11-13-00 minutes

Sorry to be late in getting these notes out... attending the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) conference in FL and then enjoying Thanksgiving just put me behind. 
We had a good meeting and THESE ARE IMPORTANT NOTES so please do read and respond! 

The majority of our meeting was spent discussing the establishment of WORKING GROUPS as a way to further our college-wide multicultural education agenda. 

This discussion was informed by: 
    -  the discussions from our previous MCTF meeting and the 11/7/00 SUMMARY NOTES that I sent out from that meeting; 
    -  a guest, Curtis Byrd (cdbyrd@arches, 2-4790), the relatively new Director of Graduate Recruitment at the Graduate School (thank you Tarek for inviting Curtis) 
    -  our own spoken and written goals as reflected in our addendum to the COE Strategic Plan 

While the MCTF will continue to work as a committee of the whole, we agreed that more focused work can be accomplished by small working groups that would work on behalf of the larger MCTF. 

Therefore we ultimately decided to form 3 working groups (one with 2 sub-working groups!), all which need volunteers!  The primary CHARGE of these working groups is to IDENTIFY the ISSUES and to DESIGN and IMPLEMENT (actual and in-process!) STRATEGIES for addressing the issues that are identified. 

The working groups are: 

    CURRICULUM -- The immediate focus of this working group will be to work with the Associate Dean's Office and the college curriculum committees to get the departmental Cultural Diversity Requirement plans completed, implemented, and look toward assessment of their impact.  Additional and future focus will be determined by the working group.  JPO will convene this group. 

    RECRUITMENT & RETENTION -- The work of this group will include the expansion of our recruitment and retention efforts of our faculty of color, in addition to adding focus on R&R of STUDENTS.  The working group will define the scope of the work, but included will be establishing stronger collaborations with the recruitment efforts within the Graduate School and with undergraduate admissions; continuing the development of a college faculty incentive initiative to increase involvement in recruitment efforts of students in particular; further examination of the need for a full time position in the Student Services office; etc.   Tarek Grantham will convene this group. 

    ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND INSTITUTIONALIZATION of DIVERSITY - This working group will have 2 branches. 

John Dattilo will convene a group to identify the existing structures in the college (committees, policies reward systems, etc.) and how diversity can be more pervasive within these structures. How can we take "assertive steps" toward more institutionalization of diversity within the college? 

Eury Bauer will convene a group to look at the role of the MCTF in the college and to examine how, if at all, a different organizational model should be suggested in order to further facilitate the goals for the multicultural education initiative? 

Tal Guy has agreed to work closely with John and Eury on these efforts. 
  

NOW IT IS YOUR TURN TO JOIN A WORKING GROUP! 

Please respond TO ME at JPO@coe.uga.edu (I think I may have sent this email in a manner that allows you to just hit the reply key but PLEASE double check before sending!) 

We want to have our working groups meeting perhaps even in December but surely by early January, so please let me know which group would want to work with.  You can join more than one!! 

RE:  Student Evaluation of Teaching, Pam Orpinas updated the MCTF and will be convening a one-time meeting to look at some of these issues.  Eury Bauer agreed to work with Pamela and hopefully others will, too. 

I am excited about the focus our task force is taking -- it's action oriented ! 

- JPO