Meeting Minutes
Diversity Committee
Meeting, January 16, 2007
Present: Eleanor Block (Chair), Amanda Clark, Eboni Francis, Linda Gonzalez, Deidra Herring, Rebekah Kilzer, Beverly McDonald, Duke Morgan, Cyndi Preston, Charles Smith
Absent: Wendy Adcock
Linda Gonzalez stressed that we should not promise to furnish refreshments when we contact people. We can offer financial help if the Libraries are involved in the workshop. Eleanor wants us to be pro-active and to look for chances to work with others. Charles Smith suggested inviting people from various cultural groups to work with us. Duke indicated that he is already receiving workshop announcements from Pat Hall on a regular basis and sending the announcements to liball, including another presentation of the "Building Community by Welcoming Diversity" workshop that members of the Diversity Committee attended in July 2006.
Linda Gonzalez mentioned that the Libraries will be giving multiple workshops on harassment (sexual and otherwise) that faculty, staff and students will be expected to attend. The Diversity Committee could act as a sponsor for these workshops (e.g., University Libraries, in cooperation with the Libraries's Diversity Committee, is giving a workshop on ...). Another possibility, suggested by Eboni Francis, is that the Libraries sponsor one of the blood drives put on by the American Red Cross (perhaps tie it to the need for blood for people who have sickle cell anemia).
Eboni presented another possibility at the October 24, 2006 meeting. She came across a brochure from the Ohio State University Leadership Center that listed some of the training workshops and programs that the Center offers. Eboni requested more information about a few of the programs that sounded interesting and then shared the results of her inquiry with the other committee members. The four workshops/programs that were described in detail were: Leadership at the movies-- women in leadership roles; Pigeon-holed in the land of the penguins; Wealth, innovation & diversity; and Showdown at Generation Gap.
Absent: Wendy Adcock
Minutes
The minutes of the November 21, 2006 meeting were approved as written.Diversity issues
Tell Eleanor Block if you hear of diversity issues that would be of interest to our committee.
Diversity Committee workshops
As Vice Chair of the Diversity Committee, Duke Morgan has been looking into possible future workshops. He noted that we don't have to do workshops just by ourselves. We can work with various departments (e.g., Black Studies and Women's Studies) and people (e.g., Pat Hall, the Assistant Director of the Multicultural Center) to co-sponsor workshops and do cooperative programming. For example, Duke will contact Linda Krikos, Women's Studies Librarian, to see if she can suggest possible workshops. The Committee can also apply for grants. Duke reminded us that the Libraries do have space for meetings that other groups may not have, especially after the Ohio Union closes at the end of January 2007.
Linda Gonzalez stressed that we should not promise to furnish refreshments when we contact people. We can offer financial help if the Libraries are involved in the workshop. Eleanor wants us to be pro-active and to look for chances to work with others. Charles Smith suggested inviting people from various cultural groups to work with us. Duke indicated that he is already receiving workshop announcements from Pat Hall on a regular basis and sending the announcements to liball, including another presentation of the "Building Community by Welcoming Diversity" workshop that members of the Diversity Committee attended in July 2006.
Diversity Committee mission statement
The final version of our mission statement says: "The Diversity Committee is committed to an environment that welcomes, cultivates, values and celebrates the differences and contributions of students, faculty and staff at the Ohio State University Libraries."
Diversity Committee web site
A goal for this year is to revise the Diversity Committee web site. Rebekah Kilzer told us about the changes she had made to the web site based on our comments at the November 21, 2006 meeting. The changes affected both the Diversity Committee web page and the section on the Mary P. Key Diversity Residency Program. Eleanor wants to update the information on all of the residents, both past and present. Deidra Herring and Eboni Francis will provide the information about themselves. Cyndi Preston will look for information about the former residents and report back to us. Linda Gonzalez stated that she should be the contact person for information about the Residency Program, not Joe Branin. The links on the web page were checked and they were OK. The committee thanked Rebekah for all of her computer help with this project.
"Facets of Diversity"
Rebekah Kilzer sent us an email about the 2005-2006 edition of "Facets of Diversity," the Ohio State University's annual diversity report. She wondered if the Diversity Committee would want to submit something for this year's report. Linda Gonzalez told us that the Libraries submitted a report last year but our information wasn't in the final compilation, perhaps because the editors weren't sure where to put us since the Libraries are neither teaching nor research. Linda has turned in the information for this year's report and will forward the report to the Diversity Committee. This year the report covered the last five years instead of asking for an action plan. Someone from the "Facets" group will talk to the Libraries's Executive Committee about our report for this year; no date has been set for this meeting.
Hale Black Cultural Center
Charles Smith has agreed to be our liaison with the Frank W. Hale Jr. Black Cultural Center. He will be working with Ron Parker, the Program Manager for the Hale Center. According to Charles, Ron Parker needs large areas for his workshops, which are booked well in advance of the meeting date. Duke suggested that various areas in the basement of the Science and Engineering Library could be combined to form one large area.
OSU Libraries/Kent State School of Library and Information Science Fellowship
Joe Branin feels that the OSU Libraries/Kent State School of Library and Information Science Fellowship is important. The Libraries want to have a fellowship if they can find money for it in the budget. In the meantime, Linda Gonzalez continues to look for a job description for the fellowship position.
Resident Librarians
The Libraries are committed to filling the Resident Librarian position. Linda Gonzalez will write up a job description with input from from Eboni Francis and Deidra Herring, our most recent Residents. This time, we will have only one Resident.
Possible programs to be sponsored by the Diversity Committee
One possibility for a Winter Quarter 2007 program would be to have minority students from various groups do selected readings for us. Charles Smith has talked to Donna Distel, who coordinates the Libraries's weekly Read Aloud presentations, and she is very excited about working with us on this. The details about the time, the location and the readers and their readings still need to be worked out. Eleanor Block has a list of the various student groups
at Ohio State University; that list will help us to contact people for this presentation. Another possibility for a workshop would be to contact Mac Stewart, Vice Provost for Minority Affairs and Chief Diversity Officer. He has programs but needs the space to present his programs. We could work with him on this.
Linda Gonzalez mentioned that the Libraries will be giving multiple workshops on harassment (sexual and otherwise) that faculty, staff and students will be expected to attend. The Diversity Committee could act as a sponsor for these workshops (e.g., University Libraries, in cooperation with the Libraries's Diversity Committee, is giving a workshop on ...). Another possibility, suggested by Eboni Francis, is that the Libraries sponsor one of the blood drives put on by the American Red Cross (perhaps tie it to the need for blood for people who have sickle cell anemia).
Eboni presented another possibility at the October 24, 2006 meeting. She came across a brochure from the Ohio State University Leadership Center that listed some of the training workshops and programs that the Center offers. Eboni requested more information about a few of the programs that sounded interesting and then shared the results of her inquiry with the other committee members. The four workshops/programs that were described in detail were: Leadership at the movies-- women in leadership roles; Pigeon-holed in the land of the penguins; Wealth, innovation & diversity; and Showdown at Generation Gap.
Next meeting
The meeting scheduled for January 30, 2007 has been cancelled to give us time to work on our various assignments. The next scheduled meeting will be Tuesday, February 13, 2007, 1:15 p.m.-2:15 p.m. in Room 414, Science and Engineering Library.