Diversity Committee Meeting – December 1, 2005
Present at meeting – Tom Smith, Rita Smith, Molly Royse, Becky Roller, Maud Mundava, LaVerne Gray, Shantel Agnew, Mark Puente, Thura Mack, Maribeth Manoff, Roger Weaver, Gail Watson, and Kawanna Bright
1. Volunteers to help set-up and clean-up Holiday Party
a. The Diversity Committee is helping to host the Libraries’ Holiday party on Wednesday, December 14th, 2:00 – 4:00 in the Black Cultural Center. Anyone interested in helping to setup or cleanup should contact Maud.
2. Updates from Diversity Council – Jill passed along, through Kawanna, the following information from the Diversity Council meeting from 11/30:
a. Sabrina Haddow – the contact for the Office of Equity and Diversity, shared two lists, one with Diversity Activities for the campus by department and the other Patterns in diversity plans. Kawanna shared both lists with the committee. Sabrina will also serve as the main contact person for determining overlap in programs.
b. A librarian from an HBCU will be visiting the Libraries in either late February or March as part of the HBCU Alliance. Dean Dewey will be hosting this librarian and serving as a mentor while the librarian is given the opportunity to view the workings of the UT Libraries in hopes of garnering ideas that will translate back to their university.
c. A Gay Alliance may be formed, similar to the Black Alliance and other alliances, to offer support and information. Dr. Crabtree also announced that he is in support of moving a statement concerning sexual orientation so that it is included in equal employment statement?
3. Update on Staff Appreciation Month – Becky updated us on the events. April selected as the month. Celebrating Employee Diversity at our Libraries is the current working title. Display case has been scheduled for part of the month. Will post on Share to alert Staff before we go much further. Will also suggest a let’s talk about it during the month, food fair and music event featuring staff. Proposed poetry event is still on the table as a considered activity. Getting an outside speaker is also a possibility. The diversity map idea is still on the table as well. Still a broad outline – still need input. Molly also updated us on the possibility of another outside speaker – Barbara has asked Loretta Parham to come speak around the same time –a co-author of a book on diversity with Barbara. Molly suggested April as a possible month that she could come and even if we got another speaker we could also feature Loretta. Loretta will be here April 11th and 12th for 2 days. Linda is willing to let us tie that in to staff appreciation. Martha also suggested a photo from the Torchbearer that she can use as the background for the display case. Hopefully additional ideas will come in from staff as word goes out. Molly likes the idea of the 60 second survey. Might want to get something out the first of the year to get staff to start thinking about it. Not right now with so much winding down. Rita pointed out that the UC has flags and the names of international students on it. Seems to get a lot of attention from passersby and is similar to our idea of having a map with pushpins for locations.
4. Update on Library & QEP
a. Proposal submitted for money request from libraries. A group that currently consists of Jane Row, Molly Royse, Linda Phillips and Sandy Leach have been working on the Libraries’ activities. Others have been asked to join as the group is looking to expand its membership. The residents are among those who have been invited to join.
5. Student Appreciation Project: Becky updated everyone on the student appreciation event. Have gotten people to volunteer to do some of the activities. Need the list of students from Cheryl to get to the next point. Will need students to respond by early January in terms of their selected books. Becky passed out the breakdown of activities and who was doing what. We still need to fill in certain things like dates for when they need to respond. Maud is doing food and decoration. Kawanna and Molly will do the invitations. If we need more volunteers will open to libraries. Thura will do the certificates. Roger will take pics of the students. Kawanna will do a poster and send to map library to print. Ask Jim Kidder if he will take pictures for us. Linda Flynn will need supervisor’s names as well. Students do not have to have been here for 2 consecutive years – just a combined 2 years. LaVerne and Mark will do publicity. Supervisors may be able to help identify any students who fall through the cracks. Need to check that against last year’s list to see if we have any repeats. February 16th is the date. Kawanna will check Barbara’s calendar to be sure that we are on it.
6. Culture Corner Theme Selection: The committee decided to discuss and revote based on the themes that received the most votes from the survey of the library faculty and staff. Final votes were for GLBTQ display for spring with Immigration as a back-up. The summer corner will be Caribbean culture with Asian/Indian culture or feminism as a backup. Thura will check to see if we may be able to find out the title of the next Life of the Mind book before the spring semester, so as to avoid any overlap in themes.
A final announcement was that Bell Hooks will be visiting the campus in late April. We will keep this on our radar for future activities.
Respectfully Submitted by Kawanna Bright