See there's Tracy. Are you are you going to be at that other thing this morning Tracy?
No, because there was a snafu with my registration. Oh, okay. So I decided to reclaim the time and not overextend myself.
That's a smart move. Let's see. There's Sarah. Sarah there. There are no cats in the picture.
And yet, there is one who's being super persnickety this morning though, so she may be here whining in a second.
I'm fighting a cat right? Now. Like, No, you're not focused right now. Just like but I'm adorable.
Like, I'm always the focus. Mom, what are you talking about?
I am wondering, Greg, if we're going to have enough folks for consensus, it seems like there's
a new mean for for quorum, or Yeah, quorum sorry. Yeah, I I don't know. But I'm hoping that that will be the case within the next five minutes.
We just have a lot of people who have said they're not going to be here so
well, even if they're not here, we can still have a discussion and then we can move on from there.
It does look though, with the adjustments that were made to membership, like we only need seven for quorum instead of eight. So that might help a little bit.
Yeah, and then we have a couple of other people who have indicated that they want to join I know that Mandy wants to join, and she's, she's classified as management as well. So I think we have to have make some administrative move to bring her on board into the into the council but we we have some other people that I've gotten emails from that also want to be part of the council so we could talk about that when we get to that point in the in the agenda, but we've got looks like we got people popping in already. So good morning. Good morning.
Good morning. Shane, this
may be the $50 question, but you might know the answer. I have students who are asking if there's going to be an update to the booster policy, and I figured that will happen with staff at the same time it does with students, so I just didn't know if you had a better answer. I could give them the I don't know.
Sure. So we are because we have some more flexibility with with employees that we don't have with students. It's tough. We don't want to interrupt their education. sort of mid mid semester or mid right. So we sort of rely on the I don't know administrative book of registration as sort of a that we can can determine whether someone accesses registration. So we're shooting for a summer implementation. A fall implementation for Fall registration implementation for students. So we'll have access to the technology into the form for employees sooner. Probably mid this month, people will be able to start inputting their information employees, and I'm working on organizing the HR staff to be able to manage that workflow because every record and they've got some other other things they're working on, but so employees start inputting in probably mid February. We're starting to process those by the end of February for employees. And what is it may 4, I think that fall term registration starts so students need to have that in place to be able to register for fall.
Thank you that was helpful because a lot of my students were concerned it was going to be a spring implementation. And we've been talking about registration in my classes because I showed them like where to find stuff. And we have conversations about that. And so I was like, they just keep asking in all my classes. And you know, the the latest info on the website is just we don't know. So that's super helpful. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome.
Leslie as your husband doing over there at all.
He's doing good. Thanks for asking. How's everyone doing?
Okay, okay,
yeah, we can almost hear so I get to catch up on other work. On the weekend. So yeah, we were talking about what are we gonna do this weekend, but I'm like, I got grading to do so that's what I'm doing. Yeah, so he'll chill
out soon. So do we want to wait a couple more minutes? Before we get this thing kicked off? Yeah, I think more people join us.
We actually do know have quorum now that you're and we're at almost five after and we have a packed agenda. So we might want to start
huh? All right. Let's let's go ahead and kick this thing off. Who wants to do the land acknowledgement and then following that to reflection.
That's Sarah. Yeah, I have volunteered so okay. Let me just pull it up here. Let's start our meeting with the acknowledgement that the land we are on is the traditional homelands of the calla pook Calapooia people, the Calapooia have been stewards of this land for more than 14,000 years. arrival of Europeans caused many of their traditional ways of life to be disrupted and even destroyed. Let us begin our meeting with humility. And reverence for the original inhabitants, the Calapooia who continue today as part of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde community, and the Confederated Tribes of this let's Indians right? I've actually been thinking about this land acknowledgement. A lot in the last week I'm I lead a book group of white folks who read literature that challenges us and do our own work in space that does not involve labor of people of color. And the book that we are reading right now is the new edition of the 1619 project. And there's a chapter that is pretty heavily revised. From the original about dispossession. And it is specifically about the ways in which the US government very much masterminds, the she uses the word conflict. I'm not sure I would use that word. But between indigenous peoples and black Americans. It's a very thoughtful chapter, but there's a line in here. I'm just gonna read this one sentence out loud that I keep coming back to and that I really struggled with. And this is we're talking about Great Britain coming in. And really starting to infiltrate the lands of the indigenous peoples and she writes, the leaders of the tribal nations and subgroups within them that supported Great Britain. Were choosing the devil they knew. And I just keep coming back to that because even in this chapter, where there is such an attempt to really process and work through what happened here, it's still the idea that they were choosing a devil, right that they had a choice and that the dispossession that was happening was something that they had to say in it all. I just have found really troubling and I've been thinking about it a lot is I'm teaching face to face again on campus and so many of our students are talking about how much they have missed the physical space of campus and what it means to be on land that most of us don't understand. And so, it has just kept coming back to me this week as I have processed this chapter of the book and and really thought about the conversation that we had actually in the last meeting, about the land acknowledgement and why we do it and where its role is and also just the language of our land acknowledgement and really thinking about the rhetorical choices that were made there. In light of the ones that were made in this chapter in the book, so that's, that is my reflection for today.
I want to thank you for that. This is this is the kind of dialogue that will land acknowledgement statements. This is the kind of dialogue they should they should bring up and this should be part of the result of that. So I appreciate you really taking the time to think and reflect and I appreciate your words.
Thanks, sir.
DREW. Did you have anything? Thanks, Sarah.
Okay, how's that? I, I, I I think that resonates with me as well because you say the devil that they knew and I haven't had a chance to read 1619 yet, but I'm just thinking about the the British versus the Spanish versus the French and the choices that they had in terms of the people who were going to dominate them and dominate the continent, both continents and Central America and there were no choices there just was they stepped into your your your backyard and said I'm not leaving. That I think is it it's more than arrogant and you know, asserting white dominance in a place that they they they did not belong and we're not here for the last 20,000 years mining land and taking care of the the environment that they lived in. Anything else on that? I don't see deontae yet. But let's go into welcoming all who are here. Tracy, do you have the roles we need to go through the roll call? I think we're okay with membership and quorum at this point. And then we can go into the review of the agenda. And from there, we can move into the minutes. One note I want to make on the agenda and I don't know if everyone picked this up or not. But we were going to have a conversation about pronouns and intersectionality that was going to be led by Dawn and dawn had a conflict. So we're going to move that conversation over to the March meeting. And a lot of that conversations currently focused on how we specifically deal with people's own personal identification through the current system that we have set up for, you know, roll call for students for identify them, identifying themselves through the system, across campus, and within the context of the way that we have things set up and I don't know
Shane, if you want to if you have some comments on that or not, but I know that you guys are working on that with Don in terms of her role as registrar to see what we can do about making certain corrections and how we handle that policy because that has been a real sticking point for a lot of students who are non binary.
Yeah, I don't have a lot to add Donald be the expert in terms of the tech technical background piece. I think that we've got we've got sort of some reporting requirements that we need to collect certain data for that may not line up necessarily with preferences and so it's, it's how do you you know, how do you get answers to those questions so you can meet federal reporting requirements in a way that doesn't alienate people, and also allows us to capture the information we need to represent them the way that they want to be represented within our systems and on campus. That's my that's my sort of 10,000 foot view understanding of what some of those issues are, but Donald be able to speak to that much better than I can.
Yeah, I think we should just leave that to her for the March meeting. Go ahead, sir.
