VASFAA

BOARD - COMMISSIONER - COMMITTEE PLANS & REPORT FORM

(Add additional objectives and status reports as needed)

Committee: Diversity

Commissioner/Board Position: Keith Wellings/Rep-at-Large Outreach Services

Year: 2005-06

Committee Members:

Liza Bruce (ECMC)- Chair

Gail Baker (Riverside School of Health Careers)

Sarah Brown (John Tyler Community College)

Hope Jackson (ECMC)

Lisa Jackson (Piedmont Virginia Community College)

Deborah Marshall (Central Virginia Community College)

Michael Morgan (EdAmerica)

Gail Sidney (Access College Foundation)

Standard Goal 1: Provide diversity training and education for VASFAA membership, including heightening membership awareness about diversity Committee activities. (Strategic Plan Reference: Section 4.5 A (2,4) and 4.5 B (5))

Objective 1 (HOW the committee plans to achieve the stated goal):

The Diversity Committee will educate VASFAA members through informative and interesting sessions as well as the Multi-Cultural Leadership Symposium at the spring VASFAA conference.

Status Reports of Objective 1 (Please report your progress toward achieving the stated goals this is where the committee provides updates to the Board, including any suggestions or modifications to the goal and/or the Strategic Plan):

The committee chair has developed a list of potential speakers for the spring conference and leadership symposium which will serve as a springboard for discussion at the Diversity Committee's first meeting.

Date: August 16, 2005

Report: A potential list of speakers has been developed and this will be used as a starting point for discussion at our first committee meeting on October 4. An email will go out to committee members in September with an agenda for the committee meeting and a request that committee members bring their ideas for possible speakers for the conference and the Multi-Cultural Leadership Symposium to the meeting on October 4.

Date: November 4, 2005

Report: The 2005-06 VASFAA Diversity Committee met first on October 4 in Richmond at ECMC. Gail Baker, Liza Bruce, Hope Jackson and Michael Morgan were in attendance. The committee discussed plans for the Multi-Cultural Leadership Symposium scheduled for the Sunday of the VASFAA conference in May. Potential topics and speakers were discussed for this workshop as well as logistics such as invitations for the event, room and equipment needs, number of participants, luncheon arrangements, costs and deadlines for making arrangements. Ideas about pre-symposium ice breakers were discussed as a way for participants to get to know one another during the registration hour before the workshop begins.

The committee also discussed potential speakers and topics for the Diversity general session to be held at the conference. The total budget for the Diversity Committee is $4100, so the chair will contact Donna Taylor, Training Chair, and Jolene Burke, Conference Chair, about the possibility of sharing the general session speaker cost with the Training Committee.

The Diversity Committee met again in Richmond at ECMC on October 31. Gail Baker, Sarah Brown, Liza Bruce, Hope Jackson and Lisa Jackson were in attendance. (Amy Sikes from UVA submitted her resignation from the committee prior to this meeting because of work constraints.) The committee has narrowed the conference general session speaker down to two: Harvey Allston who is more of a motivational speaker and Dr. James Johnson who discusses demographic changes in the population and how that affects college campuses and the population as a whole. Both speakers come highly recommended but both are costly. Harvey Allston’s fee is $1750 plus expenses and Dr. James Johnson’s fee is $2500 plus expenses. The committee viewed a promotional DVD from Harvey Allston. Liza will see Dr. James Johnson at the NCASFAA conference on November 7 and will report back to the committee on his presentation at the next meeting.

A variety of possible topics for the Multi-Cultural Leadership Symposium were also discussed at the meeting. Committee members have agreed to contact potential speakers to find out the subject matter, fees and availability and will report back to the committee at our next meeting.

The VASFAA Diversity Committee will hold its next meeting before the end of November in Richmond. At that time, the committee plans to select the Diversity general session speaker and to prepare the agenda for the Multi-Cultural Leadership Symposium. Additionally, the Chair has heard from Training Chair Donna Taylor that Training will share the cost of the general session speaker so the Diversity Committee will now be able to choose one of the two highly recommended speakers they had hoped to bring in for the conference.

Date: January 9, 2006

Report:

The VASFA Diversity Committee postponed its meeting scheduled for November 30 until January 17. However, we communicated via email in order to select the Diversity general session speaker for the conference. The committee was considering Harvey Alston and Dr. James Johnson. We had also hoped to consider Wintley Phipps who was highly recommended by Brad. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Phipps was already booked for the date we needed.

