March 14, 2017 Meeting of Diversity Committee

Aneitre Johnson and Donna Hoffman for Greg Knott, Ellen Swain, Cindy Ingold, Zoe Revell, Laila Hussein-Moustafa, JJ Pionke, Heather Murphy, Angie Gruendl, Qiang Jin, Ben Riegler

Absent: Harriett Green

Minute Taker: JJ Pionke in trade with Laila Hussein-Moustafa

February minutes approved

Updates

1. Zoe announced that the SDTC will host a Committee Fair on April 13 from 11-1 in 106 Main Library.
2. ClimateQUAL – Thinking about promoting librrianship to student assistants in order to recruit diversity into the profession perhaps through some kind of “speed dating” event; the ClimateQUAL Implementation Team is also interested in best practices for committees.  Members of SDTC and CQIT will work on creating some documents for the Committee fair.
3. Central Illinois Library Workers, next meeting on Thursday March 30^th at Pizza M, need to get more public library employees

Spring Event

1. Diversity Committee Brown Bag Series – JJ and Harriet did the first two. Qiang will be doing the next one.  Cindy suggested that we also have a brief description of each event.
2. Collaboration with the iSchool Diversity Committee—Collaboration has been going well with cohosting events and cross advertising.  We will continue to collaborate with the iSchool Diversity Committee next year.
3. Sesquicentennial: Next event – Wednesday March 29^th, 7pm in the Archives will be The African American Student Experience at Illinois: The Early Years. Ellen asked for Diversity Committee food support; first event had 60 people. May get more at the March 29 event since Chancellor Jones is attending.
4. Potluck- YMCA does a dump and run May 21^st or 22^nd and Ramadan starts the week before, so we probably have to move the date or move the location. We talked about doing this earlier in May or postponing until later in the summer.  We would like to keep it in May if possible. We need to find a space that is private so that we can grill and bring our own food.  Zoe will look into Newman for May 19. Angie will talk to the United Church of Christ for May 19.

Creating an online space for input on diversity/inclusion ideas and concerns for library employees
JJ suggested we create an online form for concerns and complaints about diversity. The various ClimateQUAL teams have been discussing this as well. There is a recommendation from the ClimateQUAL Response Team that says “Create an online survey for library staff to provide additional input about the climate of the organization.” The Committee discussed the pros and cons about creating such a form.  Some folks were concerned that we would be setting up folks with empty promises.  Also, there was debate about who should the form go to?  At this point, Human Resources feels like they could not take this on.  Someone also questioned why this should come from the Diversity Committee. The Diversity Committee does not have the authority to take action on things. Another question was whether the form should be anonymous.  Cindy did say that this would need more discussion and that whatever we did, we would need to run it by Administration and the Executive Committee.  We decided that Zoe, Heather, and JJ could begin drafting questions for a form.

Future Events

1. Co-sponsoring and providing funding for Mortenson lecture in the fall – asking for $1000 – more information is needed. Zoe pointed out the Illinois Library Association is going to have an excellent speaker at their next conference and that we should ask administration for funding to sponsor people to go.
2. Fall brown bags     Did not discuss
3. Fall programs/exhibits     Did not discuss
4. Cross cultural communication offered by International Student and Scholar Services – Zoe talked about this training.  If we want to sponsor something for the Library, we thought the summer might be a good time.  We also should partner with the International and Area Studies Library.

Next Meeting: April 11, 2017
Minute Taker: Heather Murphy