I just want to add to this, this is a particularly sensitive topic for me this week. I have several students who, for their research projects in my writing classes are doing topics that are related to issues of the transit invite non binary community and I have had to in tears, have multiple conversations with those students this week telling them that their research project is actually not feasible, because nobody cares enough about the demographic to actually collect that data. And so the inquiry questions that they have about their own communities, I literally cannot help them answer. And so I just want to say, as a framing for this as a member of the Diversity Council, yes, we have federal compliance issues, but using that as an excuse or a way around, or using the language of preference to be like, Oh, you really have to fit in this box over here. But like, if you have this preferred thing than in the classroom space, we can use the thing you prefer. I am not exaggerating when I say that that is literally an issue of life and death. And I would really like to see us collectively as a council, not allow the college to push forward particularly given that we still do not have a procedure for the discrimination non bias policy, push forward with more data collection and categorization that literally makes a demographic of our students invisible. It is just it's very hard for me to talk about this in a way that is not just motivated by anger and rage, and I'm really trying to be like a sensible, rational human being. But having to look a student in the eye and tell them that even at their own college there is no data in existence that represents their community is something that I'm so tired of doing. I
I am sorry for that. Sarah and my my word choice was not was not a good one. I my response was only based upon past understanding I've not talked to Don about this. Didn't know what she was gonna say. Just tried to share what what I understood to be some of the issues before we passed that policy that policy. So again, it's maybe kicked you in the back and I didn't mean to I'm sorry. Well,
she she let me be clear. My response was not to you. It was too much issue. This is a conversation that GSA and myself and Gina and countless other students on this campus have been having with Leanne for 11 years. And it's been the same response every time and when conversations are happening where representatives from Lane are talking to students language gets used it just there's gonna be some solution and change and then it doesn't happen. And then we end up back in these meetings again, where we're having the conversation as though respecting people's names and pronouns is like an effort we have to make around all of these obstacles and not simply a recognition of someone's humanity. So absolutely, that was not directed at you. At your comment, right? It's it's frustration at a much larger conversation and the language that I was referencing is the language that keeps getting used by the college and those conversations. So please understand that that was not personal. Yeah, no, I
I think that Dawn No, it was just have this conversation, but I think that she's had some ideas about a way forward. For us to be able to collect that data, to be able to express respectful and recognize people for you know, how they want to be identified and how they want to be addressed. And to do that in a way that you know, I will say I will be but I want to say Riggs into context, the the importance and the nature of people's identity. And that we kind of are looking at that looking at attendance or identification strictly in a binary way. And it's been difficult to do that. Because it's likely our home challenged or conversation. There's the federal calendar, that is our county, there's there's federal law, there's the way that we want to approach that. Do me as he said, Do we have and I haven't had a chance to look at this. Do you have other best practices, institutions that have addressed the issue? Have you seen anything out there that say you know, somebody else you know, across the country is doing this right?
I push back against the notion of best practices and doing it right because I think some of the answers to those questions are institutionally specific. If the question is, are there other colleges who are providing what I think are more satisfying answers to students? Yes.
That's That's what I mean. Yeah. So there are other colleges that
are other places where this conversation is happening, right? It's it's a rock conversation every year. I'm not suggesting there are easy answers. I'm just like from the bottom of my current pleading that as a council. We participate in this conversation in a way that doesn't allow space for the status quo to be reinforced. Because it is just you it is 11 years of spinning wheels, and particularly given what our enrollment looks like right now. Just on a really practical level. I think it's pretty unwise for us to do anything else that's going to discourage students from coming to the lane. Just like on a very like baseline, something administration can hear level but just on a larger philosophical level as a Diversity Council. My comment was intended to ask us to create space when we are having that conversation. That forces us as an institution to have the difficult conversation right. We are a council. We are supposed to be part of the leadership of this college and a lot of us have done a lot of individual work on this this particular area, including other folks who are in this meeting right now who might not be talking up. But that kind of individual work is not what is going to push forward and institutional change. So if we have done in this room with us, who actually has some power to do some stuff, right. And this conversation is coming back up again at an institutional level, holding it in this council space in space. Where the notion of telling students they have to check a box that is not representative to them is just not an option on the table. Like I think that is our job. I recognize that we might not be successful in that. Right. We haven't been for over a decade. But I think that that is our job as this specific counsel to frame that conversation in such a way where we are saying, Look, this conversation has been had 1000 times in this space. That's not the conversation we're having we're not creating space, to to entertain the possibility that we are still putting our students in a position where where they have to make themselves invisible in order to attend this institution. If that makes sense.
It does. And since Gina was the one who first brought this up for this particular beating. I think that both Gina and Dawn and other interested parties need to be part of this conversation. So I want to make sure that we have that conversation or begin that conversation with our March meeting. Does that sound good for everybody?
Well, I I want to just say I appreciate the background. This hasn't been on my radar. I haven't known that lane. The college our administration thinks it's wise to default to a binary only identification process for students. It's good to know that that's where we're at that people are defending that system. Thanks for the heads up. Yeah, that's
there still people who are locked into the whole binary thing. You know, having members of my family who are not in that headspace you know, both you know, intellectually emotionally and just basically identity wise, I kind of understand more than I did before. So it's really kind of difficult for me to kind of wrap my head around some of this, but I'm understanding because, you know, there there are people that, you know, I related to that are struggling with the same issue and being identified as themselves how they want to be identified as individuals and how they want to be counted in terms of, you know, depressive state just on campus, but within the body politic is is an important shift that we have Darwish struggling to make right now, in real time. So let's move on the agenda. I'm not sure where Richard is. Richard and I are scheduled to have a meeting next week to talk about the climate study but I've had him on our on our on our agenda for the last three agendas, but I know that he's kind of overloaded to some degree and shit and when last time I had a conversation with March this week, March talked about that now, Richard and I are working on this but that shade would be participating from his perspective in terms of HR and how we go about the climate. Study. Doing what we need to do there. And then the IRP instead is Richard side of the house and then subsequently selecting a firm to do this work and to be able to get at least the survey going by spring term. So, Shane, do you have any other thoughts or comments on this because we really haven't had a beating on it. But just marches desire to position this a little bit differently? Yeah, I'm
in that meeting with you all next Tuesday. So we'll we'll have have more information and know more about sort of who the potential respondents are to an RFP and be able to get that schedule and be able to report back to you it. We could probably put that on a on the work session agenda to at least provide an update from that meeting. So again, just to kind of keep you keep you on the loop and the hope with watching all over cron every day and the hope that is that more and more people will be back on campus even in spring term, then we're in that are in winter and we'll have a fuller experience. Yeah, yeah, variance for people to be able to say this is what it feels like to be on this campus. It's kind of artificial over zoom.
Okay, yeah, I see what you say in chat, Sarah, why don't we do you do go around and do some introductions. And we can welcome Ross to the to the group. And let's do that real quickly, and then we can move forward with the agenda. So who wants to kick this off? Sarah or whoever let's, let's go.
Welcome. I am Sarah. I teach in writing and literature. You she and they pronouns and we're super happy to have a student here.
Yeah. Laurie?
Yeah, sure. Laura, Lord top 100. So you initiate with a coach initially, that she he or she tend to cheat and he or she trainer Caiden. Additionally, the timing is Denisha. I'm the Native American Student Program Coordinator, the longhouse steward. One of the CO advisors for NASA, the Native American Student Association, and also work in the MCC and manage our rites of passage program. So welcome.
Who was Joe DEXT?
