Stand Together Group Meeting Minutes May 16, 2002

Note: the next Stand Together Group meeting will be Thursday, August 29, at
1:30. If you are so inclined, mark your calendar now; a reminder will be
sent in August. Room TBA.

These are minutes but also some updates of events since the meeting.

Policies:

Hate Crimes--Marty would like to meet with a small group of us to look at
how this suggested policy will fit into the other policies already okayed,
and to standardize wording where necessary. Leah will work on getting this
meeting together.

Academic Freedom--after discussion with Marty and various GCFA members, it
may be that enlarging the scope of the district's academic freedom policy to
include non-faculty may be more than is possible to acheive. It's been
hard-fought in the courts to just get academic freedom for faculty; it would
be unusual for Gavilan's Board to go beyond what is currrent case law. It
has been suggested that the First Amendment will have to do for non-faculty
at Gavilan. We can talk about this more in the fall if people wish to. Our
intentions were good...

General Commitment to Diversity--we finished looking these over and making
improvements, and they are ready to go to Admin Cabinet, the Senate,
President's Council and ASB in the fall. They are attached FYI. We will need
to compare them also to current policy and look for areas of
overlap/standardize wording.

Staff Development:
Susanne has done a great job getting this into place. Marty said that during
the first hour, when the administrators give updates, the staff will get
training on how to handle reports of harrassment or workplace violence.
After some discussion of PSS concerns about having students at the fall flex
day, we decided to recommend to President's Council that students be invited
unless there is significant opposition. If there is opposition, we will
recommend that at least ASB representatives attend. Ken will take to
President's Council. We would like to give away packets to staff with
informational materials about diversity and related topics. Leah will work
on these. It was suggested the we give away pens or other items to students
at registration. Leslie, Jan, and Leah will keep this idea alive, and the
ASB may be willing to fund it.

Curriculum
The group will recommend two classes be taken for a cultural diversity
requirement from a specific list; most can be duplicates of requirements in
other areas. No other news till fall.

Events
The beautiful, cooperative fall calendar is set and has been sent out in
draft form; a few additions will be made and then it will be put onto
posters, etc. for publicity. (After the meeting, Jan and Leslie agreed to
work on putting it onto bookmarks to be given to all students at
registration.) For spring, Terrence Roberts has agreed to come on Feb. 5 to
kick off Black History Month. He will also speak at the high school and
local library; his visit will cost about $3,000 with expenses. Leah and
Leslie are working on raising the money. Leah will look into getting $$ from
the Families and Work Institute Salute to Educators Program; this might also
fund the famous poster we would like to make.

Rose Marie could not attend this meeting but with Angie's help sent a
wonderful platter of fruit, which we appreciated and demolished.

Till fall.