Diversity Committee Meeting, February 13, 2003
Room 605 Hodges Library, 1:20-2:15 p.m.
Members present: Conner, Mack, Royse, Roller, Stephens, A. Smith, R. Smith, Blocker, Myers, Bayne, Pemberton, Miller, and Davis
GiGi announced the LSA bake sale to be held Feb. 14th in the staff lounge.
Tamara reported that the diversity definition has been redone. Maribeth will post on webpage in pdf format.
Team Excellence plaque—a facsimile was made for Barbara for the administrative office. We have to decide where the original will go.
Anne reported on the Timeline. There are things we have put on hold, such as the Anita Grant visit, the Intercultural Communications forum, tour of Black Cultural Center, American Sign Language Series, and partnering with SIS. We can discuss these items at our retreat on Feb. 27th.
Alex Haley visit on April 16th. We will leave here at 8:30, and have invited Erica Clark and Sandra Leach to go. Our drivers are Thura, Sheila, Molly and GiGi. Anthony can’t be there but he will make reservations for us at the Mexican restaurant in Clinton. He will also get us directions there and to the farm.
Goals group: goals will be displayed on flipchart at retreat so we can work within their guidelines.
Retreat: Thura will bring beverages, LouAnn and Dianne will bring sandwiches, others will bring other foods. Whatever you bring, be sure it is enough for 15-20 people.
James McBride book: Mary Papke is in charge of UT planning for the book. We can discuss at our retreat, but some suggestions were think about a theme for the library’s contribution to the project, and to pull out and highlight books from our collection to support the project. Another suggestion was to buy more copies of the book for our collection, and to maybe put one temporarily in Reference or Reserve, or even to have a copy for a door prize for a staff event.
Display case: we have it reserved from mid-August through the end of September to put McBride-related material in there.
Retreat: we all have copies of the agenda. If anyone has comments or suggestions send them to Tiffani. This is our first retreat—future ones might be planned around working on annual reports or goals.
Residency program update: The subcommittee is going to get the word out about the program and meet with all library departments to encourage them to give feedback and to reiterate the message that this is a library-wide project, and not just a diversity committee program. The goal is to meet with all before March 7. The members of the subcommittee are GiGi, Anthony, Jill, Thura, Anne, Tiffani, Molly, and Becky. They will develop an FAQ based on questions and comments from departments. The whole diversity committee will receive a copy of what the sub committee is planning to present to departments.
March 17—7 p.m. a Library Friends event—Bill Dewey will speak on African art.
May 23rd—spring picnic sponsored by LSA. Diversity committee members are welcome to volunteer to help with this event.
Be sure to check out the film series going on in conjunction with Africa Semester. This may be the only chance many of us will have to see these films, because most of them are not readily available. The library is sponsoring the April 7th showing of “The Language You Cry In.”
With no further business, the meeting adjourned at 2:15 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
LouAnn Blocker