1/13/2015
Diversity Committee (Lori, Nancy, Edward, Aswad, Jung-in, Antwan)
Agenda/Minutes
I. Focus: January 28 Faculty Meeting – time: 20-30 minutes
The SEHD Vision (NOW – Spring, 2015)
“What does a welcoming, productive, affirming community look, feel, and sound like…?”
• Aswad/Nancy: For this experience we need people to mix-up; count off 1-6
o Frame: (open with a description the vision and ongoing work and include recognition of the shifting local/national/international/global justice/human rights landscape)
• Ed: Summer Project and Results Climate (blue); Responsiveness (grey); Logistics (green)
• Lori: within your group—look at the summer responses (initially coded) and examine and discuss these for implications for our work; we are going to watch the clock at 5-6 minutes and ask you to finish up so we can continue to two final requests
• Jung-In: ask each group member to write one way (on a sticky note) to describe a welcoming/productive/affirming community; Collected sticky notes will be organized and posted on Impact to advance dialogue at program area meetings and future faculty dialogue
• Antwan: Conclude with acknowledging a charge to program areas as a next step [will need to request that program chairs set aside time for this at an approaching program meeting, in order to
Incorporate current and future program area activities in plan
Encourage meaningful inter and intra program knowledge;
Promote promising practices and synergies that directly impact improved outcomes
Discuss/report out category-based dialogue within program
• What are 3 things that stood out for your program about this discussion?
• Additional input for diversity committee revision question
Ask program chairs/reps to share notes with DC
o other next steps based on the responses from faculty members.
Next steps “in service” of the Vision
• Cultural conflict as a context for framing the vision/ related to: Move the needle toward greater collective awareness; Democracy Now – 1/13/15 and Terrorism narrowly focused on Islamist extremism and Western Imperialist interests (need to acknowledge the ecological nature of national/international events and the role of the SEHD/the faculty/students in these macrosystem events and their chronosystemic nature
o We can dwell, or we can focus on what is in our mesosystems/exosystems and do what we can to influence that.
o Can we connect with efforts that already are going on in the SEHD, such as RACE/SEJE? (important to clarify whether this is an individual project or is somehow representative of a school effort)
o What does a favorable outcome resemble for this group:
A spark/jolt for each member of the community (faculty) to act
Program level next step: identify characteristics of this type of community in classrooms within each program…dialogue within program areas; members of programs to explore how they identify themselves within the context of the program and participating in a school (SEHD) that prioritizes social justice.
• When we talk about who we are, we can arrive at substantive interaction and communication as a community of members
o Partner with Program Areas to capture –
• Faculty demographic profile (important to share/explicate the “why” of this activity as a part of developing the type of community that achieves the SEHD vision/mission)
• Incorporate current and future program area activities in plan
• Encourage meaningful inter and intra program knowledge;
• Promote promising practices and synergies that directly impact improved outcomes.
• Movement from diversity “Check Box Mentality” toward a “more complete” Measure of Value
II. “What does a Welcoming Community for students look like?” (Review and discuss notes shared via email by Aswad prior to this meeting)
a. What actions have been taken?
i. NOTES: Some programs have specific NSOs for their programs; Teacher Ed does cohort advising; CLDE will engage in outreach via phone calls; Undergraduate (UG) campus orientation and school welcome; faculty lunch series for UG students; HDFR recruitment of UG students
b. What are we working on?
i. NOTES: Orientation for UG; Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) partners with UG advisor to support students in academic and socio-cultural resources; faculty series for UG students; Chi Sigma Iota (CSI) graduate student mentoring program will be expanded school-wide; Learning Commons renovation (7th floor)
c. NOTES: DC has to figure out how to present this to the SEHD, and what the DC wants to build from this.
i. Categories of student responses (logistical, cultural landscape, responsiveness) (logistics, sense of “community” interaction, faculty interaction, responsiveness )
ii. Ask faculty: What does a welcoming SEHD community look like (Students/Faculty)?
1. The Faculty Professional Identity Profile document may be a way to achieve this process, along with an in-person, real-time discussion at the SEHD January faculty meeting
iii. Edward suggested the following: recap Dr. BJ Allen’s work with SEHD; layout notes from What does… summer work; make a charge to programs to work on topic (Dr. BJ Allen’s work and What does summer work) before next faculty meeting, and ask them to come back on April with some stuff to share. DC will develop structure and talking points for program-level work.
1. Group was supportive of this plan
2. Nancy suggested doing a “sticky note” process, which is more interactive, and reduces the amount of start-of-semester stress that many faculty feel
III. ODI Student Office Assistants
a. Andrew McMahon (1st Year Student) – looked into comparative demographics between SEHD/UCD/City of Denver
b. Layla Schimmel (1st Year in PsychDoc) – looking at working with EOP office to share information about the programs offered by SEHD. Layla helps to manage other SOAs.
IV. January Faculty Meeting
a. Faculty Demographic Document/Survey
i. Present at January Faculty meeting
b. Enlist Program Lead Partnerships
i. Plan to do this at January meeting
c. Professional Profile (Faculty & Staff)
i. Develop Template
1. Semi-structured Brown Bag
d. NOTES:
i. Lori shared her support for the possibility of integrating into each faculty meeting a Community Building activity/touch point
V. Staff Representation
a. NOTES: Group discussed possibilities, including Deserae Frisk (who’s not available at this time); will reach out to staff council for nominations.
VI. Next steps
a. Faculty meeting (January) DC to develop talking points for programs to discuss the Welcoming Community
b. Meeting: Tuesday, January 13 from 12-2pm; bring lunch
c. Semester
