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Virginia Tech
Governance Minutes ArchiveJanuary 19, 1993
University Committee on Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Minutes January 19, 1993 Present: A. Bayer, J. Harrison, S. McConnell, B. Greene, J. Reilly, R. Sapon-White, N. Klein, P. Hyer, K. Tarnoff, N. Vaughan, M. Flynn, J. Scarrette, D. Travis, Jr., H. Warren, M. Enriquez, M. Holmes, H. Pence, R. Hayman, C. Morton, V. Riley Absent: P. Burge, N. Simmons, B. Feldman, J. Garrison, J. J. Kiser, M. Farmer Guests: Dean J. Buffer, College of Education; Cornel Morton called the meeting to order at 2:00 P.M. 1. Approval of the minutes from December 15, 1992 These minutes were approved with corrections. 2. Introductions Cornel Morton asked everyone to introduce themselves for the benefit of our guests. 3. Report from James Buffer, Dean, College of Education Dean Buffer shared information related to several equal employment/affirmative action initiatives that are underway in the College of Education. * Tomorrow's Teachers Project. A cooperative arrangement between the Roanoke City schools, Roanoke City government, the Roanoke business community, and Virginia Tech was initiated several years ago. This is a project that assists in identifying talented African American youth enrolled in the middle and secondary schools of Roanoke and seeking a teaching career. They receive a tuition waiver and partial subsidy for living expenses on campus and will return to Roanoke and teach for a minimum of three years after completing their degree at Virginia Tech. Hopefully, this program will expand as additional funding is located. * Mentoring. An informal program of mentoring was developed two years ago in which new professors working towards tenure identify at least two persons within his/her department or program area with whom they would like to work relative to teaching effectiveness, proposal development, presentation at national conferences, etc. The division director, department head, and/or project area leader assumes some responsibility in this program. * Identification of a Talent Pool of African American and Senior Women Faculty. Criteria emphasized throughout this effort has been to identify outstanding, talented persons that would contribute to the general mission of the college; specifically in the program areas where there was a felt need. The College is pleased with the quality and caliber of men and women they have been able to attract in the last three years. In the past three years, we have hired two African Americans, one male and one female; five women including one senior woman, one black and one Asian; and one White male. Emphasis has been on making a concerted effort to identify senior women, women in general, and African Americans to help broaden the diversity in the College. At the present time, 35 percent of the tenured faculty in the College of Education, are women or minorities. * Administrative Internships and Teaching Opportunities for Senior Women. A program whereby a senior woman in an administrative role can return to full-time teaching and a teaching faculty can experience an administrative role for one year. This is a commitment to give people experiences that would help facilitate career alternatives, professional development, etc. * College of Education Committee on Diversity and College of Education Committee on Workplace Climate. These committees will assume responsibility for faculty/staff professional development, mentoring, retention, selection of faculty/staff, retention of faculty/staff, faculty/staff personal and professional development, as well as curricula issues. * On-Site Graduate Education Program. There is a commitment to continue an expansion of operations at on-site graduate education programs in Hampton Roads. Hampton Roads has not been officially designated as one of the off-site graduate centers for Virginia Tech. Officially the Abingdon Center, the Roanoke Center, and the Telestar Campus offer graduate programs. The College also employs a half-time person from the College of Education, along with regular faculty who commute to Hampton Roads. The Hampton Roads courses are primarily aimed at individuals enrolled in the educational administration doctoral program. Hampton Roads has one of the largest enrollments of minority students of any program at Virginia Tech. * Professional Development of Faculty and Staff. All faculty and staff are invited to participate in communication skills, cultural diversity, and team building workshops. In order to accommodate these workshops, the College has given all secretaries the time off to spend one-half day in training. Dean Buffer has received excellent feedback as to the worth of these workshops, especially from classified staff. The College is developing a committee to deal with teaching effectiveness and to identify what faculty might do within the College to help one another improve the teaching/learning process. In addition, the College of Education is volunteering to help the community, at large, deal with the suicide issues in our county/state. Pat Hyer brought up the idea that it would be excellent if all the colleges would make certain that the diversity and campus and classroom climate issues are directly addressed within the syllabi rather than simply in a seminar series. 