
A Tribute to Janet Bennett from Donna Stringer
It was 1986 and I had just started my Diversity Consulting and Training Company. Someone suggested the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication so my co-founder and I drove to Portland, checked in and signed up for classes. Three weeks: Dean Barnlund, Jack Condon, Tom Kochman, Peggy Pusch, Milton Bennett and Janet Bennett. It is fair to say that no three weeks has ever changed two people more. We talked and cried all the way home to Seattle; we changed our business strategies and training curricula, and I never missed another SIIC until the last one three years ago.
In 1989 I conducted an evening class which was, unbeknownst to me, an “audition” to see if I could be a faculty member. I apparently passed and began co-teaching with Michael Paige, Andy Reynolds, and Anita Rowe over the next 30 years. Each summer was the excitement of preparing classes—retooling old ones, creating new ones. Each summer we got to see old friends and meet new ones at our “Adult Culture Camp”. Many of us joked that if we didn’t have that time together in the summer, we didn’t know how we would survive the rest of the year which turned out to be prophetic. Surviving the last few years—covid aside—has been challenging without the intensity of being together with those who breathe life force into our lives and our work.
And the core of all of this, of course, was Janet Bennett. She had a way of connecting with the best people and highlighting the best of each of us. Many people in these testimonies will talk about how Janet changed their lives, how much they learned from her and how she was a giant in the intercultural field and made the field better. All of that is true. Most importantly, however, I think, is that she made each person with whom she came in contact, a better person.
One of the most memorable things we shared was membership in a small group of consultants, brought together by Steve Hanamura, who met quarterly for over two decades to simply share personal and professional issues in our lives. While Janet was a very private person, with this group she was much more transparent and we got to know and appreciate her in a much more personal way. This group has also ceased to meet after three of our members have died.
Over the years I shared many things with Janet: faculty trips to Doha, Qatar; dinners during SIIC; museum trips and dinners during the year; she helped me select my wedding dress; we shopped together, dined together, schemed new classes for SIIC together; and laughed together. One of my greatest regrets is that Andy Reynolds and I (and others) were never able to convince her to consider a succession plan for SIIC management. Janet never thought she would leave SIIC (or this world). And many of us also could not envision SIIC or a world without her presence, so we were somewhat taken by surprise when she was no longer there.
During the past few months of her life, we talked on a fairly regular basis, thanks to her most loyal friend, Sandy Garrison, who made those phone calls possible. Janet never quit dreaming about how to make the field better and how she might find a home for the world-class library at SIIC.
ICI is gone now and so is ”Mother Bennett”. But SIIC, and Janet, has spawned many smaller programs that carry the intercultural field forward. They are not the same as SIIC but progress is like that—things change even when some of us wish they didn’t. Rest In Peace, my friend. Your work is done and you did it well.
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Dr. Janet M. Bennett: A First Lady of the Intercultural Field
From Robert Hayles
Janet was an extraordinary interculturally competent organizer, contributor, scholar, designer, trainer, educator, researcher, practitioner, speaker, leader, executive director, volunteer, and discreet activist. She brought a unique set of intellectual strengths blended with warmth, compassion, sensitivity, and inclusivity to her work and life. Many of us were guided and inspired by her expertise, knowledge, and style.
Her contributions comprehensively covered cognitive, affective, and behavioral arenas. Selected samples are briefly described below:
COGNITIVE
The field has a stronger evidence-based practice because of her contributions grounded in research, theory, and practice.
Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity
Janet was one of the architects of this model and helped build its foundation using data meticulously collected over time across many cultures. She helped test this model so that it could be used for diagnosing and facilitating the development of intercultural sensitivity among individuals. Because of the rigor and flexibility designed into this model, I found it also applicable for organizational diagnosis and development. In the practice of applying this model to large scale organizational change Janet made this groundbreaking approach replicable in diverse organizational types. It has now been tested by decades of use with individuals and at least one decade with organizations of many different cultures and types.
Intercultural Competence
This concept promulgated by Janet goes beyond simple cultural competence and integrates knowledge, skills, mindsets, and awareness or heartsets to enable effective intercultural interactions.
