University of South Florida
Women’s Status Committee
Academic Year 2001-2002
The Committee’s activities for the 2001-2002 academic year focused primarily on exploitation issues in the classroom and workplace. Other significant activities included: a) inviting speakers to committee meetings, b) discussion of salary equity, professional development and advancement opportunities, and c) coordination and sponsorship of the Women’s Awareness Celebration Committee.
The first meeting of the year occurred on September 11,
and partly as an outcome of that event, we feel that the role of diversity
committees become even more critical to an educational organization to help
create a positive and safe environment for all. Members of the USF Women’s
Committee reaffirms their belief in the fundamental value of USF community,
from the students we serve, to the staff who make service possible, to the
faculty who provide instruction, and the researchers who contribute to our community
and who bring national prominence to USF.
Staff Retention/Equity: A formal response has not been received from the President’s office regarding the 2000-01 USF Women’s Status Committee analysis of salary data and recommendations to rectify the gender disparities in salaries of senior faculty. Dr. Cruz, provided updates to the committee on actions that university is considering regarding faculty/gender salary inequities as well as the related budget reductions affecting the university.
The committee also reaffirms its continued support for a
more impartial salary equity process and grievance process that avoids conflict
of interest where a person requesting a salary equity or grievance can appeal
to a third party. The current process requires an individual to seek support
from a superior or department chair.
Sexual Harassment/Exploitation
As a continuation of the committee’s review of sexual harassment training and related issues, the committee met with the Coordinator of the USF Victims Advocacy program in October. One of the salient outcomes of that presentation and subsequent discussion with faculty, staff and students, was the concern over harassment or exploitation in the classroom or workplace that does not constitute a legal definition of harassment but impacts an individual’s self-esteem and the general campus climate. In addition the committee was aware of the presentations across campuses supporting a university mission and values statement that supports “an ethic of collegiality based on the integrity, civility, academic freedom and professional responsibility as well as cultural and ethnic diversity .”
A letter was sent to the President requesting the need for university-wide policy statement to address exploitation in the classroom and workplace on February 3. Additional meetings were held with the Dean of the Graduate School, a representative of the Graduate Council, and the new Associate Vice President for Diversity and Equal Opportunity to discuss and identify actions that can create an improved campus climate.
The President responded to our letter on April 22 and indicated that she is creating a workgroup of senior level administrators under the direction of the Associate Vice President for Diversity and Equal Opportunity to:
1) conduct a thorough review of existing policies addressing the behaviors noted in our letter
2) identify gaps in policy and recommend corrective actions for violations, and
3) determine the equity of policies from a faculty, staff, and student perspective,
Their report to the President is due the beginning of Fall 2002. President Genshaft thanked the committee for bringing the matter to her attention and reaffirmed her strong support and value of workplace civility and equitable treatment for all persons. Appendix A – Committee’s letter and President’s response.) The Committee looks forward to receiving the workgroup’s information when it is completed and to assist the workgroup as needed.
Campus Climate Study: At
our March meeting, Dr. James Cavendish of the USF Sociology department
presented information on a university-wide climate study targeting USF staff.
In part this study is an outgrowth of concerns expressed by several diversity
committees and the missions/values taskforce that addressed the need for such
input. He asked for the committee’s participation during this process and Sue
Viens will serve as our committee’s liaison to the study group. We also shared our letter of February 3 to
the President on issues regarding exploitation in the classroom or workplace.
We encourage the process to be expanded to include the university’s student
community as soon as feasible.
In the interim she has directed the USF Human Resource department to propose alternative ways to provide these types of mentoring and professional development opportunities for the coming year.
The committee suggested undertaking a summer research
project to help identify qualifty professional development and mentoring
programs for the consideration of our faculty and staff and to provide the
results of our review to the USF Human Resource department.
Review of the Committtees’ Role/Membership:
The committee discussed its role as an advisory group to the USF President, but made no major significant changes to the language and recommendations that were forward to the President’s office in 2001. (See Appendix C – Committee Charge and Roster).