A while I'm new she Molly Mali, she Gaga? Naga tillikum. Chunuk telecomms Laci Tellegen I've been just introducing myself as drew vials I'm so let's person I'm here working at Lake Erie college since 1999. I'm in the English department I teach with Sarah writing classes mostly. happy to welcome people I'm happy to welcome a welcome is it Raisa? Reisa I didn't catch your name, but I'll have I'll be paying attention to it here. Thanks for coming.
Hi, my name is Tracy Weimer. I am the project coordinator for the Office of Equity inclusion. I use she her pronouns. I'm very very happy to see a student here
today. Lesley
she stepped away for a minute
she did okay. So Raisa, at least at least, give us the introduce yourself and give us your correct pronunciation of your name. Because I'm bad with that. I can't you pronounce my own day back? So go ahead.
Yeah, my name is Vysa. I am a student at Lane and I use she and her pronouns. I'm sorry I can up in my camera right now.
Well welcome Rice,
rice. I'm Shane Turner. I work in human resources and I use he pronouns welcome glad to have have you here with us.
Thank you, Lesley.
Hi, where are you? So my name is Leslie. Sorry, I must survive this and I'm a counselor in the Counseling Center. Welcome.
Rice. My name is Greg Evans. I'm the associate vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion. I've been here I think, the longest maybe not maybe Drew's been here longer than I have. But I've been writing for about the last 27 years. I lose count after a while. And I used to be in the same position in same department as Laurie as the African American student programs coordinator and part of the faculty and I taught a number of courses before I assumed this role several years ago. So welcome to the Dorsey counts. So since we don't have Richard here, and I don't want to step into this without without Richard being here, and we're going to be having this conversation next week. I know that he's got a bunch of things on his plate. If he does pop in, we'll move into that report. When he does get here if he gets here. I didn't get a message from him that he was coming. So the next piece is the new five year diversity plan and developing and recruiting a subcommittee to work on that plan. So at this point, what I'd like to do is to kind of open up the conversation for what the composition of that committee should look like. Who should be on that committee, we want to invite to be part of that committee. And then start putting together a work plan so that we can coordinate a basic divert diversity plan or vision for through 2027 that is in alignment with the new strategic plan for the college that is being finalized over the next couple of months. And I think I for the last board meeting, I think that the board is looking at wrapping this all together in May. If I'm correct about that, Shane, I have some notes, but I can't put my fingers on it right now. But that's what I understood from the last board meeting. This past week. And by the way, the board has changed its meeting, day and position in the calendar to go with the first Wednesday of every month. So ideas, thoughts. One of the things that I wanted to do is before I started putting together an outline or a sketch of what the roles, responsibilities, and actually what the goal of this exercise would be would be to get some dialogue and some input at this particular meeting. So that we could begin to you know, have a conversation that is got some form to it. And gives us some ideas about what our next set of goals, what our directions are going to be and how we're going to put together a plan that is going to be able to be implemented and we'll be able to be effective in terms of that implementation. Grass. Yes,
we're fast. Um, I'd like to know just real quick, I've done reading and I'm aware of the the diversity plan that expires this year. Right? What kind of report is going to come out showing our progress in the diversity plan, enacting that equity lens? What kind of report is going to come out showing the past work we've done and who will that be published out of and where is that going to be? publicly displayed?
I'm glad you asked that question because right now, we are we are working on what that is going to look like. We had a meeting yesterday, Tracy myself and our consultant, Phil Nash. And we touched on this issue but have that specifically address what that particular report is going to look like. So we're going to go back over what we originally tried to implement at the beginning of these five year plan that we adopted back in 2017. Look at what we have accomplished. What we haven't accomplished. Where are the holes that and just be very, you know, transparent and candid about the things that we have accomplished and things we have not accomplished. We have a lot of holes to the to be filled from that plan. And what I would like to do is to wrap some of those goals and benchmarks into the future plan. The idea is for us to put together a report that will come back to the Diversity Council first and then proceed with putting that report out or issuing that report to the board. So that will, you know be something that we're going to we're going to have to do so to take a little bit of time to do that. But I'm anticipating that as we start working on that, we're going to be able to put together a report that is it's it's going to be spotty. So I'll put it to you that way. We'll go ahead Laurie.
I think that you know maybe that's that's the conversation that needs to be had because it feels like if we put all of our attention to creating a new plan, we're going to those big gaps in the holes, and I'd love to see what's already been done because I'm sure there's reports out somewhere that detail what we've accomplished within those years. So I'd love to see those reports. I haven't they're not available online. But I think that instead of kicking the can down the road on these these places where we've not accomplished goals, I think we should have the current serious conversation about extending our current plan and work on it to complete. I mean, he feels like that would address these gaps rather than developing something new where we see something shiny and we're gonna go for that rather than what's already on the table.
Yeah, I you know, I don't see this as being necessarily a brand new plan, but I think I agree with you there that we need to look at an extension of what we already have. We need to look at filling the holes that we have in that plan and to get to just a second, Sarah. And, you know, where we need to reframe and restructure we could do that. You know, I think that the help that we're going to get from Phil is going to be invaluable in that. I take responsibility for a lot of that because it was on my plate and things got things got moved around and shifted around for a variety of reasons so personal that I don't want to go into right now. But I think that, you know, we, where we are with with certain initiatives, particularly with the equity lens, is trading and utilization. So for example, just give this as an example. We were doing trading around the equity lens all the way up until and including the beginning of the pandemic. And then we got to got knocked off track there. And then we have we've only had one administrator, one manager that is actually gone through and you utilize the equity LEDs tool and process and put it this way that didn't work out so well. So what I've what I've suggested is is that we have some conversation with Phil, about revisiting that and doing some fine tuning and then also looking at our leadership at the cabinet level about how we move this forward within the context of holding our Management Administration responsible for utilizing the the equity lens and implementing the equity lens. If the work is currently going on and what is been traditionally activities such as hiring and curriculum development and all the other things that we do as a college that the equity lens needs to be integrated into so that we can start looking at things differently than what we have done before. So Sarah
and I
100% agree with Laurie that I think the the focus of whatever report we create, and this is part of what I was trying to speak to in the last meeting needs to be about the accountability for the last cycle and and we need to find ways to make that work happen. And
it is
part of the conversation for me that needs to happen is that we need to hold ourselves accountable as an institution as the person who wrote most of that plan as the person who was the chair for the first several years of that plan. As the person who had all the conversations with Phil and you and Marge as we mapped out this plan. I can say with simplicity the plan did not happen because the college did not want it to happen. And until we have that conversation, I adore Phil he is one of my favorite human beings on the face of the planet. I will work with him 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but we are wasting his time. Our time, our money, our wisdom or knowledge if we are not willing to have the conversation that this work is not happening because there is not institutional will for it to happen. And I don't know I have been trying to get people to have that conversation. I'm kind of in a point right now that I never thought I'd get to where like I'm so overwhelmed and devastated by what has happened at this college in the last handful of years under the current leadership and the gap between the lip service that happens publicly and what is actually happening to my students and my colleagues. That I am at a point where I don't know that we can fix it, but I do know that if we stand any chance at all of fixing it at this point, we have to have the conversation that Laurie is pointing to about owning and not personal ownership. Greg it doesn't fix the problem for you to be like it was on my plate I didn't do it right. I appreciate when people take ownership but it it didn't not happen because of any one individual. It didn't not happen because the people who wrote the plan, abandon the plan and didn't care. It didn't happen and it's not happening again. Right we're seeing this shift happen with a climate survey again, where it's getting smooshed with another survey, and we are finding yet another way as an institution to say we don't actually value this enough to do it as its own thing. So I am more than happy to help write that report if the report that we are writing is an honest assessment of that plan that we wrote in 2017 and an honest ownership and accountability about why as an institution I mean there there aren't just holes and gaps. We accomplished almost none of what we said we were going to do in that plan. Have we accomplished other things. Yes. But when we actually said we were going to do in that plan like it's a gaping hole. And that's the point at which we we have to if any plan we write whether it's a new one or it's a revised version of the one that we didn't complete last time is meaningless. If we cannot get the institution on board. And Phil can't do that for us. He can he can support our work. But somehow we have to figure out how to make the institution actually care enough. About this work to support its completion. Before we stand any chance of getting anything done.
