Student Analysis
Yuka Nagashima ’88 and The Leaky Ship
By Jane ’22 and Alina ’22
Students Jane ’22 and Alina ’22 share with us their takeaways after interviewing Yuka Nagashima ’88 for the Career Conference keynote.
On Monday, October 26, we had the pleasure of attending the 3rd annual Career Conference and interviewing the keynote speaker, Yuka Nagashima. Ms. Nagashima is the executive director at Food Shift, an organization that aims to reduce food waste, create jobs and feed communities. Ms. Nagashima is a champion for JEDI training, which stands for Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. She is currently using JEDI training to respond to the Black Lives Matter movement and shifting priorities in the workplace.
A few days before the conference, the two of us first heard her leaky ship analogy. We were immediately intrigued by the story. The analogy talks about the relationship between those living on the lower and upper decks of the ship, which represent the social and economical levels of our society. The lower decks are heavily affected by this leak, and the upper levels start bringing buckets down to help remove the water. As time goes on, the leak becomes the norm for everyone living above, and it slowly leads to the idea that the people below actually deserve the trouble, because they did not work hard enough to leave the bottom decks and clear the water. Some people on the upper decks only help with buckets because, in a way, it boosts their self-esteem and makes them look better. However, using buckets to remove the water is only a temporary solution, as it does not actually fix the leak that is the source of the problem. This analogy reflects a problem with charities and making differences in our modern society. After listening, we came up with a list of questions that we would ask her at the career conference. They stemmed from ideas we hoped Ms. Nagashima could expand on, or illustrate with her personal examples.
During her keynote session, she recounted the leaky ship analogy for those who hadn’t heard it before and we asked her our questions about challenging the status quo, collective versus independent agency, and privilege. We also asked her to talk about her experience with racial bias in the workplace and what she is doing to fight it. Ms. Nagashima went on to give valuable information about how we can maximize our impact in the actions we make, as well as how we can work towards creating a better and more equitable society for women in the future. She is also involved with Astia, an organization that aims to level the playing field for female entrepreneurs by helping them access venture capital, and teaching them how to network effectively.
After interviewing Ms. Nagashima, our main takeaways from this experience are that discovering our own values and participating in activities that boost them is the best way to maximize the change we make in our community. Ms. Nagashima also provided us with very useful examples of how we can overcome challenges when faced with inequality in the workplace. We need to find a place where we can use skills that we excel in to benefit society, something that everyone is capable of doing.