Diversity Committee Meeting – September 8, 2005 – Hodges 150
Present: Molly Royse, Maud Mundava, LaVerne Gray, Mark Puente, Shantel Agnew, Christine Nassir, Becky Roller, Sandy Leach, Rita Smith, Maribeth Manoff, Gail Watson, Roger Weaver, Cheryl Drain, and Thura Mack
1. Welcome Residents:
The residents were welcomed to the meeting as guests. The committee presented them with gift baskets that included items to help ease their transition into the libraries, and the librarian’s survival guide: 12 things to help a librarian get through the day. The residents then updated the committee on their first week of orientation including the departments they have visited and their current thoughts on where they would like to do their first rotations.
2. Brown Bags Subgroup announcement:
Molly and Becky updated the committee on what will be the first cultural brown bag of the new series. The committee will work with SDAC to coordinate a brown bag with Erica Clark on her visit to China. The brown bag subgroup announced a meeting to finalize plans at the end of the diversity committee meeting that day. Molly and Becky also invited other committee members not on the subgroup but interested in helping to plan to attend that day’s meeting. The will set a date and report back to the committee once things are finalized.
3. Non-Discrimination banners in UC:
Kawanna gave a short update on the issue of having the committee as a whole sign the banner in the UC. It was decided that Kawanna would contact each member by e-mail individually to have them vote on whether they wanted to sign the banner as a group. If everyone was in agreement, she would then approach the dean to clear any administrative issues.
4. QEP and partnering with Writers in the Library (Maribeth)
Maribeth spoke with JoAnne Deeken, who is in charge of the Writers in the Libraries program, about the possibility of the committee and the program joining to apply for a QEP grant to bring in an outstanding international or intercultural author. JoAnne agreed to speak with RB Morris, the current writer in residence, about the idea. JoAnne’s suggestion for an author was Octavia Butler. Rita suggested an Iranian author, Azar Nafisi who wrote “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books.” Nafisi may be currently on staff at John Hopkins University.
5. Diversity Workshop from the Office of Equity and Diversity:
Roger announced that the Office of Equity and Diversity is planning a series of diversity workshops and is putting together committees to discuss issues. He asked if anyone from the libraries was on any of these committees and if not if there were a way to get someone onto a committee. Molly and Kawanna announced that they had a meeting scheduled on the 20th with a member of the OED staff and the dean to discuss issues related to diversity, which may or may not include the library’s diversity plan. Rita asked if we had a diversity plan. Molly suggested that we might be able to turn some of the items we already have at the libraries related to diversity into a plan and she and Kawanna both agreed to raise this issue as well as the issue of the committees up in the meeting. They will recap the meeting with the committee at the September 22.
6. Goals Review
The committee then reviewed the changes and additions to the goals from the previous meeting. Discussion led to rewording of some goals and the committee agreed that they were ready for posting. The goals can now be viewed on the committee’s website at http://www.lib.utk.edu/diversity/organization/goals.html. Any additional changes or suggestions should be sent to the committee as a whole.
7. Announcements:
Becky informed the committee that she had received an e-mail from the University of Toronto concerning what we had done regarding student appreciation. Becky replied with detailed information on how we do the student appreciation reception for their use. Molly also announced that interest in our library climate survey has also been seen from Louisville and Virginia Commonwealth University who have asked permission to use parts of the survey for their own use.
The meeting was adjourned.
Respectively submitted
Kawanna Bright