And Sarah, I think I completely agree with you are that it does require is to show commitment. And one of the things that I think that we have been struggling with is exactly what that commitment is. And the commitment requires that just the flower language but it really determines what you know. It's what my mother used to say is you can measure the value of a person's kibitz any fate by what they, what they spend their money on and where they spend their money. At. And quite frankly, because we're variety of things that we all know have happened over the last few years. And our take hit roll that we have deep budget gaps that are not going to be closed unless we are going to reduce services to students. And we're going to ultimately, it I can't speak for shame but Shane's gonna have to be the wizard here about how we deal with the human resources, gaps that have occurred are continuing to occur and that are going to make things even more difficult than what what they are. I mean, we are the top institution of the 70 colleges that has the biggest drop in enrollment across the state guys. That's just it. There's no question about that. But we need to have we need that we just just just let me finish with this. We need to have more than two staff members that's my that's my that's what my that's my breakfast. Feel but anyway, to to address this, and I know that across the state we've had major changes in dei leadership, people who have left positions regarding California and other places. So we go just it's just not an institutional issue. But it actually broadly goes back to House Bill 2016 and a lack of a structured administrative rules that we're starting to get some of those we did at the end of end of the year, last year, December, but we have to sit down and analyze what that's going to look like and what that means to leave and how we move forward. So I think that both you, Sarah Laurie have probably the right idea. It's not a new plan, but it is an extension of the plan that we began in 2017 and trying to close those gaps close those holes and look at, you know precisely where we are, where we need to be or where we want to be over the next months and years as we move forward. And we've got we've had some serious issues that we're going to they're going to change us even more because we don't know who our next leader is going to be. We don't know the that well we have an idea of where the board wants us to go. But we won't have anybody in place to provide that leadership until the transition happens between barge and whoever the next president is. And that's going to drive a lot of what we do is you know, who that next leader. Leader is and how they're going to respond to to the direction of the board. And subsequently, what we're going to actually do to make these things happen that we desire to happen, you know, and what had to happen in the first place.
Go ahead and
make a comment. Go ahead. I think that um, I think we'd make a huge mistake if we just said, We got to wait and see. I think that's just a huge mistake in terms of moving forward some of this equity work. So I don't think it's a wait and see. I think we continue to do the work. We don't make huge changes. I think that we should stop looking forward to a new plan and as a Diversity Council recommend and I'm willing to make that recommendation that we pause and go back and look at the plan we currently have and look at an extension now. That would sit and go back and really dig and pull that workout that needs to be done and just do it. It's already
pre approved. Let's do that. I'm willing to change a motion of that nature and then we can look at formulating a team to actually look at that and then developing these extension because double the work can't stop because we get a new president. But we do need to be able to continue doing what we are doing and and change the things that we need to change and get the ship right as much as we possibly care. Sarah
I second Laurie. I would also like to say
waiting is not an option. We had an opportunity as a college to tell Marge what we expected in this work. And I thought we did that when she got here. I thought we laid the groundwork. I thought that the diversity plan was very clear and as Laurie noted, I thought we will pre approval to do that work from her a meeting I had face to face with her and you in her office and then the rug got pulled out from underneath that and collectively as an institution. We allowed that to happen. We had a choice. We could have held Marge and the Board of Education and everybody else that she hired since she'd been here accountable. And as an institution we didn't and there are a variety of reasons why we didn't but as we prepare to usher in a new leader to this college we don't have to make.
Everything okay, Greg, maybe you got a call? Yeah, I think that that's the the larger conversation that we need to have is how, how can we pause and just go back reflect and then start, if we work, the plan we already have. I don't know what kind of what kind of language that has to be put into put into motion but I'm willing to make that motion.
Okay, well, I think we can figure that out. I think we understand what the intent of the motion is. And we can work with that. But as long as we have an agreement on what the direction is that we want to go with that. Then actually but we could Yeah, I don't. I'm just looking. I'm just looking at a Tracy's note in it.
But but if we don't have a motion, there's not really an action to go back. We have to have action to go back and do the work. So I worry that not having to motion would allow us to just ignore all the comments that were made today. And there will There was never really an action passed in Diversity Council. Go back. I would like to have a motion.
So could could someone quickly on the fly. Put together a motion that basically says and it does have to be complicated, that we are going to continue to work of the diversity plan adopted in 2017 that we are doing this as an extension but not embarking on a new plan. And that we are going to review, revise and assess where we are with this particular plan. And recommitted to completing the plan that is already in place with
in a subcommittee as trade within
is a subcommittee. And if I may I want to push back against a subcommittee here. This needs to be
all of us. So the total the total
part of what happened last time around is that everyone in sub committees and then those sub committees were so small that we just all got ignored keep going I can I can make the motion because break technically can't so I motion that as a council. We revisit the 2017 five year plan and recommit to the work that we have committed to originally in that plan that has not yet happened instead of composing a new plan I'll second I think Greg stepped away. So all in favor
favor? Anybody? Aye.
Anybody opposed? Anybody abstaining?
Okay, I don't know that we had another student joined us while we were having that conversation. So I want to take a pause to honor theory. Voting is joined us on that's the second student that Deontay had notified us to add to the to the mix here. I just wanted to honor that they've come in to do you think we should do another round of introductions or move on? I don't want to I don't want to miss skip over an opportunity to say welcome. I got my name
so I'll just go really quick welcome. My name is Leslie Saviano said Memphis and I'm one of the counselor what what are the counselors here on campus and bilingual Spanish speaking? Welcome.
I'm Sarah, I teach in writing and literature and CO advise the GSA. Welcome and it's so so lovely to see students with us today.
Yes. That Shana Laurie top 100 And a shiftworkers initial question turn toward a TV dish satanic identity professional. Italian is Denisha. I'm a hunter welcome. We're always happy to have students and it's important, important voices that you bring and represent so I'm the Native American Student Program Coordinator and welcome.
Okay, Rivas while I'm neci Molly, Chicago. nyga. tillikum falacci tillikum. I'm just saying hello. Did I get your name? Is it Terry theory? I'm just guessing you'll have to help me out. I think I got Raisa Raisa, so welcoming. Yeah, I'm happy to see I'm instructor in the English Department. I teach in literature and writing programs. So I'm so happy to see you here.
Oh, sorry. I had to step away. A Greg Evans. I'm the associate vice president for diversity equity inclusion here and welcome dari to this meeting, and you can participate as you feel free to participate. I'm sorry, I had to step away I had an issue I had to deal with. They could wait but going back to are we through introductions yet?
Yeah, just Yeah, I didn't get a chance to yet Greg. Thanks. There we go. Thank you, Shane Turner. I work in human resources. Welcome. We're really glad that you're here.
Okay, so we do have the makings of a motion on the table. And
we actually seconded that and voted on it because yes, but you need to cast your vote. Yay, nay abstain.
