Office of the President

Meetings: 2002 (1.14) | The President’s Commission for LGBT Issues

Meeting Agenda for January 14, 2002

1. Introductions and Updates

  • Luke’s surgery – all’s well, sign card
  • Domestic Partner Benefits Status
  • Certificate to hopefully be voted on at the Senate meeting in February – Monday, Feb. 4 at 3:15 in room 200, Skinner. Commissioner should attend if at all possible. To review proposal go to www.umd.edu/lgbt – click on home, go to link

2. Education/Training Issues

  • Luke’s First Priority – those who opt in – can be handled out of Luke’s office – any additional feedback?
  • What would a general training for those required to attend look like and how would we get that done? What is the goal and who is the audience?
  • Who’s going to do these trainings?
  • Meeting with Dr. Desstler – hold off until the Commission is clearer on the education/training direction

3. Other?

4. Announcements

Meetings for this semester are the second Monday of each Month

Feb. 11
March 11
April 8
May 13
June 10

All are from 3:00 – 5:00
Shanti will confirm the location

Meeting Minutes for January 14

Attendees: Deb Grandner, Linda Valli, Paul Dillon, Nancy Yeroshefsky, Mark Brimhall-Vargas, Vicky Foxworth

Welcome to Mark Brimhall-Vargas who will serve on our commission as an ex-officio member representing the Human Relations Office.

Following updates we did some further planning around education and training. Thanks again to Luke for presenting a pilot of the Allies training to the commission at our December meeting. While Luke was unable to attend this meeting he asked if there was additional feedback. He also asked if I would emphasize to the Commission that the training design he presented was intended for people who voluntarily opt into such training. He and I both agreed that we needed to hold off on meeting with Dr. Desstler at this time.

With that in mind, those in attendance thought about what kind of training should be offered to different campus audiences on LGBT related issues. We brainstormed potential goals and length of training for varied audiences. We will continue with this at our meeting this Monday.

In terms of additional feedback there was agreement that the training, as is, is too long for audiences who are not there voluntarily. There was a general feeling that asking folks to sign a contract at the end of the training might be “counterproductive.” It can create social pressure and makes people feel uncomfortable – particularly as it was unclear about how the contracts would be used. While we liked the name exercise (with the names put on our backs), we thought it would be more useful if contemporary names that most people were familiar with were used. We found the very thorough content information and handouts to be excellent and informative, however, we thought that for most audiences there should be a reduced emphasis on content and more of a focus on specific things they can do in their roles to be allies.

Luke, we hope you are feeling better and look forward to welcoming you back this Monday! Look forward to seeing all of you.

Proposed Agenda

1. Updates
LGBT Certificate – Yea!
DB Benefits
Other?
2. Review list of audiences and potential training goals
3. Continue with list of audiences and potential training goals

had the following additional feedback:
The background material was excellent, but may not be directly relevant for many audiences. It would be great to let people know where to find such information, but, for example, the kind of information administrators would want on a handout is likely to be more “nuts and bolts” such as: How can I make my office more open? How should I handle leave requests? How can I be more sensitive in my marketing?

The program was too long for most audiences. The length should be linked to the goals which should be tailored to specific audiences. For trades-people the vocabulary was too advanced and would need significant modification.