Eileen Kugler

Eileen Gale Kugler passionately champions the unique benefits that diversity brings schools, workplaces, and communities. She challenges audiences to break through society's myth-perceptions about race and culture, empowering them to go beyond celebrations to powerful intercultural learning.

Eileen's award-winning book, "Debunking the Middle-Class Myth: Why diverse schools are good for all kids," is inspiring honest dialogue on what diversity brings to our neighborhoods. Her new book, "Innovative Voices in Education: Engaging Diverse Communities," has been called an "essential resource." Eileen's thought-provoking commentaries on diversity and inclusion in education and business appear in publications from USA Today and The Washington Post to Educational Leadership and The National School Boards Journal.

Eileen's commitment was motivated by the education of her children at one of the most diverse schools in the nation with students from wide-ranging cultures and economic backgrounds, hailing from nearly 90 nations. Blending her professional skill as a communications expert with her volunteer commitment, Eileen worked collaboratively with administrators, faculty, parents, students and community members to rebuild the school's crumbling community support and turn it into a vibrant focal point of its multicultural community, highlighted in media around the world. Eileen was named Education Advocate of the Year for Virginia.

Today, Eileen engages audiences with her powerful message of how diversity and inclusion enrich and enhance each of us -- in our schools, in our workplace, and in our communities -- when we dare to break through our own cocoons of comfort. From the words of an impoverished illiterate grandmother in South Africa to the tale of a top-achieving immigrant student from Pakistan caught in two-worlds, Eileen's inspiring stories surprise, enlighten and challenge audiences with new insights. As one meeting planner said, "There are people who speak well, and people who write well, but few do both as well as Eileen."