Bea Young’s passion for this work began in the early l960’s when she and her students in a Black Chicago high school revised the history curriculum to include the missing roles of African-Americans, primarily based on oral history. After writing her master’s thesis in l964 on African-American history, she taught a graduate course at the Center for Inner Studies of Northeastern Illinois University. The course was entitled, “The Educational Implications of African-American History.” This led her to Mississippi in 1964 to work in the Civil Rights’ Freedom Schools. Bea is currently the Practice Leader at The Kaleidoscope Group for the Educational Organizations Diversity Practice and Municipalities Diversity Practice.
In l965 she was invited to create the first Human Relations Education Services Department at the Illinois Commission on Human Relations, providing race relations workshops and curriculum throughout Illinois school districts. In the late 70’s, she was selected by the Board of Directors to become the Executive Director serving several Illinois governors. During her tenure, they also developed proactive approaches to racial change through departments of Police-Community Relations, Community Relations and Housing.
In l974 she joined ACTION, the federal agency coordinating volunteer programs such as VISTA and the Peace Corp, serving as the Region V Training Manager. During this time she also facilitated her first corporate diversity program and as a result was invited to join Harbridge House, Inc., an international management consulting firm in 1976. She established their Managing Diversity Practice, becoming one of the pioneers in the diversity industry. In 1979 she co-authored a corporate training program entitled, “Affirmative Action: The Next Phase” which became the industry standard for making the transition to diversity and inclusion. Some of the early clients, who engaged in her organizational development approach to diversity, included Sears, Allstate, Motorola, S.C. Johnson, Merck and The Northern Trust Bank. In l978 she became a partner in the firm and later a member of the Executive Committee, Senior V.P. and Managing Director of the Chicago Division of this Boston-based firm.
When Harbridge House joined Coopers & Lybrand in l993, Bea decided to create her own entrepreneurial experience called Bea Young Associates and began to serve many profit and nonprofit organizations with diversity expertise. In l997, Bea Young and Doug Harris, her diversity associate for many years, formed a partnership called The Kaleidoscope Group LLC. Most of Bea’s work is concentrated at the executive levels to help establish leadership commitment to systemic cultural change. She also assists The Kaleidoscope Group engagement teams to develop strategic, tailored and measurable approaches for each client organization.
Within the Educational Organizations Diversity Practice, she has assisted such organizations as National Louis University, Connecticut Central State University and the University of Toledo as well as Plainfield, Illinois School District 202 where she has conducted both Internal and External Cultural Audits. Bea has her BA and MAT degrees from the University of Chicago, where she also worked toward her Ph.D in Social Systems. She completed advanced studies in Organization and System Development at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland and has been a member of NTL since 1978. Rounding out and balancing her life, Bea is also a Yoga instructor and a proud grandmother.