I vote Yay. Okay. All right. Okay. So then that can be recorded and we can move from there. Let's see the next the next item on the agenda. And we have agreed that this is a total Diversity Council effort and we're not going to sub put this in a subcommittee. We're just going to go ahead and work on that as the tone Council. The next piece was just very brief and short. I was hoping that our schedules would align themselves but that didn't happen for Phil but we. What we decided to do was to continue to work with Phil, Phil Nash, who has been our consultant for the last few years on our diversity, equity implementation issues. And we considered decided to extend that contract for this year. So there were three things that Tracy and I talked about with Phil yesterday at a meeting we did for about an hour. And those those issues were the diversity plan. What we were going to be doing as far as the equity lens was concerned and we mostly talked about the commitment from management and administration. There we go. We got share screen on that. The equity LEDs holistic assessments and training. The five year plan which is now going to be extension of the 2017 plan, and the expanded the opposite way. So one of the things that I'll start from three back up to one, one of the things that Marge wanted, wanted us to do or wanted me to do was to sketch out a plan for the board to see what a fully staff the eye office at Lane would look like. What personnel do we need, what resources do we need? What kind of budget do we need? And I think that that was more of an aspirational situation than what we have in terms of real resources right now. But the board wanted to look at what that would look like what would it take to be able to implement a full Office. I won't go back over the the last few years which I had to Well, I was saying I I had to beg and cajole just to get Tracy on as a full time staff member because not only did I need it, we needed it and Tracy has been an outstanding addition to the office and has been an excellent driver of some of the initiatives that we have underway now. So we want to look at not having all of those responsibilities land either on my plate, or Tracy's plate but be able to spread those duties or responsibilities out because there are a lot of areas that we have not been able to touch on or address simply because of time and resource or lack of resources that we have had to do this work. We're not PCC and we don't have, you know, six or seven people in the department and people specifically designated for areas to work on such as recruitment and retention of staff and faculty managers. You know, other parts development in the diversity framework. So, Phil is going to put together an outline for us. I'm going to be working with show on that we're going to be looking at some other models that have successful
departments across the country. And we're going to put together a not necessarily a proposal, but I suppose I would say to the board so that they can see what it is that we need. And you know, what kind of budget commitment as well as institutional commitment we need to have for this work to be done. So if anyone has any input into that, that is more than welcome. From the Diversity Council. If you have ideas and thoughts, please forward them to us so that we can put that together and be ready to propose that to the board of directors at some point in the not too distant future. Then there's the five year vi plan. So we have decided with this last motion is that to have a subcommittee we have decided also to make this a a council wide effort and to do an extension of 2017 plan that will address an assessment of where we are with that plan, addressing some of the deficiencies and holes in the plan and moving moving us forward with that. Film will assist us with that, as you know, more or less a neutral party that will help guide us through the the those pieces and go from there and then the the holistic assessment and trainings. That's something that we talked about with Phil yesterday. So that we can, you know, take a broader, higher level look at what we need to be doing as an institution. Putting together the kind of data that we need to have so that we can have a baseline to where we are resetting ourselves to and then re envisioning what we want to do in terms the continuation of the 2017 plan, so that we can accomplish some of the goals that we had outlined first place five years ago. So that's what my recollection is of the meeting and my notes that I had from yesterday and Tracy if this steady fake jump in
TRACE
Oh, I was typing. Um, so I pulled the this is the memo that Phil sent us last night after a meeting. Yeah. Um, I don't know if you looked at it today. I have
had a chance to look at it yet. Because that's, that's part of what's on my plate for this morning. But go ahead.
Also, it's on the screen. I see it now. Um, so I'm just kind of making little edits to it about recommitting the entire council to the work of reworking or reworking the existing plan. So in part of the existing plan, see, I can't see my controls. So the diversity plan that's currently on the books, deals almost exclusively with like the equity lens, right and the pieces of the equity lens and the progress it was supposed to make. And the big pieces that didn't happen were the assessments. Right. So that the I guess prioritize if when we revisit the work, if we could prioritize those assessment pieces, I think it would be helpful. So that's my two cents. That's a personal perspective.
But it also included in that is our CCPD work which at the time, that was House Bill 2016. Didn't K 20 60k came into being after we developed the initial diversity plan. I forget what session it was, I think it was during the 2017 session or the short session in 2018. But rep. Teresa, Alonzo Leone's bill that, you know, gave us the mandate to and not just us but all 17 community colleges, all seven public universities to have a cultural competency professional development effort around that. Moving Ahead is also part of that plan. Now by default, not necessarily by our purpose, but we are we were moving in that direction anyway. So
I'm clarifying question, Greg. So are you saying that we are going to we're going to put the language of CPPD inside, you're hoping to put the language of CCPD inside the diversity plan? Yes. So those were the the goals that we reached that weren't necessarily on paper,
right? We need to we need to we need to call that out because that has been one of the more successful initiatives that we have had. And we do need to do some tweaking around that as well. And based on what the heck has put out for those of you don't know what the heck is the Higher Education Coordinating Commission that basically is the umbrella organization for the state that provides guidance, support and structure for our diversity efforts across the higher education platform, which includes the universities, the public, universities and community colleges. So there are some things that have recently come out that we're going to have to go back and look at and address that just came out back in December. And there's some specific guidelines that we're going to have to align ourselves with in order to be I don't want to say compliance because we don't have a compliance mandate based on what's coming out of the HEC or from OCC A which is the Oregon Community College Association. But we have guidelines and suggestions nothing that is necessarily written in stone yet. But it is providing some of the guidance that we did not have at the beginning of this process and that now is starting to be formulated because other institutions are struggling with this as well. So we're not the only one. We're we're farther along than some other people are. But we still have a lot of catching up to do. So one of the things that I will say in terms of that is that we did we do have an agreement with the faculty union around this a baseline of number of credits or hours that each employee is being held accountable to for cultural competency, professional development. And there's some issues that we have to work through with certain areas that have training limit limitations, based on budget as well as time to actually do training. So I don't know. Shane, you and I haven't had this conversation in a while but I look towards you in terms of how we are going to be able to reposition ourselves in order to meet the mandates of House Bill 2016.
Yeah, I'm really confident about any future training needs. I think that we made really good progress with the Faculty Association around mandatory training we have a an MLA in place that allows the college to assign training and provides for payment for for that faculty time. And so there really isn't a barrier anymore to to assigning mandatory training, making sure that that gets done. I've got a personal barrier in terms of, of tracking it and managing it and just you know, herding cats to follow up with folks who don't complete it. That's not your problem. That's mine. There's, but there's no reason why we can't assign training and expect it to be done that that's not a barrier anymore. Sarah I'm
just three quick thoughts. When I want to push back against the notion of folding CCPD into our five year plan. There was a very strategic and well discussed conversation about why we didn't put it in the last five year plan. And part of that actually, is that a lot of folks who were working on that plan felt like it was kind of the low hanging fruit and that what would happen is that it would get reported as the success and shadow all of the gaps. So if we look at the actual plan as it was written, which is the plan that I and I don't want to speak for Laurie, but I think Laurie was also suggesting that we move forward, that language is actually not in there. And I actually think that that's a really important thing. I do think we should write a report. I do think we should celebrate that success. But I think that's important that success is connected to the House bill. And the fact that this is now a mandate and I honestly do not believe that we would have gotten the faculty union to agree to it, had it not been part of a mandate. I think there's a whole other conversation there. So yes, let's celebrate that. Right. I'm all about victories. But I think that's a separate conversation. And then in terms of the conversation here, I think, as we're thinking about this five year plan and moving it forward, I think we really want to think about Greg, you were talking about bringing it to the board. I think we really want to think about strategy. Our tanking enrollment is directly connected to our lack of follow through on making an inclusive campus. And I think that we can use that strategically to our advantage to try to get some of the support, particularly financial that we need from the college to move this work forward and so I would just suggest that we consider as we start reviving, and revisiting that five year plan and preparing to present it to the board. Two things one, that we don't request, or beg or grovel for funding that we say this is a necessary thing. And it is actually not optional defund it um and that we use the the connections and the links between the tanking enrollment right and many of the reasons for that being connected to the fact that students are not feeling as though this college belongs to them. Or they have a space in this college as a way to present this plan in a language that will be better heard by people who are maybe not interacting with students day to day and not really seeing the very lived results in both students and their colleagues on campus. So I think that that's a strategic framing as we think about moving forward in presenting demand for sustainable support to the college.
