Meeting Minutes
Diversity Committee
Meeting, September 27, 2005
Present: Eleanor Block (Chair), Amanda Clark, Eboni Francis, Linda Gonzalez, Deidra Herring, Beverly McDonald, Duke Morgan, Cyndi Preston, Charles Smith
Absent: Virginia Reynolds
Absent: Virginia Reynolds
Minutes
The minutes of the August 30 and September 13, 2005 meetings were approved as written.Workshop on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) issues
Duke Morgan announced that the GLBT workshop will be a brown bag given on Monday, October 17, 12 noon-1 p.m. in Room 210, Main Library. Sara Kozel will be presenting the workshop to the
group. We will break into groups of eight and security will set up
the room so that it is ready to go. The presentation will include a slide show (Sara Kozel will supply the slides and equipment) and finish with questions and answers. Beverages will be supplied by Linda Gonzalez and Duke. People will wear name tags since this is an interactive workshop. Eleanor will do the publicity and give a general introduction at the workshop. Duke will introduce Sara Kozel.
Mary P. Key Diversity Residency program
The list of opportunities for the residents given in the Diversity Committee minutes for September 13, 2005 was discussed at some length. Several people liked the idea of this information being issued in checklist form. Deidra Herring said that the residents are doing a lot of these things now; opportunities flow from what the residents are doing at that time. Linda Gonzalez stressed that the residencies need to be flexible; the residents and their supervisors decide what they want to do. Deidra noted that Fall Quarter, the start of the academic year, is especially busy (e.g., new staff orientation, faculty orientation, etc.). You don't want to overload with too many other activities at this time. Eboni Francis, who is based in FAE, found this year's "Roads" tour, which introduces faculty to non-Columbus parts of Ohio State University, very helpful. She got to meet a number of agricultural extension agents, people that she works with on a regular basis. The list of opportunities that we now have just gives an overview of the possibilities. Other items can be added as we go along. Eleanor will redo the list and send it out to us. Later, this information can be added to the committee's website.
Written reports from the residents
The residents are writing a number of reports. Eboni does a weekly report for her supervisor, Susan Logan, FAE. When Deidra spent some time at FAE, she also did a weekly report for Susan. The Diversity Committee wants a written report from the residents every six months from the time when the resident started working at Ohio State. This report does not have to be really long and could use the FAR as a template. The report will be posted on the Diversity Committee website with copies to the immediate supervisors. The first report is due October 31, 2005. Charles Smith wondered if there should be a state of the Residency Program report given once a year. Perhaps this could be a part of the annual Diversity Committee report presented at a Library Faculty meeting. This year's Committee report will be given at the October 11, 2005 Library Faculty meeting.
Video on Islamic Art
People that have seen the video entitled Islamic Art really like it and are pleased with its emphasis on Islamic culture. Committee members that haven't done so, should see this video which was recommended by Pat McCandless, the former chair of the Diversity Committee. Dona Straley, who has volunteered to help with any presentation, will be contacted to see if she can recommend a resource person who knows Islamic culture. We want to have a program built around this video during Winter Quarter 2006 (perhaps in February). If we want refreshments at this meeting, we should apply to Linda for funding.
Campus of Diversity Workshops
The Anti-Defamation League is launching a national partnership with
Abercrombie & Fitch to promote diversity and empower faculty,
staff and students. Eleanor has signed up for the Thursday workshop and Charles will attend the one on Wednesday.
Diversity Committee website
Jennifer Kuehn reminded Eleanor that the information on our former residents is very out of date. We should volunteer to help update the information on specific former residents (Eleanor will email us a list of the names). The current residents also need to provide information for the website. We will also review our mission statement. Duke and Linda will write up a job description for a work study student to do the actual inputting of information. Eleanor will let Betty Sawyers know that we will be working on our website.
Next meeting
The next meeting will be Tuesday, October 11, 1:30-2:30 p.m. in Room 124, Main Library.