University Committee on Women
Meeting Agenda
October 20, 2003
1235 Howe Hall

Present: Liz Beck, Penny Rice, Amy Bix, Diane Debinski, Carolyn Heising, Beth Brockmann, Paula Gmelch, Kristine Phelps, Hannah Schoenthal-Muse, Eileen Thacker, Susan Carlson, Sheley Johnson

I. Introductions
Liz Beck introduced Amy Slagel, a SLIC participant, who is Liz’s Beck’s mentee and is attending the UCW meeting to learn about the work of the Committee.

II. Items of Interest/Importance
Beck noted that the World Food Prize was awarded to Catherine Bertini for her work in eliminating world hunger. This is the first time that a woman has been the recipient of the award.

III. Subcommittee Reports
Review of College of Engineering-Carolyn Heising
Heising reported that the previous subcommittee meeting had to be postponed. There is a meeting rescheduled for November 12. Judy Vance is in the process of getting data collected and Heising will update the committee on the progress at the next meeting.

Faculty Status/Advance Grant-Diane Debinski
Debinski reported that the meetings with Professor Joan Williams went very well. There is a Retreat scheduled for October 29, 2003 that will utilize focus groups to identify four areas to target for the Advance Grant.

Institutional Data-Carla Espinoza/Liz Beck
Beck reported that the data that the data that the UCW requested is routinely collected. There are still questions regarding how the data is collected, to whom the data is given, and what happens with the data. Beck also distributed to the group a spreadsheet provided by the Human Resource Office of new hires January through mid-October. The spreadsheet raises questions concerning the ratio of men hired vs. women at the full professor level (15 men/1 women).

Merit-Penny Rice/Janet Tait
Rice reported on concerns regarding women in the workplace. Rice is in the process of trying to set up a brown bag lunch with women merit staff to help provide more support for them. Rice also noted that a faculty in Sociology had a book out called Mobbing in the Workplace. It was mentioned again, how important it is for the university to make the harassment/ hostile environment policy more visible and to make employees aware of the various avenues of help in reporting and resolving the issues.

Graduate Students-Penny Rice
The graduate student subcommittee is continuing the to work on the focus “what kind of orientation program do the colleges provide the woman grad student”. The Business College gives the most extensive, providing their women grad students with a week of orientation.

The committee reported that the majority of the women grad students are TA/AA’s. They found that the majority of the RA grad students were male. The committee will pursue inquiry regarding the effect that budget decisions have on each category and how that may affect women graduate students getting assistantships.

Networking/Mentoring-Beth Brockman
Brockman reported that the Engineering department will be hosting an event in November or December. More information will be announced later.

Title IX/Athletics-Penny Rice
The committee will be looking at the student athlete handbook and focusing on gender equity issues.

Review of College of Veterinary Medicine-Claudia Baldwin/Eileen Thacker
Thacker reported that the committee has been formed, the first meeting was held last week. The College is also due for an accreditation visit.

It was discussed that the ratio of women in vet med is high (about 65%), but there are few women in leadership roles in the college. There is a definite need for more women role models in the area of leadership for the women students.

IV. New Business
Meeting with Provost Allen--Susan Carlson
Carlson reported that Provost Allen is available to meet with UCW the first week of December most days from 4-5 p.m. The date scheduled for this meeting is December 1 from 4–5 p.m. The meeting will be at the Memorial Union, Room 236. An agenda for this meeting will be discussed at the November UCW meeting.

Status of searches and UCW participation---Liz Beck
Liz Beck has asked Cathy Brown and Mary Sawyer to help manage the searches going on across campus. As of this date, they have been unable to arrange a meeting. There is a lot of work to organize monitoring the searches in order for UCW to be actively involved. Attending the search candidates meetings on behalf of UCW shows that UCW is paying attention to the issues on campus. One role UCW has, as a committee is to find viable candidates for the search pools. We are looking for UCW people who can attend the different forums to ask questions of the candidates. Please contact Liz if you are able to take part in any of the forums.

Budget status--Susan Carlson
Carlson reported that the budget is not looking good. President Geoffroy is meeting this week to discuss the budget issues. The President hopes to announce the plans by next week.

Next meeting: Monday, November 17, 3 – 4:30 p.m., Memorial Union, Room 236

Meeting with Provost Allen:

Monday, December 1, 4 – 5 p.m., Memorial Union, Room 236

Recorded by Sheley Johnson