Oneida Blagg

Oneida Blagg, UMass Lowell’s director of Equal Opportunity and Outreach, is featured in the first-ever edition of the publication Inclusion: Perspectives on Career Advancement, which recently hit newsstands.

Inclusion is produced by the Bay State Banner – the Boston-based weekly newspaper that serves the African-American community – as its first publication geared toward adults of diverse backgrounds.

“(Inclusion) is a resource for college graduates and young adults who are seeking to advance their professional development in organizations that are committed to inclusion,” the Banner states. Its mission is “to empower young professionals with the information and tools they need to advance their careers within Massachusetts.”

Blagg, who leads UMass Lowell’s efforts to recruit diverse job-seekers, was interviewed by Inclusion on a number of topics from her upbringing in Tacoma, Wash.,  to her years serving in the National Guard and how that led her to the University.

Blagg – who is one of six children in a military family – spent part of her childhood in Hawaii before the family moved to Tacoma. As a family with a tri-racial background, Blagg says, her parents encouraged her and her siblings to read about diversity and form opinions. “We had to discuss it at our home,” she says.

Being able to speak comfortably about the issues surrounding diversity is one of the skills Blagg says is important in her job today.

But that isn’t all that’s needed, she says. “I think what a lot of people don’t realize is the career field doesn’t just require an opinionated person, it requires training and understanding of laws and how to interpret them.”

Blagg, who holds degrees in political science and social science with a focus on organizational conflict, got her start in the equal opportunity and outreach field at her alma mater, Pacific Lutheran University. From there, she took a full-time position with the National Guard, in which she had previously served part-time.

She says her graduate coursework in counseling helps her in her job today through her ability to communicate with people about their concerns and to seek out underlying issues that result from conflict.

“You deal with a lot of emotional content,” says Blagg, who has participated in about 600 hours of training related to her field.

Being featured in the first issue of Inclusion, she says, is a “very nice honor. I also think it will help draw focus to what we’re doing here at the University.”

She was asked by Inclusion about the things that are the most helpful in her job. Her answer: “Humility and grace.”

It doesn’t matter, Blagg says, if someone feels discriminated against or is accused of discrimination. “You can’t automatically take sides. That takes humility.” Grace comes into play, she says, in “being able to stand back and determine what happened.”

The launch of Inclusion was held at the Recruit & Retain: Diversity Career Expo in Boston in early April. The event was presented by the Bay State Banner and the National Black MBA Association and sponsored by the National Association of Asian American Professionals-Boston and Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting.