Mission:

The Libraries' Diversity Committee activities for 2002 can be broken down into three general areas of endeavor: public program activities, committee building activities and external contact and representation activities.  This report first summarizes the Committee's public activities then its internal and external activities. 

Public program activities

The Diversity Committee continued to hold its monthly brown bag video series (held January to May, then September to December 2002).  The programs included such topics as: poverty and inequality in America, race and media, diversity in children's television programming, tai chi and American dialects and regionalisms.

Several former committee members and supporters developed an exhibit entitled "A Rainbow of Ribbons." They were Pearl Coleman, Juanita Jackson, Donna King, Linda Sarigol and Somesh Sood.  The exhibit was displayed in McKeldin Library then traveled to the annual meeting of the American Library Association and to the Libraries' offsite storage facility at Shady Grove.

Work on a Diversity Cookbook began.  Somesh Sood put out a call for recipes and began gathering the responses for use in the cookbook.

Several Committee members helped to organize the new staff luncheon held on October 24, 2002.  The Committee co-sponsored this with the Libraries' Good Will Committee.

Tom Connors discussed the Diversity Committee at the Graduate Assistant orientation held in September 2002.

Ann Masnik put together a planning group for a special diversity event to be held in November 2003. 
During 2002, the Continuous Learning Subcommittee met on a monthly basis to discuss development of a diversity module for the Continuous Learning Curriculum.

The Web Site and Database Subcommittee developed guides on religion in 2002 and met with Shiva Subbaraman of the Office of Human Relations Programs to discuss diversity database issues.
 

Committee building activities

The Committee held planning days in January and February then again in August 2002.  Johnnie Love led these meetings.  The result was a two-year work plan for the Committee.

The Committee met with Dr. Hiram Davis, Dean of the California Polytechnic State University Library, who was on campus to speak at the Outstanding African-American Information Professional Award celebration in February.

The Committee met with Camille Hazeur, diversity officer for ARL, in June 2002.  Ms. Hazeur discussed the status of the diversity movement and advised the Committee on diversity training.
 

External activities

Several members of the Committee attended

· the Outstanding African-American Information Professional Award celebration in February 2002;

· the 2002 Faculty Diversity Research Forum which focused on aspects of the terror attacks of September 2001.  The Forum took place on March 21, 2002;

· Crossing Borders--White Women and Women of Color (date?);

· a diversity video conference in September 2002.

· The Diversity Initiative Meeting of the Whole, October 2002.

· Success 2002: Rethinking Student Strategies to Promote Student Achievement, November 2002.

Committee members compiled a list of diversity-related URLs and a print list of selected titles in diversity for Maryland Day 2002.

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