‘Appreciative Inquiry’ to be focus of HR expert May 31

AURORA, Ill. May 12, 2006 - “Appreciative Inquiry: Discovery, Dream, Design, Development” will be discussed at Aurora University’s Human Resources Institute at 8 a.m. on Wednesday, May 31.

The program is free to the public at the University Banquet Hall at Alumni Hall, 1410 Marseillaise Pl., Aurora. Networking and refreshments are from 7:30 to 8 a.m.; the presentation is at 8 a.m.

The program features Vincent Pellettiere, AU assistant professor of management. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in human resources management and the SHRM Learning System.

Pellettiere said, “There’s been a lot of buzz about Appreciative Inquiry (AI). What is it and why should we be interested? It is about building on strengths, and making our workplaces better. This seminar will help HR professionals and others learn how.”

He said AI is a four-D process: discovery, dream, design, and development. According to Pellettiere, AI is an organization development intervention process used for organizational change and/or to improve an organization's efficiencies and effectiveness.

“It's a process to identify an organization's strength and to use it in order to achieve positive change,” he said. “While conventional interventions focus on organizational problems, and attempt to fix them to attain organizational improvements, AI focuses on organizational strengths not problems.”

Pellettiere, certified as a Senior Professional Human Resources (SPHR), has been a human resources generalist for 27 years. His industry experience includes plumbing fixture manufacturing, plastic dairy and drink containers, and coffee manufacturing, distribution, and marketing.

Before joining AU in 2004, he served as a vice president for human resources of a Fortune 100 Company.

Pellettiere earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Loyola University, an MBA from Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, and a Ph.D. in organizational development from Benedictine University.

HR Institute co-sponsors are the university’s Dunham School of Business and Human Resource Management Systems, LLC, of Naperville.

Call (630) 844-3866 for information.

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