Diversity Committee Minutes for March 25, 2004

UT Libraries’ Diversity Committee
March 25, 2004
Meeting Minutes
Room 605, Hodges Library



Present: Blocker, Bright, Chaudhuri, Deeken, Mack, Mundava, Myers, Roller, Royse

I. Announcements

A. The Committee will invite Tiffani to be its guest for lunch on Thursday,
April 22nd, in honor of her many contributions to the Committee and to
celebrate her new position at the University of Connecticut. LouAnn will
send an e-mail to all re. date, time, and place.

B. Teresa Berry will be joining the Committee in her role as the Libraries’ Disabilities Coordinator. Since she was appointed last semester, Teresa has updated the Libraries’ disability services webpage at .

C. African Cultural Night 2004 will be held March 26th, 6:30-9:00, at the Black Cultural Center.

II. Updates

A. International Food Festival, April 16th (11:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.)
Abbas has reserved a table for the festival. There is no charge since we are not selling food.

Sign–up for times (10:30-5:30): Jayati will update Abbas on our discussion and planning, and ask him to coordinate the sign-up sheet for shifts on the 16th. There should be two individuals per hour at the table.

Suggestions were made as to what we could provide at the table:
Committee bookmarks, 8.5x11 handouts of our definition
A banner for the front of the table – Molly will work with Martha on this.
flyers about the Culture Corner, copies of the bibliographies – Kawanna will work on a flyer.
front-page handouts of the Committee website
residency program flyers
photos of Committee activities – Molly will work on this.
library pens, pencils, key chains – Molly will get these.
basket of candy
tablecloths – JoAnne will provide these.

Plans for the Festival table will be finalized at the April 8th Committee meeting.

B. Culture Corner
All the bibliographies are now available at the Corner. The Corner’s website is almost completed. A Share News message will be posted soon noting the Corner’s new theme, website, and acknowledging the individuals who have assisted with the Spring ’04 Corner.
If anyone has an idea for a logo for the Corner, please send it to Kawanna.

Updates on the Corner since 3/25:
The Share News message was posted on 4/1/04.

The latest version of the Corner website as of 4/6/04:
http://www.lib.utk.edu/Diversity/diversity/culturecorner.html

C. Cooking Class (date not yet determined)
Tiffani and Jayati are hosting a cooking class for the Committee. Tiffani’s is providing the space (her mother’s kitchen) and Jayati is offering her cooking expertise. Committee members will contribute dollars and Jayati will do the shopping. Jayati will consult with Tiffani on a possible date (probably a Saturday in April or May) and let us know. Next year the Committee will look at hosting a cooking class at the International House and open it up to all library staff.

D. Diversity Conference, May 4-5
The 2004 National Diversity in Libraries Conference will be held in Atlanta on May 4-5. The early-bird registration deadline is April 1. Planning on attending are Thura, JoAnne, LouAnn, Maud, Jayati, Kawanna, Molly, and Dean Dewey. Molly is coordinating the transportation. UT Libraries is a gold sponsor of the conference, and this entitles us to four paid registrations, which will be used by the Residents and JoAnne.

E. TLA ‘04
The Committee’s programs (the Residents’ presentation and Molly and Becky’s tabletalk) went smoothly and were well received by attendees. Particularly of interest to other librarians at the tabletalk were the residency program, the Culture Corner, and the Student Recognition Festival. It was learned that ETSU is involved in campus-wide diversity training and the library is included.

Committee members Thura, Tiffani, LouAnn, JoAnne, and Jill were also involved in other TLA programs. JoAnne noted a good idea from a session on retaining new staff: A newcomer’s club is formed to assist in introducing new staff to the area and in getting them involved with other staff members in a social setting.

F. Committee Webpage
With Jeffrey Hines recently resigning from the Committee, the responsibilities for the Committee’s webpage redesign need to be reassigned. Kawanna volunteered to work on getting the site in the UT template. Molly will work with her on updating the pages. There is also still a need for a page on the Residency program. As this program gets more publicity, it is important that our website provides up-to-date information on the program.

III. New Business

Recruitment for New Members – The call for interested library staff and faculty to join the Diversity Committee usually goes out in late May, with new members being selected by mid-June. Molly and Becky will discuss the timeline with the Dean. It may be that we need to adjust our timeline to better fit with the Dean’s annual call for volunteers to various library committees.

LouAnn will e-mail Committee members asking who plans to remain on the Committee and who would like to rotate off. At that point, we will know how many vacancies we need to fill.

The Committee’s “Membership Guidelines” document at needs to be reviewed. Changes made to the chair’s term of office last year are not indicated in the current document. We may also want to look at being more specific re. the procedures for membership selection.


Notes submitted by LouAnn Blocker