DAC Meeting Minutes
May 7, 2015; 3:00-4:30pm
Attendance: Betty Williams, Paul Kurose, Scott Rausch; OCEE representative - Herbie Martin
1. Herbie is working out the details for a speaker- Roberta Wilburn, on the topic, Bridging the Cultural Divide: Understanding the Impact of the Dynamics of Difference, on Thursday, May 14, 11-12 and 2-3pm, in the Old Cafeteria, with the budget amount already approved of $2000; Herbie will make the hotel reservations and follow up to get the event promoted on campus; he is already in contact with Jeffrey in Student Leadership.
2. DAC previously approved funding for the June event that Sarah Baker is organizing. We already approved $1000 and it sounds like they could use additional funds. We are considering approving an additional $1000 if they still need money and we have money left in our funds. Paul will follow up and then include the request in an email vote.
3. Paul discussed the possibility of setting up an event with the Asian Coalition for Equality in the future, either this quarter or next academic year.
4. Paul will talk with Carianya about the balance of DAC funds left for the year and then do some online voting regarding the current requests for funding, which includes a request from Betty Williams to attend NCORE with funding for the hotel and food per diem of about $1200.
5. Paul also mentioned that we need to find someone to be the vice chair for the coming year to work with him as chair and then take over the following year. Paul will send out a notice since the group is small today. We need to follow our bylaws in terms of filling our positions for next year. We do have the 4 positions for faculty filled now, as we added 2 people this year, with one as an alternate. Next year that person can be a full voting member, as Scott will be stepping down after serving 3 years.
6. We discussed the current work of the Inclusion Change Team to write a report on what has been done since the DAC Report from 2011, the work of the ICT and DAC, and next steps to keep the work going to institutionalize equity and inclusion on our campus. The report will be shared with a focus on moving towards another joint DAC and E-team retreat to assess where we currently are with the MCOD rating scale and what our next steps need to be to keep the work moving forward.
7. We also discussed the work on diversity in hiring practices relating to the MOU of the Faculty Union and the District. The goal is to institutionalize the use of the Search Advocate Process for all hiring committees and have training to keep the work going and growing. Issues of implicit and sometimes explicit bias are common in hiring practices and there is much work to do to address this problem, so we can achieve the goals of hiring and retaining more faculty and staff who come from the diverse communities that our student body represents.
8. We discussed the request by the Washington Diversity Council to have their Women in Leadership Symposium on our campus in June. We are unfamiliar with this organization, and decided to ask Chilan Ta, Women’s Center Director, to look at the proposal to vet the organization and decide if we want to invite them to our campus.
9. We discussed having a June retreat as DAC did last year. We will look at possible dates in June and ask the group what will work best. We will be having a new Diversity and Inclusion Director starting in July, and need to think about how to welcome and connect with that person.
Minutes prepared by DAC Secretary, Betty Williams