Dr. Kevicha Echols and Dr. Juan Morales-Flores continue as the co-facilitators of the DFIG and are responsible for organizing the meetings, planning the agenda, selecting reading materials, and updating the wiki page. We continue to provide a relaxed environment where faculty from underrepresented groups can find support and can dialogue about important issues in the workplace.
This semester we continued to provide two meeting times each month in order accommodate more members to be able to attend. Our meeting dates this spring: March 19th & 20th; April 8th & 9th; and May 20th & 21st. We adopted a new text this semester titled Presumed Incompetence: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia by Guitierrez y Muhs, C., Flores Niemann, Y., Gonzalez, C. Harris, A.
March 19th & 20th
In our first meetings for the semester we gave the group an update on the status of the grant we applied for through the CUNY Diversity Development Fund in order to secure funding for our symposium event. Unfortunately we did not get it. We discussed whether we wanted to continue with the symposium plans or cancel them all together due to lack of funding and the speaker we sought had not responded to us. The majority of the group wished for the symposium to go on as planned. Many expressed the need for a symposium on diversity at KBCC due to the nature of such a diverse campus and well as to raise awareness of some of the issues that people (in particular faculty and staff) experience as a result of being from different backgrounds and multiple identities. Members also pointed out the importance of including students in the event as some issues of diversity play out in our classrooms and affect classroom dynamics. Several members volunteered to be involved in the panel and round tables discussions planned for the symposium. We also got suggestions for other keynote speakers for the symposium.
April 8th & 9th
For the second meeting we discussed chapters 1, 2, and 3 of “Presumed Incompetence: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia.”
May 20th & 21st
In our last meeting we discussed the symposium and explained why it was postponed to the Fall 2014 semester. Members agreed that it would give more time for planning and we also announced that the planning committee would meet over the summer. Two dates for the planning meeting have been set, June 19th and July 10th.
We also discussed “No Hay Mal Que Por Bein No Venga” A Journey to Healing as a Latina, Lesbian Law Professor by Elvia Arriola from the Presumed Incompetence book. Several members understood the challenges the author discussed in going up for tenure and promotion. This was a concern that some members shared as a few are tenure track faculty and are working on research and other requirements for promotion and tenure. The issue of hiring faculty from underrepresented groups was also raised. In addition, some members pointed out that there was a lack of the diversity representation of tenured faculty in some departments.
