Female and Underrepresented Minority Faculty Recruiting and Retention Task Force

Female and Underrepresented Minority Faculty Recruiting and Retention Task Force

DRAFT Minutes of February 10, 2014

204 Library

3 pm – 4 pm, February 10, 2014

Scribe: Merilee Krueger

The task force met on February 10, 2014, with the following members in attendance:

Profs. Carlos Castaño, Irina Ivliyeva, Bih-Ru Lea, Franca Oboh-Ikuenobe, Sahra Sedigh, and Merilee Krueger. Franca Oboh-Ikuenobe presided as chair.

Agenda Item 1: Approval of the Agenda. Franca Oboh-Ikuenobe asked the committee to approve the agenda. It was approved unanimously.

Agenda Item 2: Approval of the minutes of the November 11 and December 9, 2013 Minutes. The minutes from November 11, 2013 were unanimously approved. The minutes of the December 9, 2013 were amended by changing the date to read “December 9, 2013” instead of November 11, 2013. Also guests of the meeting were noted as Bill Fahrenholtz, Steve Clark, Dev Niyogi , Shoaib Usman, and James Tharp. With these changes the minutes were approved.

Agenda Item 3: Dual Career Hire Policy. The Dual Career Hire Policy was made available to all members prior to the meeting. The committee discussed the proposed changes and agrees with the message of the document. However, the committee referred the policy back to the Provost’s Office to address the three issues raised at the end of page 3 of the document. The committee also recommended that the document be rewritten because it contains direct quotes from the UC Berkeley policy and is not intended as the final document. Concern was expressed that this revision must come from HRSAAD in light of the fact that the University of Akron is in the news for plagiarizing the Sexual Assault policy from Miami University of Ohio.

The FUMFRR committee will ask Provost Wray to answer the queries put forth in the draft and that this document be rewritten to be in line with the University System’s policies. It was decided in order to provide the most thorough document the office of HRSAAD is the expert and it is beyond the scope of the FUMFRR committee’s area of expertise.

Agenda Item 4: Freshmen Faculty Forum. Irina Ivliyeva presented the following report in regard to her presentation at the freshman faculty forum:

“The meeting with the FFF on February 5th went very well. Drs. Ivliyeva and Oboh-Ikuenobe represented the FUMFRR. Six (6) FFF members were in attendance, all males. After a brief informal introduction and greetings, we briefly outlined the FUMFRR history, its charge, accomplishments, future projects. The FUMFRR fact sheet was distributed among the attendees. Its electronic version will be posted on the FFF web site for future references.

During the discussion, the following topics came up and the following suggestions were made:

a)  The existence of the Faculty Center IDE 104 needs to be advertised more frequently and systematically (E-Connection, chair’s email, etc.).

b)  To possibly organize various special interest faculty groups to address specific issues relevant to those groups (e.g. international faculty focus group). It was suggested to involve the HR – Ms. Manuel, and Jeff Schramm (the 2nd year FFF Program leader) into the planning process.

c)  To think about other activities that aligns with the Campus Strategic plan.

d)  To continue meeting / mentoring the FFF in small groups, preferably in the fall semester, as they just come to our campus.

e)  To consider organizing the campus –wide, all faculty inclusive event (e.g. similar to “Wine and cheese”), perhaps once a year or every other year.

f)  We encouraged the FFF faculty to communicate with us directly via email (provided on the fact sheet), or in person, or through the FFF director and staff.”

Agenda Item 5: Open Discussion - Irina Ivliyeva suggested reinstating the Faculty ”Wine and Cheese” social. The committee agreed and was strongly in favor of her idea and discussed various options. It was tentatively decided to try to schedule the event for September 2014. Tuesday or Thursday afternoon from 4-6 were suggested. This was due to the pending changes in administration. Bih-Ru suggested making it an annual event so that administrators and faculty would have it on their calendar from year to year. It was agreed to discuss details and specifics at the next meeting. It was requested this be an agenda item.

Meeting Adjourned at 3:53pm