The following email was received from
Jiannbin Shiao
jshiao@darkwing.uoregon.edu
and from
Lisa Freinkel
freinkel@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU
in response to a request sent by Senate President Peter Gilkey
gilkey@darkwing.uoregon.edu to the uodiversity
listserve requesting a brief report for the Senate Executive Committee
concerning the Summer Diversity Initiative.
Summer Diversity Initiative
Last Spring a disagreement over racial stereotyping in a PPPM class led
to an email debate on the class mailing list -- a debate that ended abruptly
in several hostile messages to female students of color. To address these
events the FAC and President's Office established 10 paid summer internships.
Their approximate charge was to study ways to improve (1) university response
to bias related incidents and (2) the community conditions that facilitated
Spring events and hampered institutional response. The ten interns pursued
projects ranging from the long term proposal for a diversity research center,
to more immediate interventions: e.g. the development of a bias response
team to directly address charge #1, and the creation of video and related
materials to facilitate campus diversity dialogue. A biweekly steering
committee of faculty, staff, ASUO representatives, and administrators met
with the interns to act as a sounding board and develop a common culture
regarding diversity. Regular meeting attendees included the President,
the Provost, the ASUO President, the Senate President, and a representative
from FAC. As part of each intern's work, s/he met independently with a
mentor and established contacts throughout campus. Info about the Internships
and drafts of their final reports and recommendations are available on
the web:
http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~asuomca/diversityinit.html.
The Interns welcome your feedback. A mailing list of former interns, members
of the former steering committee, and other interested parties has been
established to discuss the future of the initiative. At present, plans
are being considered re: presenting the summer's research to the community
and possibly continuing student internships for the 1999-2000 academic
year. If you'd like to join the mailing list, please contact
owner-uodiversity@lists.uoregon.edu.
Web page spun by Deady
Spider Enterprises on 24 September 1999; author Peter
B Gilkey 202 Deady Hall, Department of Mathematics
at the
University of Oregon,
Eugene OR 97403-1222, U.S.A. Phone 1-541-346-4717 Email:gilkey@darkwing.uoregon.edu