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Committee for the Support and Advancement of Women at Pitt

October 1, 2004 Minutes

1. Introductions.

• Those attending were Barbara Barnes, Patty Beeson, Sherry Miller Brown, Jean Carr, Heidi Feldman, B. Jean Ferketish, Kathryn Flannery, Irene Frieze, Randi Koeski, Consuella Lewis, Annamore Matambanadzo, Ellen Olshansky, Josephine Olson, Lorie Osho, Ann Ostroski, Kelly Otter, Emily Schweiger, Amy Wagner, and Kathie Wisner.

2. Announcements and background

• Continuation of last year’s Plenary committee. See Committee website at http://www.pitt.edu/~frieze/senateplenary.html for information about activities last year. The old Plenary Committee is continuing this year as an ad hoc Committee.
• Patty Beeson. New Vice Provost.
• Patty became the new Vice Provost this summer. Part of her duties include women’s issues on campus and liaison from the Provost’s office to PACWC. She has been meeting with various groups of women to learn about how people see some of the issues. Some projects she will be working on include making women more visible on campus and professional development for women. She will be working on revisions of the PACWC website and hopes to include more information of relevance to women there.
• Kathryn Flannery. New Director of Women’s Studies.
• Kathryn became the Director of the Women’s Studies Program this fall. She will continue the Teaching and Research mission of Women’s Studies. She sees Women’s Studies as a central focus for relaying information about women to all parts of the campus.
• Announcement: Reception and lecture for women faculty. Tuesday, Oct 12. 3pm. 2P56 Posvar Hall.

3. Proposed committee focus for 2004-2005: Work on a limited number of specific projects and begin the process of applying to become a permanent Senate Committee.

A. Ideas for Committee Projects for 2004-2005

1. Faculty Responsibilities for Reports of Sexual Harassment. Review of consensual sex policies. A major focus will be a review of how faculty and others learn about policies and how they should respond to complaints. We will also examine the existing policies to see if we should make any recommendations for changes. Randi Koeske, Lorie Osho, and Irene Frieze will work on this.

2. Mentoring for Faculty and Professional Staff. Becoming a mentor. Heidi Feldman and Ellen Olshansky will work on this, along with Sherry Brown, Consuella Lewis, Ann Ostroski, and Amy Wagner.

3. Developing a fund for the support of women and women’s projects. Irene Frieze, Patti Beeson (Provost’s Office) and Kathryn Flannery (Women’s Studies Program) and Kathie Wisner will work on this.

B. Becoming a Senate Committee

1. Committee Governance [and long term planning]. Develop a mission statement for the new Committee. Lisa Brush

2. Check with existing committees for potential overlap in mission and planned activities. Irene Frieze and Josephine Olson.

4. Plans for future meetings? After some discussion we decided that we should have a meeting of the whole committee about once a month. The subcommittees will meet between these meetings. Subcommittee meetings will be open and advertised to the whole mailing list.

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Committee Liaisons and Advisors

• B. Jean Ferketish. Chancellor’s Office
• Patricia Beeson. Provost’s Office and PACWC
• Kit Ayars. Provost’s Office.
• Barbara Barnes. Center for Continuing Education in Health Sciences.
• Paula Davis. Health Sciences
• Kathryn Flannery. Women’s Studies Program
• Ann Ostroski. SAC
• Emily Schweiger. Campus Women’s Organization.
• Jen Stephan. Pitt News columnist.

Submitted by Irene Frieze