Yeah, I can agree with that. We could we can move the CCPD conversations out of the overall strategic plan, but I think that you have a very good point strategically about how we move forward with the plan is that we use it as leverage with the board to hold all of us accountable for the implementation of the plan and particularly around developing stakeholder ship and ownership of all constituencies across campus to the plan.
And, and I think we actually, in some ways five years ago, set up the framework to do that, because one of the ways that I framed So for folks who were not here I actually went to the board and presented to the Board multiple times as we were developing this five year plan. And one of the ways that I framed it to the board was that we had done a smaller scale internal version of the climate survey and overwhelmingly the feedback and the data that we got from that survey suggested that both for staff and I think it would have also suggested for students had we ever actually followed through on that piece, but certainly for staff that a lot of folks were were feeling as though this college was not someplace that they could remain and I think that we have seen the devastating effects in in the mass exodus of some really amazing wonderful people from this college, that that are linked, right. And so I think that in some ways that frame was set up and I think that we can remind the board that they had committed to allowing students to have the opportunity to speak to those experiences as well that were never follow through on right. So we actually don't have that other piece of data because the College made a choice to not follow through on that part. So I think the framing pieces are already there.
So noted. So I see Paul is just joining us here and Paul, you're moving in at the right time. And just to kind of bring you up to date, we have had conversations about extending the current five year diversity plan instead of developing a new five year plan. Looking at assessing and evaluating what we have already done, what what where we are are at in terms of the gaps, the holes we have in that plan. And then coming back and looking at how we can close those gaps, address those issues and move forward with what we had intended to do five years ago, but as we all know, politics gets involved in things and you know, stuff gets a little bit murky than then what we intended for it to be. And so that's that's one of the things that we've we've got to address. So do you want to talk about it? I don't want to I don't want to put you on the spot, Paul, but I don't think we're ready to go to college council yet. I think that what we need to do is we need to do the work that we have just talked about doing before we go to college council or even, you know, going to the next level which is the board. We have some things that we need to finish and complete and address. And maybe just to get your comment and perspective on what you perceive are the board's expectations around the equity LEDs and around our planning for what we just did add technically completed the 2017 to 2022 plan and the development of the extension of that plan. Instead of doing a new five year plan.
See Laurie has her hand up. Lori together.
Tell me Oh, Lord,
discussion. You know, the discussion we had, we've had for the last probably 45 minutes or so. Was that? It started with trying to see our work and realizing there's these you know, Sarah What do you call it? gaping holes?
Yeah,
yeah. In the actual diversity plan we have now so the conversation has been we need to not try to move forward or kick the can down the road. It's actually let's, let's stop pause and let's go back and see what we need to actually do. And, you know, and we were saying that there it's really about, you know, institutional accountability, and that we have collectively that I don't even want to call it power, but we have that voice to say we need to stop. We're as a Diversity Council. We didn't you know, we didn't. And part of the, you know, progression. We didn't hold anyone accountable. We didn't call for accountability. We didn't insist on accountability. So now we can say rather than creating something new, and again, I think I equated it to a shiny new toy and new initiatives. You know, we're gonna we have all this beautiful stuff on the plate right now, but we're gonna see something new and go straight to that instead. Why don't we just go back and focus on what we already have laid out? We have a plan, we have things that tie directly into, you know, lack of retention of staff and faculty, lack of retention of students goes back to our numbers goes back to our budget. All of this is tied together. So let's focus on fixing that. Go back and address that now rather than create something new. So that was the motion was to extend the Senate passed. You just missed it
with a vote, darn it.
So we passed that that motion to as a as diversity council insist that we revisit that plan back onto the table. And do that work again and come to completion.
I couldn't agree more. I mean, we go through these academic exercises of creating plans and yet they sit somewhere so we can say we created a plan. We have lost something my goodness, just in the if you look at our employees, just in the past few months, we have lost some wonderful employees and we're continuing to lose some great employees and I I know that part of that is because of our campus climate and that it's not you know, we we know what we need to do. So I've always wondered what you know, is it what's what's causing this? Is it a lack of will? Is it a lack of knowledge? Is it a lack of some, but really, I mean, we know what we need to do. I think we haven't resourced that plan. We checked it as a box and said that plans done now let's move on to something else. I think everything now has to align with the fact that if we don't do something about our campus climate, and it's recoverable, obviously, but if we don't do something about that we will continue to lose good people, employees and students and that has a huge impact, right? I mean, it only makes morale worse and things so So I support you know, if there are things in the plan that haven't been resourced, that make a difference, we need to really really advocate for resourcing them so that we they can make a difference otherwise it was a pointless exercise. And if there are gaps in the plan you know, having you know, lived with a plan and seen some things worked on and not worked on, you know, that we could add to it. I think that would be worthwhile. But I don't you know, I don't think you have to create a new plan just because the old one sunset if you hadn't haven't worked the old plan yet if it's still valid, right. So I support that totally I think what we do need to do and advocate for is linking and we're going to really try to make a concerted effort in budgeting to link to link resource allocation strategically to the the link resource allocation intently to the strategic plan. So to the extent that the the items within and there's a lot in the strategic plan about campus climate, welcome environment, welcoming inclusive environments and things like that. I think that that we just need to advocate for that prioritization. And I certainly will, will, will carry that forward.
Sounds good to me quickly.
Say thank you to Paul for acknowledging that the loss of some really amazing and incredible colleagues who were part of the blood and the heart of this campus was actually preventable. Because I think we don't say that enough. And we will never be the same without those folks.
No, and I mean, you know, I, I you know, I have shed many tears over losing what I thought think was one of my, you know, closest you know, confidants and peers and Deborah Butler. So, and, and, you know, she, she, she moved to have good opportunity to I don't I don't want to say that's not there. But but you know, there wasn't strong enough pool to counter that. And I think we're going to see that more and more, not only with our, our staff, but with our students. I mean, we see it right. I mean, we know. Yeah. So we got to recognize that and we have to invest in that. We have to, you know, acknowledge and embrace what what we need to acknowledge where we are. Right? I mean, that there can be shame in the hat right to but I think we have to say this is where we are. This is this is where we need to be. These things help us get there and we know it makes a difference, but we can get there on words on a paper it takes you know, it takes budget and and and willpower so I support that and sorry, I missed the the conversation that sounds like what was in her channel.