Describe, Interpret, Evaluate
These three words show a three-step disciplined sequential approach taught by Janet that leads to dealing with ambiguity and uncertainty while keeping an open mind and showing less bias.
Marginality
This concept disseminated by Dr. Bennett delineates the benefits and potential pitfalls that come from living on the edge of two of more societies and having an identity beyond any specific culture.
“Challenge and Support” Grid
This grid guides facilitators helping individuals grow in competence by appropriately blending challenge and support in a sequence that systematically meets learners where they are and helps them progress to a higher level of intercultural competence.
Developmentally sequenced training designs
Dr. Bennet took instructional design to a higher level by making the content, learning modalities, pacing, and sequencing organized to facilitate stage-based healthy change and growth.
When students and professionals seek to fathom the state-of-the-art in the intercultural field, Janet’s writings are critical to that understanding. They give us explicit and evidence-based guidance for designing training that produces measurable outcomes. Her professional refereed journal articles, book chapters, an encyclopedia, and widely disseminated training materials yield a balanced and thorough understanding of the meaning and potential of intercultural communication. In Dr. Bennett’s literature, one finds concepts and tools, like those sampled above, that effectively enhance intercultural competence and communication.
AFFECTIVE
Janet was cautious, careful, and respectful when addressing the affective component of developing intercultural competence. She frequently challenged practitioners who conducted training that dealt with emotional issues to make sure they possessed the requisite skills and mindset to do so. Dr. Bennett was strongly opposed to inflicting pain in the interest of stimulating learning. For her, affective content had to be respectful, developmentally sequenced for diverse needs and learning styles, sensitive to a broad range of identities, and diplomatic. Within those parameters, the affective content of training designed or conducted by Janet was consistently powerful. Facilitation, not manipulation was her mantra. She believed that if any wounds were intentionally or unintentionally opened, they should be carefully tended. She often did the tending personally or directed that it be done when she was not able to do so herself. The concepts and tools noted in the cognitive section above were designed to address this dimension so as to facilitate healthy growth and unity, not guilt or division. Janet’s heartset reflected talent in conflict prevention, peace-making, and peace-keeping.
BEHAVIORAL
Building on Janet’s Peace Corps experience, global travel, academic education, administrative roles, professional organization engagements, and her behind-the-scenes activism, she applied her competencies to advance demonstrable and healthy change for individuals and organizations. Consequently, when using quantitative or qualitative evaluations of individuals and organizations subsequent to Janet’s efforts, healthy change followed. I have had the benefit of personally seeing data (both public and confidential) verifying this for numerous organizations. Janet nurtured personal and professional growth for many individuals, ranging from students to colleagues to highly visible leaders of agencies and corporations.
A LAST NOTE
I will remember Dr. Bennet for her unique blend of high competence, strong leadership, and exceptional nurturance that has been generously shared with all of us. She was without doubt a remarkable First Lady of Intercultural Competence.
Note: While Dr. Janet M. Bennet has many tomes and treatises, my favorites are her copyrighted handouts and “Transformative Training: Designing Programs for Culture Learning” a chapter published by Sage Publications in 2008 in Contemporary Leadership and Intercultural Competence. Many of the concepts mentioned in this article can be found in that chapter.
Dr. V. Robert Hayles
Colleague and Friend of Dr. Janet M. Bennett
Effectiveness/Diversity & Inclusion Consultant
SIETAR Member (for decades)
Intercultural Communication Institute Faculty
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PostScript: Having reached this point in this commemorative issue, you know how highly Janet was regarded by her peers. There is no accolade higher than that, and it is well deserved. Her life clearly had its ups and downs like the rest of us but that didn’t seem to diminish her impact on individuals, groups, and the entire intercultural field—she carried on despite adversities. The care and kindness that both Sandy Garrison and Steven Dowd offered Janet during her protracted illness in her final years needs to be acknowledged. Among the many others who remained in touch, they were the best of companions and Steven was with her at the end. They both deserve our gratitude for their loving care of Janet.
Janet is gone but her light has not gone out. Her flame continues in the many students and colleagues who learned from her, in the groups and organizations that benefitted from her brilliance, and in the many friends who sought her wise counsel and embodied her pursuit of understanding. (Sandra M. Fowler, Editor)