The majority of the committee preferred Harvey Alston, so we have contracted him as the speaker for the general session on Tuesday, May 9. His speaking fee is $1750 plus travel expenses. Donna Taylor of the Training Committee has agreed to pay half of this fee, so both Training and Diversity will submit the appropriate forms for payment. Jolene has booked a hotel room for the speaker and our committee will follow up on transportation for Mr. Alston.

At our January 17 meeting, we will continue to plan for the Leadership Symposium to be held on the Sunday of the conference. We originally planned for this to be called a Multi-Cultural Leadership Symposium, but with all the discussion of the lack of participation at events labeled “Diversity”, we have elected to call this simply a Leadership Symposium. Likewise, the Diversity general session will be called simply a general session.

Additionally, our committee is considering a Diversity game called Diversophy. This game consists of cards with various Diversity-related questions. We will be discussing how we might incorporate these cards into the conference at our upcoming meeting. We are also considering having an American Sign Language interpreter to sign during the general sessions to promote awareness. We will likely have a Diversity table and we would like this to be either near the registration table or in the vendor area.

Our committee has kept expenses to a minimum and we expect that we will be able to meet our objectives and our plans for the conference and remain within our budget.

Date: April 20, 2006

Report: The Diversity Committee has been communicating very effectively via in person meetings, email and telephone. We have all arrangements made to host our speakers, Zeb Davenport and Harvey Alston. Zeb will drive to Virginia Beach. Harvey will fly in and out of Norfolk and Hope Jackson will be responsible for his transportation to and from the airport.

Our expectations for attendance at the Leadership Symposium have been exceeded and we are thrilled with the interest of VASFAA members. We originally planned for 36 participants and scheduled the room to be set up conference style with tables and chairs. However, as our numbers exceeded 36, we decided to have the room set up theater style and we can now accommodate 50 participants. We have reached the maximum number of participants and we have informed Zeb as to the additional number of registrants, and he is fine with this. We are creating certificates for all participants and we will ask Brad and Zeb to sign these.

We had planned to have an American Sign Language interpreter at each of the three general sessions. However, after contacting dozens of interpreters, we have only been able to find one person who can do the Sunday session. Most interpreters work full time and this presents a huge challenge in getting interpreters for the weekday sessions.

The Diversity Committee will have a table near the registration table. We have borrowed wheelchairs, assorted walkers, crutches, blindfolds and white canes, and we will purchase disposable earplugs. We will offer conference attendees the opportunity to check out these items at various times throughout the conference and “Walk A Mile in My Shoes”. People will have an opportunity to experience a disability while attending sessions and maneuvering through crowds of people. We will ask participants to complete a questionnaire when they turn in their equipment to determine if they felt the experience was beneficial. We will have a poster explaining this opportunity on our table and we will make handouts of this poster to include in the conference packets.

Additionally, we will have a “Diversity Factor” during the teambuilding event on Monday afternoon. There are three separate tasks, and one person on each team will be blindfolded during one task, one person on each team will use earplugs on another task, and one person on each team will use crutches on the other task. This way each team will have an opportunity to both experience a disability and learn to make necessary adaptations and accommodations when working with a person with a disability.

Finally, we are incorporating question cards from the Diversophy game into the conference. We will give conference attendees opportunities to search for these cards and points will be given to teams for finding and turning in these cards with Diversity questions on them. We are doing this as one more way to have our members become more aware of Diversity-related information.

Objective 2 (HOW the committee plans to achieve the stated goal):

Submit an article from the Diversity Committee for the VASFAA newsletter about the committee's planned activities for the year.

Status Reports of Objective 2 (Please report your progress toward achieving the stated goals this is where the committee provides updates to the Board, including any suggestions or modifications to the goal and/or the Strategic Plan):

Date: August 16, 2005

Report:

An article from the VASFAA Diversity Committee will be submitted to the Newsletter Chair by the September deadline.

Date: January 9, 2006

Report:

The VASFAA Diversity Committee has submitted articles for the VASFAA newsletter’s fall and winter issues.

Date: April 20, 2006

Report: The Diversity Committee submitted an article for the spring issue of the VASFAA newsletter.

BUDGET

Item (Broad general categories) Cost

Speaker fee for Harvey Alston

Speaking fee for Zeb Davenport

Travel and lodging costs for speakers

Diversophy game

Diversity Committee banner