Equity & Diversity Advisory Committee - reports for 25 Oct. and 15 Nov.

Click here for general information on the Office of Equity & Diversity Advisory Committee.
The Shared Governance Appointees for 2007-2008 are Noah Theriault and Rachel Witt.

Report for 15 October 2007 meeting:

On Thursday, 15 November 2007, at 12 noon, Rachel Witt and I attended the second meeting of the Office for Equity & Diversity Advisory Committee (OED-AC) for the 2007-2008 academic year. The committee discussed the following issues of relevance to students:

• According to Luis Piñero from the OED, the university is to be audited for Title 9 compliance by the Department of Energy. Given Energy’s focus, the audit will likely focus on hiring practices and gender in the Department of Physics. A committee member mentioned for my and Rachel’s benefit that the Department of Education does auditing for student accessibility compliance.
• The OED is closing the search for the new Data Manager, which is an important position when it comes to working with external auditors. The replacement will be a transfer either from the university or a different state office.
• The Theater for Cultural and Social Awareness (TCSA) will again be joining with OED to perform didactic skits at TA trainings and other OED awareness events. OED is currently working on securing funding for this purpose.
• OED is changing the process for coordinating sexual harassment inquiries and complaints. Up until recently, there was a network of coordinators throughout the campus who were delegated to act as resource people and liaisons with respect to sexual harassment issues among faculty, staff, and potentially students. While the process is being revised, coordinators names will no longer be listed on the website. In the meantime, the hope is that everyone knows they can as always take any sexual harassment issues directly to OED staff. As mentioned at the previous meeting, students are entitled to take their issues of this nature to the OED; however, the agreed upon procedure is for the Dean of Students to handle discrimination issues concerning students.
• The search committee for the new Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate has narrowed the list down to three candidates: Damon Williams, Seema Kapani, and Kenneth Durgans. They will be interviewed on 26 November, 5 December, and 12 December respectively. AC-OED members have been invited and strongly encouraged to attend. Those who are able to do so will consolidate their thoughts at the next committee meeting for submission to the search committee by 17 December. AC-OED will be among several SG committees submitting comments to the search committee as they finalize their review. Open question-and-answer sessions with each candidate will be held for all university affiliates on 26 November (2:30-3:45pm, TITO), 4 December (2:45-4:00pm), and 12 December (2:30-3:45pm). More information on the candidates can be found at http://www.news.wisc.edu/14420. According to the announcement on the university’s website, “The vice provost for diversity and climate serves as the senior diversity officer, working closely with deans, directors and other campus leaders to promote the recruitment and retention of minority faculty, staff and students, as well as providing leadership and fostering a positive environment for living, learning and working.” Climate in this case refers to the socio-cultural milieu of the university, not the climate in a meteorological sense. This position used to be held by appointed members of the faculty, but it will now be filled by a professional administrator.
• An initial draft of a campus-wide survey of Equity & Diversity Committee activities between 2003 and 2006 will be prepared by 1 December. These surveys are supposed to be conducted annually, and the current push is to get the data up to date for a prospective review in 2008 of the policy that established EDCs.
• The next OED-AC meeting is scheduled for 13 December at noon.

Both Rachel and I had to leave the meeting at 1pm in order to attend classes starting at that time. I’ve pasted the remainder of the agenda on the second page. The meeting was scheduled to adjourn at 1:30pm.

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7. PLANS FOR THE YEAR (Discussion)
8. ANNOUNCEMENTS
9. ADJOURN

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Report for 25 October 2007 meeting:

On Thursday, 25 October 2007, at 12 noon, I attended the first meeting of the Advisory Committee for the Office for Equity & Diversity (AC-OED) for the 2007-2008 academic year. Including me and the other ASM student representative (Rachel Witt), twelve committee members were present, and at least three were absent. The meeting was coordinated by Committee Chair Nelson Balke (Professor, Department of Agronomy) and began with formal introductions, which took in excess of a half-hour to complete. Following the introductions, Committee Member Luis Piñero (Assistant Vice Provost for Workforce Equity and Diversity) gave a presentation summarizing the mission, objectives, and recent news of the OED, and provided a hand-out detailing the OED’s scope and functions. In sum, the OED’s functions fall into two general categories: (1) monitoring the university’s compliance with anti-discrimination laws/policies and investigating complaints related to possible violations of the same; and (2) providing education and outreach that promotes awareness of OED-related issues and compliance and with anti-discrimination laws among students, faculty, and staff. A major component of the latter function is the program of “learning communities” coordinated by the OED. Funding shortages remain a major challenge for OED initiatives, including the learning communities; however, the OED recently scored a “major victory” by persuading the university administration to budget in a new full-time staff person, responsible for coordinating the learning communities and providing other administrative support. This was vital because the OED’s administrative staff and functions have grown significantly in the last ten years without receiving additional administrative support. Also related to funding, the OED will soon finish up and submit a funding proposal to the University Foundation. In other news, it appears that the UW system administrators are currently formulating their vision for the 2008 academic year and have suggested that they will be giving individual universities more leeway in “determining priorities for initiatives.” If strategically leveraged, this change has the potential to increase the importance of the OED in UW affairs throughout the system. Due to my unfamiliarity with the UW system and its administrative machinations, I am unable to be any more specific as to what exactly this particular bit of news means. Following Mr. Piñero’s presentation, Committee Member Stephen Appel (OED’s Assistant Director and Complaint Investigator), noted for my and Rachel’s benefit that the Office of the Dean of Students is responsible for handling students’ complaints against other students. Students are, however, entitled to lodge complaints with OED and with the federal government should they so choose. Both Rachel and I had to leave the meeting at 1pm in order to attend classes starting at that time. I’ve pasted the remainder of the agenda below. The meeting was scheduled to adjourn at 1:30pm.

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3. THE OED ADVISORY COMMITTEE (OED-AC): CHARGE, ROLE & EXPECTATIONS (Balke)
4. REPORT: THE DIVERSITY FORUM
5. STATUS: VICE PROVOST FOR DIVERSITY AND CLIMATE SEARCH
6. SUMMARY OF 2006-2007 COMMITTEE ACTIVITIES (Balke)
a. Equity and Diversity SubCommittee (Lewis/Balke)
b. Learning Communities SubCommittee (Stephens)
c. Awareness SubCommittee (Finster)
7. PLANS FOR THIS YEAR (Discussion)
A. COMPLETE 2003-2006 "EQUITY AND DIVERSITY SURVEY"
B. SUBMIT 2005-2006 COMMITTEE REPORT TO THE FACULTY SENATE
C. ISSUES & SUBCOMMITTEES
a. New issues and subcommittees
D. INVITED GUESTS
E. OTHER
8. ANNOUNCEMENTS
9. ADJOURN

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