Faculty Council Committee Corner: Ethnic and Minority Affairs
Editor’s note: This is part of an ongoing CU Connections series in which the Faculty Council highlights each of its committees and their efforts. See past installments here.
As a committee of the Faculty Council, the Ethnic and Minority Affairs Committee, or EMAC, addresses concerns of ethnic minority faculty, staff and students across all four campuses. The charge of EMAC is especially relevant today given the uncertainty of the current political and societal environment.
The committee includes representation from the four CU campuses and the committee charge considers issues such as:
- assessing the cultural climate of the university as it pertains to opportunities for ethnic minority faculty for academic advancement, productivity and appropriate compensation;
- making recommendations for creating an academic environment that fosters the academic success of both ethnic minority faculty and ethnic minority students;
- working to assure fairness in the recruitment and retention of ethnic minority faculty and students;
- developing support networks and recommending policy to address the needs of ethnic minority faculty and students.
In recent years, the committee has participated in education, outreach and dialogue on CU campuses through an event series – Race@CU – and two Joint Symposia held in collaboration with the Faculty Council LGBTQ+ committee. The Joint Symposia themes were Intersections (2016) and Advocacy (2017), and had more 300 registrants from across the CU system.
EMAC has produced a white paper advocating for faculty diversity activities to be collected through the annual review process and included in merit calculations. The white paper was passed by Faculty Council and sent forward to senior administration for review and action in 2015.
Read the 2015 EMAC white paper here (pdf).
Two members of the EMAC committee, Naomi Nishi and Tina Moser, currently are serving on the Faculty Council Task Force for Inclusive Excellence in order to provide the ethnic minority voice and perspective in the proposal of action items in two critical areas: faculty diversity (recruitment, retention and equity) and classroom environment (inclusive environment, culturally responsive teaching and learning).
In the coming year, the committee will continue to focus on making recommendations that follow the white paper and advocate for gathering additional information about campus climate for the racial and ethnic minority members of our campus communities.
We invite comments – which may be posted below – regarding what issues, if any, concern you most for the well-being of racial minority, staff and students on our campuses? Questions may be directed to chair Tina Moser (tina.moser@cu.edu) and vice chair Lindsay Roberts (lindsay.m.roberts@colorado.edu).
The 2017-2018 EMAC Committee Members are:
Tina Moser, Chair CU Anschutz, Health Sciences Library
Lindsay Roberts, Vice Chair CU Boulder, University Libraries
Debbie Carter, Secretary CU Anschutz, Medicine
Damian Doyle CU Boulder, Writing & Rhetoric
Cerian Gibbes UCCS, Geography and Environmental Studies
Dena Samuels UCCS, Women’s and Ethnic Studies
Kathy Prue-Owens* UCCS, Nursing
Lei “Frank” Zhang UCCS, Sociology
Bryan Wee CU Denver, Geography and Environmental Studies
Manuel Espinoza CU Denver, Education and Human Development
Ronald Ramirez CU Denver, Business
Darren Chavez* CU System, Academic Affairs Liaison
Naomi Nishi CU Denver, Student Representative
Roberto Montoya CU Denver, Student Representative
*non-voting
If you are interested in learning more about EMAC or joining the work toward equity for ethnic minority faculty, please contact a committee member.