Nathaniel Bachelder
I need to meet with a lot of you individually
next week about the video: Kathleen, Missy, Jessica. And Dave, we need
to meet about the Pledge of Respect. This week I have been working on the
video and I will try and have something typed up to bring to the meeting
but I can't guarantee anything. I have a ton of school work to finish up
this week.
Jessica Billingslea
Nothing Reported
Spencer Hamlin
I have bee relatively busy since I left I have gone throuhg almost
every school that we wold look
at as a peer and have found nothing that res34mbles the RI or Di whichever
it is called now. This is good for stating a case as to why we want one
here also encouraging to me was a fragmented array of really good programs
that I
have found may schools have started to incorporate things like diversity
trainings mentor programs and faculty and grad and student researcxh opps
so I think there are good precendents out there for may ofd the things
we could
incorporate into one place. I have also found more projets and
centers focused on seperate underrepresented groups and not ones on the
interactions and relationships of all or many. Nate, If you want
I have the names of several videos that were made in other places that
fall along the lines of your project, Jess I also have a lot of leads for
you if you want.
Jason Mak
Well, I've been working on my recommendations this
week and now I'm up to about 9-10 pages. whew! I've talked to Jim
Buch the Associate VP of Student Affairs, Jan Oliver the Assistant VP,
and Lorraine Davis of Academic Affairs. I will also meet with Susan
Lysek of ALS on Thursday morning. Jim Buch gave me alot of really
good ideas (and a TON of data) on student recruitment and retention.
Some of the ideas include making the application process easier so that
we can have a larger pool of canidates, and hopefully more underrepresented
students apply. One suggestion is using the questionaire from the
SAT scores that are sent to the school as one way a student can submit
their application. A secondary and smaller questionaire would be
sent to confirm pertinent info. Another suggestion is to encourage
the use of the application fee deferrment program and have financial aid
"take up" the fee in their package that they offer. Jim also said
that the recruitment numbers for African Americans and Native Americans
in particular are very low. He said this
is possibly from the low numbers that graduate from high school.
We talked about ways that we can identify outstanding underrepresented
canidates and make a personal effort to recruit them. A promising
possiblity is also to expand the Ducklink program, where high school students
can take up to 8 credit hours for no cost (except for
school/incidental fees) to make it sort of a headstart program to fulfill
some basic university requirements such as WR 121 and math. Hopefully
we can get them interested enough to come to the UO.
Jan Oliver and I talked mostly about staff and administrative
R&R and about the possibility of an insitutional diversity plan.
I won't bore you of all the many details of our meeting (not that the meeting
itself was boring, but there were so many points that we discussed that
it would be more benificial for a small summary.) For staff, we talked
about how they
are the most underrespected group on campus. For Admin, we talked
about the possiblity of mentorship/internship programs to help facilitate
career development and to combat the feeling of isolation and non-support
that
some junior admin face. Jan was very keen on the idea of the
insitutiional plan.
Lorraine Davis and I discussed faculty R&R.
She told me a bit of history of some very ballsy plans and initiatives
of the past. An important detail that I found was that the monies
that used to be administered through her office for bringing faculty canidates
to campus (which included about $1000 for bringing a minority canidate)
was now rolled into
a single fund and given to each Dean to dispense that their will.
No central accountablity exists for how that money earmarked in the past
for diversity recruitment is spent. Again, we need to hold the deans
accountable for diversity initatives. All the Deans now know about
Dean Melnick's requirement for the submission of a plan for diversity before
any search can go forward. About 2-3 deans have expressed interest
in starting something similar in their school. We also talked about
how some departments have mentoring programs for tenure track faculty.
She also expressed how frustrated she is with a lack of vision for diversity
on our campus and suggested that the Provost and the President come up
with some kind of shared vision that is "doable".
I think that this week has really convinced me of
the need for an institutional plan for diversity and a mechanism for accountability.
Huy Ong
Nothing Reported
Missy Rock
Out of Town on Vacation (Three Sisters Area/ PCT)
John Riordan
Nothing Reported
Jennifer Rosen
Well, I spent this last week meeting
with students and faculty. I am basically presenting my ideas and
getting some feedback so as to do some fine tuning for my proposal.
The process for change is going very slowly though. I run into closed
doors down just about every avenue I pursue. I spoke with the director
of the office of communications to see about getting a link on the web
page. I'm going to meet with him and Dave H. as soon as we get things
together. I got a copy of the business school's eval. I think
it's pretty good I'll bring my copy in to show you all. I'm working
on typing up a resource list for a possible course on diversity.
I've got tons of videos, but could use some more reading materials.
If any of you could recommend some books (they can address diversity as
a whole or one specific group) I would really appreciate it.
Jessie Wofsy
Nothing Reported
Kathleen Workman
I spoke with Patty Gwartney and she has some really
good ideas for the assessment. She also said that there have been
similar studies done on other campuses which is advantageous because we
can compare how we stand up to other uni's. She recommends doing
focus groups and anonymous surveys, completely avoiding using classrooms
as the means of getting the survey out.
Because of her crazy schedule, she won't be able
to help me put a proposal together by the end of the month for the SC.
Because of that, she is turning this over to her colleague Steve, with
whom I will meet with next week. Hopefully she can attend that meeting
too, but she's teaching class for 6 hours/day next week...
Looks good though. The other recommendation
she has is to administer the survey late winter term after new frosh have
had the opportunity to get their feet wet on campus (not intended as a
pun, but I have to leave it in considering the weather in Eugene :)
So...e-mails went to Steve and Patty today with
possible meeting times and I will go from there. Looks like we'll
have a proposal together, but probably not before the end of August because
I have to work on their timeline.
Patty has some concerns about funding. She
seems to think that the Uni will try to get this done for free and points
out that she cannot do this for free.