Today, the DEI Committee of the Board of Trustees received and reviewed the revised proposed VSCS Diversity Statement. See DEI Committee Materials at p.21. Mary Brodsky, Kathleen Mason, and Jae Basiliere shared the outreach each had undertaken to solicit feedback from across the system, as well as the changes that were made in response to the feedback. While the feedback was generally positive, each expressed concern at the small number of people who participated and stressed the importance of ongoing, tangible action to live up to the aspirational statement. For one example of such action, see this Spotlight. The statement will be considered by the full Board at its upcoming meeting on May 16th.
Tajae Edwards shared an update on the student-created anti-racism pledge on behalf of the Student Diversity and Inclusion Task Force. The Task Force is working with Erik Kirk to create a promotional video for an official roll-out of the pledge next semester. Work is also ongoing to create a landing page with resources for the pledge, plus plans to for its launch during welcome week and orientation in the fall. The Task Force has an email address at pledge@vsc.edu so people can contact them with questions and support. As several of the Task Force members will be graduating, any students who would be interested in continuing the work on the pledge are encouraged to send an email.
The Student Diversity and Inclusion Task Force has been invited by Monica Flippin Wynn to speak at the Gardner Institute’s social justice panels. Their first panel is coming up on June 3rd where the team will talk to many other college students across the nation about their work on creating, forming, collaborating, and finalizing the anti-racism pledge. This will specifically help college students getting their feet in the door of DEI work to help them see the steps, organization, and networking involved to get such a task done. Achieving such national recognition is a significant accomplishment – congratulations to all those on the Task Force!