Oh yeah, I agree with that. Paul. I mean, we we've been we've been hit by some. So some really difficult structural haymakers that has resulted in people leaving the institution and us to kind of begin to right size ourselves by, you know, replacing some of those individuals. And this is actually a really good time for us to kind of pause and step back and look at where we are and what our future is going to look like. Given the the fact that we have had so many changes, we have been impacted dramatically. By, you know, by the virus and will continue to be impacted by that. Not only with, you know, the loss and enrollment, but also the potential restructuring of departments based on lack of resources that we have right now. And so, we're going to have to be incredibly creative about resources resource allocation, and where we placed those resources in order to be as effective as we can be, and also being able to get out and do the kind of recruitment and retention that we need to do. I mean, Brett, Brett hasn't had a marketing director in what, two, two and a half, three years and just getting one on now. And so part of our deal is what do we do in terms of outreach, what we do in terms of some of our marketing and how do we continue to maintain the relationships we have with our various segments? of our community as we move forward? So yeah, I look at that in terms of CTE, like in terms of, you know, what we're doing with our transfer programs. And then the restructuring of what we're doing with CTE in terms of shortening the length of some of those programs to get people certified and out in the workforce. Quicker than what we are right now. We we we don't need to lose people to LBCC and szymek We can't afford to do that. And we have to do it. So any other comments or ideas around? That I think that we're going to have to take a step back, Paul, and as we are looking at assessing where we are currently with the diversity plan and doing the extension, the Mercy plan, I think we probably put should put on hold you know, our presentation to college council around this so that we make sure that we have all our eyes dotted and our T's crossed before we bring this before college council again, and then move it up the food chain we also have on our on our radar next is the diversity council membership and the designated positions that need to be filled. I believe I'm a little bit behind on this because I've had a few days knocked off this last week but we do have some standing positions that need to be filled most notably management and also with the student positioning. I'm not sure where we are with student government except that we do have a designee for student government. But you know just just based on the the board meeting the other night, I'm not sure where student government is right now. And maybe Paul, you have a better sense of where what that looks like. Yeah, so
just just to kind of recap so we've had we've had quite a bit of turnover in leadership in the Director of Student Life and student engagement. I think that's the position title can't recall. But anyhow, so we haven't had any consistent really interaction with our student government. We are trying to build that back up. Most of their senators, I think almost exclusively are international students right now. So there's, there's just not a lot of active participation there. So there's some rebuilding that has to be done on the student government side we are in in the final stages of recruitment for that new director for that so we're hopeful that that will provide some leadership and stability for student government I did reach out to many to you and Carl yay, who was temporarily supervising that area that you know, we just across the board at most of our councils were not seeing any student engagement and they were going to reach back out to the student body. It might be that in absence of that, if we feel that there are ways we can I know I kind of spoke against this the other day, but if there are ways that in light of the fact that we might not have formal representation from students, but that voice is incredibly important, especially in this work, we might want to recruit some that could be in addition, you know, to positions whenever the student student, official student government appoints somebody
Reisa and Therry would you like to introduce yourself?
Do we have some on here? Yeah,
yeah. We have to audio. Well, there you go. We got two rounds of introductions. Well, we could do it. A second or third.
Yeah, sure. I'm Raisa and I am a student I claim I use she and her pronouns.
You're Nice to meet you.
In theory
what I'd you know, my name is terrifying. I'm also a student at Lynn and my pronouns. He, him and he's
great meeting you both. Sorry. I joined late so I missed the introduction. So it's nice meeting you and Hey, thanks for thanks for joining in with this.
Tracy, do you want to give us an accounting real quickly of what positions that we need to have filled on the council? Because my memory is is a little bit challenged right now. So where are we at with that? Who do we need to replace or who do we need to fill in?
I don't know what the rules are. But here's the roster.
Yeah. Yeah, I see it. Yeah, I've you know, yet Rosa stepped away for a year because her responsibilities, but I think that the places that we are, are needing to fill in are both to student positions. And there is we have had at least one volunteer for the management position and excuse me if I'm that remembered correctly, but we do have a new manager in student services that I've connected with but he wants to be part of the Diversity Council. But you know, names or or Justin, just as Justin Yeah,
yes. Yeah, he's our new director of high school connections.
Yeah, just just just to did I talked about three weeks ago and he said that he wants to be part of the Diversity Council and I said, Come on, the more the merrier. And, you know, since we had we had a gap in terms of management representation that he did probably fill that, that gap very adequately as we move forward. Move on with the membership of the council. So I'm not too concerned about that. But I think that we want to lock down as as many permanent membership as we can, as we have right now. And begin to move on with the work that needs to be done with the extension of the 2017 2022 diversity plan. So
go ahead, Tracy.
Well, let's just get her head up, but there's a requisition you have to attend two meetings before you can just add Yeah, that's right. So invite them for sure. And I want to let them talk before I say anyone.
I was gonna ask Justin. Yes. Like, um, you Greg, you said that you said as a Come on, you know, to the meetings to Justin Chen. Did he get an A reminder of our meetings?
Yes, he's on list by list anyway. But I will. I'll reach out to him again and make sure that he's it. He says he's now officially on the D Council yet. But you know, since that is a public meeting in a public document to make sure that he's linked in to the DEA council agenda. So did you attend
a meeting with him later today? Do you want me to ask him to reach out to either you or to Tracy?
Well, just try to reach out to me again, because we're supposed to have we were supposed to have lunch and we never could line up our challenges together. So and I told him I was buying so you know, like, just just tell, just tell him shoot me a text or an email.
Oh, I'll step in in his absence for that free lunch. Greg, so thanks.
Okay. All right.
And everything I wanted to say is that I'm not staff on faculty.
That's right. You are
thanks. Yeah.
And Greg, I just double check the email that you sent with the agenda for this meeting did not include Justin, so I don't think I
missed I missed Bobby on that. Email did because I just did with the dealt with the Diversity Council, Lanza was constituted so I needed to add him to that list.
I want to point out that the the link to get into our meetings is actually public publicly. It is public. Yeah. Anybody you know, but he's got to know where the link is, yeah, to happen. And what I usually do and what I did for the students is Bianchi gave me their direct emails and I added them to the calendar link so it pushed to their calendar. And so if he's expecting to see it on his calendar, that's not going to happen unless I add him to the list, but any member of diversity council should be able to add folks to that calendar month.
Okay, we've already addressed the presentation of pronouns and intersectionality that is, DOD could not be with us today. She sent me an email late yesterday saying that she had another commitment that you know, may or not be able to be in two places at one time. So I just told her you know, we got to technology now, we could probably cloud you, but that's not available with this book. So what she asked was to be able to do that presentation in March and that would also include the issue of pronouns and the gender spectrum as being represented in our enrollment data. So she will address that I know that originally, Gina was going to do that, but Gina had to put to dawn and dawn had to punt again. So we're put that on top of our list for our meeting in March. And the spring diversity Institute. So Tracy has been working diligently on this. We are looking to get a meeting with Brett and with the new marketing director to talk about how we want to market, the Institute. The vision for the institute, we're going to be focusing on intersectionality and we've got a title. Tracy's got that info for us. And then we're looking at a made date. Originally, we were looking at the third Friday in May, but that is not going to work for us. So we're going to be looking at probably that Wednesday in that third week to do that. It will be a half day Institute. And what we're doing is we reconstituted the diversity institute that we started years ago going back to 1996. But it's not a full blown Institute. We're not doing two days. We're not doing overnights, we're doing everything virtual and we're going to be doing it in a half day format. So we are soliciting a will be soliciting proposals for workshops for that Institute, and that will basically be an 830 to 1230 hat half day event. And I believe it's we've got is the week before we had the Memorial Day weekend, so it'd be that I don't have my calendar in front of me but it will be that Wednesday that we will be looking at doing that. And we also are going to invite other CCS to participate in in the Institute as well as our university partners and our K 12 partners as well. So it's going to be very much like we did over 20 years ago, but in a smaller scale and it's going to be virtual because of our COVID situation. Our ever evolving COVID situation that we have. I keep hearing we're gonna have another spike again, but that's a whole nother story. So Tracy D wanted give us the full rundown of anything that I've missed in there.
