Commission on the Status of Women
MINUTES
Friday, December 9, 2011; 9:00 - 10:30am
Schofield Room 202
The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is charged with making recommendations to the Chancellor
regarding issues, policies, and initiatives affecting women, as well as seeking input from and providing
information to those individuals, departments, units, and organizations interested in the status of women.
PRESENT:
Teresa O’Halloran, Catherine Emmanuelle, Traci Thomas-Card, Melissa Bonstead-Bruns, Mary Canales, Pat Karlen
APPROVAL OF PAST MINUTES:
November 18, 2011—accepted as written
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
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Proposed Spring Schedule:
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JANUARY: Tuesday, Jan. 31; 9:00 – 10:30: (plan February listening session)
FEBRUARY: Friday, Feb. 17; 9:00 – 10:30: offer a listening session to all students and employees
(Theme could be a collaborative session of all groups on campus interested in women’s issues:
invite representatives from AA, HR, WAGE and LGBTQ Resource Center, Women’s Studies, Activist
Feminist, Women in Info. Tech. Systems, Men Opposed to Sexual Assault, etc. They could serve as a
panel. Topics could be what each is about, how we can collaborate more. Who can we get to
host/facilitate?)
FEBRUARY: Tuesday, Feb. 21; 9:00 – 10:30: Listening Session
MARCH: Tuesday, Mar. 6; 9:00 – 10:30: women’s history month
APRIL: TBD: meeting with Chancellor (Teresa will check with Chancellor’s schedule)
MAY: Friday, May 4; 9:00 – 10:30—wrap
Traci Thomas-Card has volunteered to be CSW’s representative on Jodi Thesing-Ritter’s Children’s
Center Committee.
NEW BUSINESS:
 Deb Klossner => CSW website changes (not completed yet)
OLD BUSINESS:
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Finished discussing suggested issues for CSW to consider working on 2011-12
Mitra Sadeghpour had recommended CSW talk about how other courses across the campus deal with
issues surrounding women and contributions of women—is there some way to encourage faculty
across disciplines to consider and highlight the role of women in the discipline. The following was
discussed:
o Make it obvious who our women’s studies affiliates are—link it to CSW website?
o Look into CETL/ORSP workshops.
o Start with a capstone class.
o Have a student go through all UWEC websites—looking for gender neutrality.
o Add to CSW a link where people can report non-gender neutrality website issues.
o Piggyback issues of gender with collection of resources document.
o Teresa suggested we invite Aaronette on March 29 to give a presentation on this issues. She is
a speaker from UC Santa Cruz.
We will discuss more at next meeting
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Women’s and LGBTQ Resource Center
o The question remains whether CSW want to make a recommendation to the Chancellor.
Abby and Traci are working on a list of schools comparable in size to UWEC that have their Women’s
Resources Center separate from LGBTQ. Someone asked whether Abbey/Jackie were in the process of
hiring a full time position?
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Work/Life Balance – Employee Satisfaction
o Wellness Committee—discuss Vicki’s documents
o Tuition benefits—Syracuse and Vermont
o Discuss moving the Children’s Center to St. Bede’s
 Commission members agree that while the distance to the new site negatively impacts
work/life balance issues, the site will help the Children’s Center achieve its goals of
becoming an environmental education center, growing its 4-year program, growing its
infant program, and offering a sick bay service.
 Commission members asked Pat to contact Jodi Thesing-Ritter and ask whether a
member of CSW could become a member of her committee that oversees the Children’s
Center.
o The question remains whether CSW wants to make a recommendation to the Chancellor.
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Safety on Campus—delayed discussion for Teresa’s update
o Update on new law
o Update on signs
Teresa provided the following update:
Concealed signs have been posted on every door of every building.
Cannot ban concealed on grounds.
Employees cannot carry concealed while at work.
UW System has opened the door for campuses to establish a policy that would allow the Chancellor to
make an exception to not being able to carry a concealed in a UWEC building. (For example, an
exception for a female that has a restraining order against someone and believes she is in danger.)
Teresa is working on this.
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ACTION ITEMS FROM PAST MEETING(S):
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Teresa, Kristina, Melissa, Vicki: report on work/life research