in Spokane, WA. Spokane is the largest city in Washington state, is made up of 14 standard zip codes, and is a large economic and metropolitan hub for Eastern Washington ( My Spokane City, 2025). However, among these zip codes, there are stark contrasts in annual income, modernity, and most importantly access to public resources. The project will compare four socioeconomically diverse zip codes ( Zip-Codes.com, 2025) through existing statistics about resources, and include photographs depicting the upkeep of public spaces (schools, parks, grocery stores). It will demonstrate that neighborhoods can inhibit or support the economic growth of their constituents. The project will show the ways in which many Americans are disadvantaged from the very start based on the last digit of their zip code
Building Belonging: Gonzaga Family Haven & Community Partnership in Action
No full textThis poster presentation highlights a Community Engaged Learning (CEL) partnership between Gonzaga University’s EDPE 307 Foundations in Sports Outreach course and Gonzaga Family Haven (GFH), an affordable housing community supported by Catholic Charities. Our project focuses on providing structured after-school physical activity programs for elementary and middle school children residing at GFH, while fostering leadership and reflective learning among undergraduate sport management students. Throughout the semester, students collaborated to design, implement, and adapt sports-based outreach sessions that emphasized inclusivity, teamwork, and positive youth development. This engagement not only offered children access to safe, active play but also provided meaningful, real-world experience for students, helping them recognize the broader social systems that shape communities in need. By integrating course content on social justice, diversity, and leadership with hands-on practice, students gained insight into how socioeconomic barriers and systemic inequalities affect access to sports and recreation. The project underscores how educational institutions can empower future professionals to become agents of change through community partnerships rooted in dignity, respect, and belonging. The poster will showcase program outcomes, reflections from both students and GFH participants, and a discussion of how CEL projects like this can advance education, diversity, and hope within marginalized communities
Bridging the Gap: Advancing Perinatal Health Equity to Reduce Racial Disparities in Maternal and Infant Mortality and Morbidity
No full textBackground & Significance: In the United States (US) there are 18.6 pregnancy-related deaths per 100,000 live births (2014-2020). A study conducted by the Washington Department of Health, showed that non-Hispanic Black women in Washington were more than 2.5 times likely to die from pregnancy related causes than non-Hispanic White women, and an overwhelming 80% of pregnancy-related deaths were preventable. The disparities in maternal mortality are mirrored by infant mortality. Black newborns in the US die at three times the rate of white newborns. A study of 1.8 million hospital births in Florida (1992 – 2015) showed that when black newborns are cared for by black physicians, mortality risk for Black infants compared to White infants decreased by 50%. Studies show that the impacts of racism affect midwifery’s lack of racial diversity, acting as a barrier to people of color completing midwifery education programs and contributing to the profession. Both patients and midwives of color have identified midwives of color as uniquely positioned to provide high-quality care for communities of color. These studies highlight the value of diversity in maternal healthcare and the health benefits of racial concordance in patients and providers. A racially diverse midwifery and doula workforce has the potential to bridge gaps in healthcare access, improve patient-provider trust, and ultimately contribute to better health outcomes for marginalized communities. Purpose: The purpose of my project is to complete a literature review that informs a community- driven research project. Through listening sessions, we will collaborate with the Shades of Motherhood Network (SOMN), an organization committed to culturally relevant childbirth experiences for Black mothers and infants of color in Spokane, WA. This project will investigate whether midwives and doulas of color improve perinatal health outcomes for mothers and infants of color and reduce racial disparities in maternal and infant mortality and morbidity