I'm not sure what I can add to what happened at length over 20 years ago. Were reconstituting the Institute in virtual form, right and one of the reasons why we're keeping the name is in the fourth year I think it was midcycle report the college had made a commitment to create an actual diversity Institute, you know, like the year round Institute. So that's what I've been driving for, you know, a couple of years that I've been in this role is trying to scale up just to be able to do that. And we do have an RFP out we've got only a couple responses to it. First we you know, had to have the date on the The 25th is a Wednesday. Right and that's the one that we're hoping to float and you are going to run that by margin Risa. So I don't really have anything other than that right now.
Yeah, I will be with large scheduled for next week. So I'm going to give her the update on that. And then we were going to want to have to sit down with with Brett to talk about the marketing pieces around that. Do Alban Institute logo, looking at, you know what our lists are for outreach. And you know, how we're going to basically construct that so we have a little bit of time to do that. Yet I'm pretty confident we were going to be able to pull it off. Jim Garci has already stepped up and it's going to do a presentation on his work and his research with practice. And then I've got a workshop that I'm working on right now as well. That is related to the African American student program and I'm going to be working with Lawrence on that. So if anybody else has anything else that they want to add part of that, whether that's a pronouns workshop, or intersectionality workshop that is covered with themes are around that. Please feel free to just step in put your bid in for that. Great
question that we're having from theory, who wants to know if students can attend? And oh, yeah. And I wanted to point that out. I think Sarah's given a good answer. But as far as that goes, I wanted to mention on the topic of dotting eyes and crossing T's it's been an interest of mine to make sure that students who are coming to Diversity Council are being remunerated in a way that's fair and equitable. And I'm bringing that issue up. I don't know if we want to address it today or not. The second issue is that I want to address a awkward situation. We're hearing a report from one of my colleagues here. I'm not going to go into details. about it. But one of the comments that I heard in this meeting was that the student government was mostly populated by international students. I'm sure that whoever said that isn't wanting to cast any aspersions or diminish the role of international students that link Community College. I'm sure that my colleague is making that in a What is it with good intentions? From my perspective, having international students who are representing the student body is a fortunate thing. I think it's very good to have senators who are elected by the student body and to categorize them, I think is an unfortunate occurrence. And I'm sure that there's no ill intention behind that. But I just wanted to address that it's awkward. I'm bringing it up for I think good reason. And if people want to continue having the Convo I'm happy to, to stay here and talk about it, but I did mark it. And I think people have room to take offense of that comment. And please don't I'm, I'm sure that people are not ill intentioned with such comments like that is what is in my mind, to assure people
and I think I appreciate that. Terrific. We all appreciate that observation, but to your first point, we do have money available in our di budget to compensate student attendance at these meetings and I forget what the rate of hourly remit remuneration is but just Tracy is 25. Was that what we had talked about?
That's what it used to be under Merryfield students every every meeting every meeting whether meeting or work session, they got $25 per meeting. Paul has his hand up who might be able to answer Yeah.
Oh, you too. You. Did you fill in the blank on that one?
Yeah, no. And I'd also like to speak to Drew's comments too, but yeah, the the I believe it's I'm we did establish a consistent process for paying student participation. I do believe it's $25. I think it's an hour it might be per meeting I really can't remember. But that is all being managed by Student Affairs. So folks that do participate in these meetings. I think they they seek through the Student Engagement Office, ultimately paid paid for that so we can we can follow through. If our students on here haven't been informed of how to get get paid. We'll make sure that they get that and no, thank you, Andrew. Well, what yeah, thank you. And thank you drew for the comment. I mean, I think that this is I think I've said this before that I think you froze,
Paul.
I think you froze Am I frozen?
Is Greg froze, or me
You're fine. Paul, keep going.
Okay, great. Thanks. So I think that was you, Greg. Um, you know, as I've said before, I think the only way that we're going to make progress is by holding each other accountable when people say things either intentionally or unintentionally. So I appreciate being being held accountable for that. My My point was really the opposite. Actually, I was trying to make was that we aren't successful right now at Broad student engagement in student government, with the exception of our students that are in the international program. It wasn't to devalue their their opinions at all. I was just making a comment that like, where we are in student government right now is that we don't have a lot of participation. So I am thankful for the participation that we do have with the international program I like you drew incredibly value, their voice have been a strong advocate for that for as long as I've been here and in every other institution I've been at So So Thanks for calling me out on that. They're always better ways to say things so that they're heard the way they're intended. And I'm always willing to do that. So So Thanks again.
So we're at the point in the agenda where we're addressing announcements all business and new business, just so folks know that the NAACP there is usually held this month in Black History Month has been moved to march. And I'm not sure all of the details of that yet. I have yet to have a copy. Of that to call into to our new president miles 1000, who was an alum of Rites of Passage and is now president of local NAACP, and so they're putting some things together and redoing some things so bad. The debtor can move forward or the event can move forward. Last year, it was virtual this year, I think it's going to be in person. That's the intent for it to be in person. But depending on what our health situation is, we may be going back to a virtual event. So just wanted people to know that and this year, it does not appear that blacks and governments are going to have a dinner at all. So those two things are not on that that's the status of where those two two events are right now. And if anyone has any other announcements, now's the time to do it. And once we have those announcements done, I think we can call this a wrap.
Anybody
I have my hand up I don't want to cut anybody off. Go
Go Go ahead, sir. I was looking to my left. So
I'm just one really quick. I don't I asked for the details yesterday and they weren't confirmed yet. So I can't give them but Dr. Rashid is teaching blackmail studies again in the spring. It is of course that we desperately needed the college and and to sustain it. We need enrollment. So folks who who work with students Please promote it folks who are students. Also please promote it. If anybody wants more information about it, I'm sure if you emailed Dr. Rashid directly that he he would give you that information. I would second Paul's comment. That is a great course I've seen much of the curriculum. It is it is challenging and wonderful and so so much needed at the college. And then I just wanted so so we're at the end of another meeting. We're at the end of another month and we do not have a procedure for the non discrimination based on gender policy. And this is a problem. And I need us to fix it. So Greg, Paul, anybody else who is here who can tell me how to actually get this train moving forward in a way that is meaningful so that I can stop having to say this at every meeting and sounding like a broken record? That would be amazing. So
we request. Sure, yeah, Shane and I have had this conversation and so we're going to be trying to get this the this whole thing structured out and move forward. Beginning next week in the next couple of weeks so that we can have at least a draft of procedures so that we can go over that and have some input from folks so that we can finalize it and get it through the the appropriate sentence needs to go through to you know, put it in place and wake it up with the policy. So working on that with Shane. Shane, I think has left us
he has Yeah, but having a procedure in place for that policy is going to be really essential to the pronouns conversation that we were having earlier. And really making sure that we are not allowing the college to cycle through more excuses for not recognizing the humanity of our students. And that policy is meaningless until it has a procedure. So man, I would really love to stop being able to say that.
I think we I think we can accomplish that. At least, at least move it part of the way forward by Parks's meeting. Okay, at least we'll get it we'll get a draft.
All right, I will hold you accountable to that.
You got it. All right. Anything else for the good of the order? There isn't.
We'll call this meeting adjourned.
And enjoy some sunshine this weekend. It's good for the soul. Y'all have a delightful weekend. Good seeing you.
