Diversity Committee
December 1, 2000
Present: Kris Bartanen, Bernie Bates, Kim Bobby, John Dickson, David Droge, Rosa Beth
Gibson , Maegan Parker, Bev Pierson, Jac Royce, Mike Valentine, Carrie Washburn
Chair, David Droge, convened the meeting at 2:08.
Consideration and approval of 11/10/00 meeting were postponed as not all committee members
had received them.
Announcements:
Kris Bartanen invited committee members to the Free Midnight Breakfast on Dec. 6, 11:45 P.M.
It is held to celebrate diversity of people and religion at U.P.S.
David Droge informed the committee that Terry Cooney has appointed members of the Faculty
Support Committee for Access Programs.
New and Continuing Business:
First order of business was deciding on a Faculty Diversity Committee meeting time for Spring
2001. Spring meetings will be every other Thursday, 1:00-2:00 P.M., beginning 1/25/01.
The Subcommittee on the Diversity Statement has nothing new to report and will meet on
1/18/01, prior to the first Spring FDC meeting.
John Dickson reported that Tom Dixon’s appointment is in the works and that the pending
appointment will be announced at the Dec. 7 faculty meeting.
The Diversity Committee formally agreed to endorse Ivey West’s request to address individual
academic departments in regard to disability issues. A draft of Ivey’s letter is attached to these
minutes.
The Subcommittee on Disability Awareness Activities reported that Human Resources was
unable to arrange a workshop on disability awareness for the January Professional Development
Conference. Jean Huskamp will be presenting a session on designing University web pages so
that they are accessible to visually impaired individuals. Carrie Washburn reported that Jean
Huskamp is working to address these issues in the site structure for which she is responsible, but
that web providers must format their pages in such a way that technology that reads web pages
to the visually impaired can be utilized. More to come on this. David Droge brought up 4 ideas
which the subcommittee had initiated discussion on at the last FDC meeting. Discussion of these
topics and related issues followed.
1) Invitation to John Hickey to discuss accessibility problems and potential solutions with the
FDC- It was decided to invite John to the first meeting in the Spring and ask him to focus on
physical barriers to disabled persons on campus.
2) Spring semester Disability Awareness Week activities- Spirited discussion on this topic
resulted in a consensus that we should attempt to organize a modest effort for Spring 2001;
the week after Spring Break was targeted. The idea of a forum which would both present
information and investigate perceptions and awareness of disability on campus was settled
upon. David Droge will investigate a time for the event and will contact committee members
about this via email so that we might consider it over Winter Break. Rosa Beth Gibson
suggested that the previously proposed seminar on disability awareness might be scheduled
for the same week and offered to look into it. Maegan Parker suggested that we might also
consider advocating for a disability awareness theme year.
3) Consideration of asking President Pierce to appoint a campus advisory committee on
disability awareness and accessibility issues- postponed discussion to later date.
4) Systematic information gathering on accessibility on campus- we will initiate discussion of this
with John Hickey’s visit in the Spring.
Last, it was noted that the FDC had not received its official charges from the Faculty Senate.
David Droge will pursue this.
Meeting adjourned at 2:53 P.M.
Respectfully submitted,
Mike Valentine
DRAFT OF IVEY WEST”S LETTER TO DEPARTMENTS
The Faculty Diversity Committee suggested that I meet with each department some time this
academic year to discuss disabilities on campus. At UPS we have over 100 students with
declared and documented disabilities, and ninety-nine percent of those disabilities are invisible.
Federal and state law and University policies guide us on the legal issues. However, I know from
conversations with faculty that there are questions and areas of concern. It is quite a daunting
challenge to deal with the various situations that arise. Perhaps if I come to you at a time you
would all be gathered anyway, we can discuss these issues, clarify some gray areas, and prevent
future problems.
Could you schedule me for 20 minutes of a department meeting? If you wish, I would be happy
to start things off with a brief overview—these are the disabilities we deal with in our student
population. Then, perhaps, we could move quickly to specific issues and questions.
Please let me know when and where (and what, if you know the areas of concern), and I will be
there. If I do not hear from you before winter break, I will call and see what the response has
been from your faculty.
Ivey West
Coordinator of Disabilities Services
X2692 or email iwest