4. Composition of the EO/AA Committee Purpose and Responsibility Statement revised as of 12/18/92. The Commission on Faculty Affairs vetoed the Committee on EO/AA's suggestion regarding #18 of the membership list. In order to comply with their request, Virginia Riley will recommend two names of disabled persons (faculty, staff, or student) and the President will appoint one. 5. Affirmative Action Goals for Staff and Faculty * Faculty Pat Hyer addressed the faculty affirmative action goals to be contained in the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Plan. She distributed a handout citing the official goals for 1993. These are established by the University on an annual basis during the month of January (the month in which we renew and revise our affirmative action plan). In addition to 1993 goals, Dr. Hyer supplied and discussed current demographic information for each college. Richard Hayman raised questions regarding availability pools (used in determining parity and objectives). Pat Hyer shared that SCHEV actually gave Virginia Tech the data tapes. In the case of tenure- track faculty, we establish the national pool of doctorates (excellent data reflecting the race and gender of every person who receives a doctorate degree in the nation). The State Council instructed the University to use the period 1980-88. We combine all the information for that seven-year block of time and average what percentage of those earned were awarded to African-Americans, etc. For most of the administrative positions, Va. Tech usually recruits Master's degree trained individuals and sometimes Ph.D. trained depending on the level of the job. Virginia Tech usually recruits Master's trained people for professional faculty positions. We actually work with one year's data given to us by the State Council on Master's degrees earned nationally in 1986-87. The pool is different and unfortunately, Master's data is not as reliable, comprehensive, or as frequently produced. * Staff Muriel Flynn addressed the workforce profile for classified staff. He began his presentation distributing demographic data to the group. The first document addressed regulations regarding the Office of Personnel Services advertising, screening, referring, and following up on the hiring and selection process. Mr. Flynn did not have the final goals for 1993 but distributed the goals for 1992. Tech will add an additional category to these goals in the area of Hispanics and show increased goals for Asians. Mr. Flynn distributed a profile of our workforce and discussed how this information is compiled and what it represents. The availability pool is a combination of several sources; availability in our recruiting area -- five-county area -- for all positions other than executive/managerial. The census data for 1990 for the five-county region is used to establish the availability pools for most of the jobs except the upper-level jobs (where we use state-wide availability pools). The larger the availability pool, the greater the competition for protected group members that are already employed at the university or in the labor market area. Cornel Morton pointed out that the goals are theoretical, not absolute. Point of Interest: Virginia Tech has the best reputation in the Office of Federal Contract Compliance of any university in the state. A typical university affirmative action audit lasts 500 hours; ours lasted four days because of our ability to document and support good faith efforts, in addition to our programs designed to support the attainment of hiring goals. 6. Announcements * Cornel Morton pointed out that the Campus & Classroom Climate Committee continues to be active. The members have discussed the questions "What are we about?" "Where are we going?" and "What kinds of things do we want to do?" This committee is primarily a group of faculty and staff (few students) concerned with issues that relate to the classroom environment as it impacts women and minority students. They are concerned with supporting a climate supportive of diversity. This group will act as an ad hoc committee to advise Cornel Morton on campus climate workshops in terms of how they are pursued as well as to help the EO/AA Office implement campus climate initiatives. Ellen Bratten and Steve Parsons are co-chairing the committee and would welcome new members (open membership). * Breakfast With ... is scheduled for January 29, 1993. * Classroom Climate Workshop -- February 3, 1993, CEC. * The Associate Director's position will be discussed January 20, 1993 at the next screening committee meeting. The pool of approximately 60 people will be narrowed to to five-seven people. At least three will be invited to the campus in the next week or two. The Committee meeting adjourned at 4:00p.m. The next meeting will be February 16, 1993. Respectfully submitted, Bobbi J. Lowe Executive Secretary
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