West High School to Feature Nationally Known Workplace Bullying Expert

Sioux City, IA, April 10, 2008 – West High School, in partnership with the Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention, will feature Dr. Gary Namie, a nationally known workplace bullying advocate, as part of a professional development session on Monday, April 14th, from 2-4 p.m. in the West High media center. 

This is the second visit to Sioux City for Dr. Namie.  In an earlier visit in October of 2007. Dr. Namie  presented an all day workshop sponsored by Western Iowa Tech Community College and the Waitt Foundation, and spoke at a noon luncheon for the business community.

Dr. Namie, co founder of the Workplace Bullying Institute, along with his wife, Dr. Ruth Namie, has been featured in the New York Times, ABC News, and CNBC in the last 30 days, and is the author of “The Bully at Work”.

Principal Jim Vanderloo, who helped organize the presentation with Dr. Alan Heisterkamp of the Waitt Institute, said, “We regularly discuss strategies to stop bullying and harassment behaviors in our school through the Mentors in Violence Prevention Strategies program.   We’ve empowered our student leaders to have very frank and direct discussions on these topics within our freshman mentoring program.  Having Dr.Namie address our faculty and representatives from the entire school district on the importance of promoting a positive, healthy, and constructive work environment can only increase the likelihood of our staff and faculty meeting their highest potential.”

Dr. Heisterkamp said, “We are pleased that Jim Vanderloo is willing to do a follow up to Dr. Namie's previous visit to Sioux City, where addressed members of the business community and gave a conference at WITCC.  Mr. Vanderloo has been a champion for our efforts to address school bullying.  This is a great chance to continue our community dialogue and focus on preventing bullying, violence, and harassment."

This is the Waitt Institute’s third partnership with Dr. Namie and the Workplace Bullying Institute. In early September of 2007, the Workplace Bullying Institute and the Waitt Institute co- sponsored a national Zogby Poll to determine the prevalence of workplace bullying in the United States, which among other findings, showed that 37% of American workers, 54 million people, have been bullied at work.  The poll has appeared in numerous national media outlets such as NBC, Time, Forbes, New York Times, Chicago Tribune and others.

Dr Namie and others will be available for interviews Monday at 1 p.m. at West High School.  For further information on the West High presentationk, contact Alan Heisterkamp at 232- 9929. 

Other information is available at http://bullyinginstitute.org.