University of Tennessee Libraries Diversity Committee
Initial meeting, Monday, February 12, 2001
Facilitator: Thura Mack
Attendees: Tiffani Conner
Jill Keally
Sandy Leach
Maribeth Manoff
Tamara Miller
Joe Rader
Becky Roller
Molly Royse
Anthony Smith
Absent: Dave McClure
Recorder: Tiffani Conner
Our next scheduled meeting is February 26 at 10.30am. Thura Mack will distribute the location when she gets a room reserved.
Agenda:
· Introductions were made by all attendees, stating names and work areas.
· Comments from the Dean
Barbara Dewey spoke briefly on her impressions and visions for the committee, leaving ample room for the committee to add and prioritize various aspects of diversity and it’s inclusion within the library. She stated that she felt the formation of the Diversity committee fits with the value of strategic planning.
Some of her goals are:
- Advance a welcoming environment within the library.
- Provide or establish leadership for the library and campus in promoting the value of diversity.
- Determine and make known what constitutes diversity, be it underrepresented groups, international persons, gender issues, disabilities/challenges, cultural and regional differences and characteristics, family structure and makeup, etc.
Some suggestions she made for the committee were:
- Seek knowledge on the issue of diversity and multiculturalism
- Recommend training programs and speakers
- Include our student assistants
- Create proactive strategies for recruitment
- Diversity programming for library friends, staff development, collection building, outreach to campus and community groups.
Some mentioned resources included:
- Each other
- Faculty and staff, from the library, UT campus, and area college campuses
- Knoxville and surrounding regional community groups
- Other libraries who have addressed diversity
Current actions:
- Look at how to get started within the library
- There are no current scheduled outcome desires
- Work on concrete applications rather than theoretical discussions within the committee
- Goals and mission would be best completed sooner than later, to provide the library (and university) staff and faculty with an impression of our committee and its ideas.
- Consider events with regard to appropriateness during the year (some things might fit at certain points during the calendar year).
· Note-taker
The committee decided to spread the task of note-taking throughout the committee to avoid overload. It was determined that we would proceed in an alphabetical fashion.
Jill Keally will be the next designated note-taker.
· Diversity Web page
Thura Mack showed the committee the resource links to various diversity websites. She stated a desire to have an attractive and engaging web design, perhaps displaying our committee to illustrate our own diversity. (I recommend a short information block concerning both our previous work with diversity issues and our personal reflections on diversity).
The web page should reflect diversity, be a resource for people interested in diversity, provide a schedule of events, both in the library and on campus.
· Meeting time
For the time being we will hold meetings on alternate Mondays at 10.30 am. The meetings are scheduled to last for 1.5 hours, with a space yet to be determined. Once overall goals and directions are determined, subcommittees will be formed and committee meetings will be farther between, with subcommittees making up the difference.
Our next scheduled meeting is February 26 at 10.30am. Thura Mack will distribute the location when she gets a room reserved.
· Previous committee experiences
Molly Royse spoke about her involvement with the diversity committee at Kansas State University. She mentioned that a lot of their problems revolved around staff buy-in, administrative support, and initially a lack of societal interest in diversity. She mentioned that the second “go-round” (1997-present) was much better received due to societal and population changes in and around KSU. An additional component of diversity at KSU was the implementation of a minority internship program. The idea was mentioned to create a partnership with the School of Information Sciences for such a program here.
It was mentioned that early activities to get staff ideas were critical. Sandy Leach suggested we simply jump right in and find out “what are the issues?” Becky Roller supported this idea and suggested that we start on ourselves (we are our own guinea pigs).
· Goals
We addressed, briefly, the goals written by Thura Mack. It was discussed that we should prioritize our list of goals (top to bottom, I’m assuming). The first goal on the list “create a service climate that will motivate staff towards supporting diversity efforts” was seen as a very long-term goal. Thura Mack remarked that in line with this goal, she’d like for this committee to establish a healthy environment for the next committee that is formed by the library to take on these issues.
· Priority list for next meeting
Tamara Miller suggested that we create a priority list for the next meeting. Some suggestions for that list are:
- Establish a collective understanding of what we (committee) mean by diversity
- Get some experts from campus to come in and speak to us
- Prioritize the goals and refine the mission statement
- Utilize Human Resources training exercises for discussing diversity
- Include non-committee members within the subcommittees
- Block 1.5 hours for each meeting
- Back up and support in-committee meetings with online discussion threads
(i.e. create a distribution list in your address book)
· To get us started:
- Molly Royse will provide the committee with a few articles concerning diversity
- Thura Mack would like for us all to think BEYOND current practices
- Be thinking about the definition of diversity, if that is an appropriate word for our committee and the issues, alternatives nouns for diversity. Our overall goal with this is to demonstrate what we are looking at, what we intend to do to address the issues of diversity, and how we intend to support our diverse community.
· Tiff’s personal suggestions for scheduling and resource allocation:
- Get connected to the community (Knoxville) activities for certain groups and coincide any special programming or diversity celebrations with these activities. Such activities I can currently think of are:
- Dogwood Arts Festival (regional culture)
- Various “someone’s History Month” (i.e. Women’s Herstory, Black History, Latino/a History, etc)
- Knoxville Pride week (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender celebration—June 2-10)
- Kuumba Festival
- Jubilee Community Arts
- Work with the cultural centers on campus for programming ideas. Centers such as the Black Cultural Center, International House, Women’s Center, Student Activities Board, etc.
- Contact specific campus groups to determine what would be considered inviting to them, to inform us on things that are not welcoming or are a put-off, and to inform us what would be culturally significant to their group. I’m thinking of student organizations that include all the areas that make up a diverse population (religion, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, political standing, etc).
- Some on-campus departments that are very active with diversity include:
- African and African American Studies department
- Philosophy department
- Sociology department
- Cultural Studies and Educational Psychology (both in College of Education)
- Women’s Studies
- Environmental Studies
· Ending note:
I hope I have the appropriate idea attached to the appropriate person. If not, I apologize, it was not intentional. I have provided some personal thoughts on references for people to consider. They are not in anyway meant to exclude anyone, they are just off the top of my head at the moment.
Cheers!
Tiffani Conner