While no changes were made to composition of the committee, we recommend that the process of nominating individuals to serve be clarified, that support for individual participation on university committees be communicated with supervisors (i.e., release time to serve on committees), encourage active and early recruitment of student members, and that letters/certificates of appreciation be sent from the President’s Office to members and copies sent to supervisors, acknowledging their participation. It was noted that one of this year’s drawbacks was the late appointment of new members which lead to significant under-representation on the committee during the year. We highly recommend that one of the student members be an official representative of the student government for improved representation and communication with the student community.
The committee would like to invite Dr. Genshaft to share with the committee her vision and goals for diversity at a future meeting. We appreciate her efforts during the year to solicit the committee’s input on several issues regarding the status of women at the university such as providing support for interdisciplinary Violent Crimes Against Women proposal.
WSC Committee members Elissa Henderson and Kristene Manning served as co-chairs of the Women's Awareness Celebration Committee. This subcommittee utilized the committee’s celebration budget of $4,000 to organize the Women's Awareness Celebration events that were held during March and April 2002. The Committee was able to fund several proposals from university programs and student organizations.
This year we were able to print a calendar providing a listing of Women’s Awareness Celebration/Women’s History Month programs being held on campus. The calendar was distributed to staff and students on campus and was well received.
WSC co-sponsored several events during the Celebration including the banquet/lecture honoring the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the Women’s Studies department at USF; the Women Mentoring Project, the 9th Annual Women in Engineering Forum, the Well-Women Care Workshop, Body Image Awareness, Women’s Art & Poetry Festival, Women’s Issues on the Continent of Africa and the Women and Depression lecture.
In this year’s calendar, we also featured the 72nd Annual State Convention of the Florida American Association of University Women, April 5-7 being held at the USF campus as well as programs by the USF Employee Assistance program. (See Appendix D for budget and calendar). Elissa Henderson , Kristene Manning and Carolyn Eichner volunteered to serve on the 2002-03 Women’s Awareness Committee.
A new proposal form was created to facilitate and standardize requests for funding through our committee for next year as well as a planning guide to help guide the coordination of the program each year. It was also suggested that the committee seek to obtain better coordination and communication with student organizations as well as to work closer with the Student Campus Activities Board.
Women’s Resource Page:
Linda McRae, a member of the Committee continued to volunteer to maintain and update the Women’s Resource Page. The goal is to provide links to resources available at USF and in the Tampa Bay area that can support women in their education and career goals, and highlighting women s events and activities. The site address is http://usfweb.edu/sowc/resources/women.html. The first page and the web page guides are presented in Appendix E.
Committee Guides:
Last year, the chairs of
the Women’s Committee and the Women’s Awareness Committee were asked to provide
a brief guides so that information is not lost, and work is not delayed to due
to the transition of committee members each year. Copies of those guides are included in this report.
Minutes and Speakers:
The minutes of the Women’s Status Committee meetings are included in Appendix G.
The meetings were held in ADM 296, usually on the second Thursday of each month (Sept. 11, Oct. 11, Nov. 8, Dec. 6, Jan. 10, Feb. 7, Mar. 7, and Apr. 11).
To educate committee members concerning issues affecting women at USF, the committee invited speakers to the following meetings:
Oct. 11, Mary Samuel Reid, Coordinator, Victims Advocacy Program
Nov. 8, Dr. Ofelia Schutte, USF Women’s Studies Dept
Jan. 11, Dean Dale Johnson, USF Graduate Studies
Feb. 7, Dr. Ingrid Bartsch, Excel Fellow
Mar. 7, Dr. James Cavendish, USF Sociology Dept./Campus Climate Survey
Apr. 11, Deborah Love, Associate Vice Present for Diversity and Equal Opportunity
Respectfully Submitted
Elissa L. Henderson, M.U.A., USF Educational Outreach
Cheryl Rodriguez, Ph. D., USF Africana Studies
2001-02 Co-chairs, USF Women’s Status Committee
Additional Attachments:
Appendix A– Correspondence Regarding Nongender Exploitation
Appendix B- Correspondence Regarding the EXCEL Leadership Program
Appendix C- Committee Charge and Roster
Appendix D– Women’s Awareness Celebration Activities
Appendix E – Women’s Resource Web Page & Policy
Appendix F- Guides for the Committee Chairs
Appendix G– Minutes of the 2001-2002 Academic Year