LGBT Concerns Committee Minutes -- November 1, 2004

Meeting Held: November 1, 2004, Counseling Center Conference Room, Peabody Hall, 10 am-12 pm

Next meeting scheduled for December 9 or 10; Graduation on December 18.

Committee Web site: http://www.aa.ufl.edu/committees/lgbtcc.htm

In Attendance: Linda Lamme, chair
Greg Allen, staff; Vice President, Rainbow Alliance
Charles Brown, staff; President, Rainbow Alliance
Kimberly Brown, staff
Tamara Cohen, staff' Coordinator for LGBT Affairs
Joyce Dewsbury, staff
Carlos Hernandez, staff

A. Reports from Campus Groups

1. Pride Student Union – not represented

2. Gator Gay-Straight Alliance – not represented

3. LGB Student Affairs Cabinet

Currently this position is unfilled. Cohen reported that candidates have been interviewed, but none yet selected.

4. Rainbow Alliance – Charles Brown

We discussed LGBT resources and their placement. Several hundred books are now in Cohen's office area and numerous videotapes are in the faculty resource center. Dewsbury has done some searching in the UF collection to identify LGBT materials. We discussed where these books should be located. Suggestions included: special collection in the UF library; the general collection; Cohen's office. Ideally, the listing of LGBT materials would be available on the Web for students' research. Materials would not necessarily have to be located in one place. The two main issues for location are availability and protection, but we also considered whether the kinds of materials that might be included in an LGBT collection might present political issues for the library. Location is also affected by whether there is a LGBT resource center.

There was also a question of cataloging and whether it is more useful to catalog the materials in the UF collection or to have a separate listing. There are advantages both ways. We discussed asking someone from the library – perhaps in special collections or the head of the library, Dale Canella – to meet with us.

We discussed the relationship of the Rainbow Alliance, the campus LGBT community and the UF Foundation. Cohen stated that she had a request from someone in the Foundation to join the Friends program. This led to a discussion of faculty issues and reaching out to faculty. Hernandez suggested that we create an event which would coordinate with UF Homecoming, probably beginning in 2005. With so many UF alumni in Gainesville at that time, it might be a good way to reach alumni. Perhaps this event could be held at Dauer Hall. Other means of reaching out to alumni were mentioned, including contacting Terry Fleming about adding a Rainbow Alliance link to Pride Community Center newsletter/Web site and reaching UF alumni through contacts at other universities.

We agreed to arrange a social event in January to welcome new faculty and staff. It was suggested that Debra King's office might be able to help fund this event. Lamme indicated that her daughter might be available to provide music. Cohen suggested a caterer, Ibti Hajizi.

We agreed to discuss the issue of staff and faculty orientation at the next meeting. Possibly, Cohen, Lamme, and Brown could meet with Chuck Frazier, assistant provost in charge of new faculty orientation.

5. Friends Program — Tamara Cohen

A graduate student, Ben Whitten, will be working with Cohen to set up Safe Zones, a program he had experience with at Washington University in St. Louis.

Cohen stated that the Friends program had been neglected for a period of time. She stated that it was time to update and purge the list of Friends, and the training component needed to be revived. We discussed how to get faculty into the program and how to target individual colleges – possibly by working through deans.

6. Director for LGBT Affairs – Tamara Cohen

Cohen reported on a workshop she recently coordinated, and talked about career resources for LGBT students, including links to human resources and job services such as gayjobs.com.

Cohen met with Housing about the LGBT component of RA training, an effort which would effectively institutionalize the RA training initiated by GGSA.

We discussed promoting LGBT groups in specific colleges. Cohen cited "out lists" of faculty that are available at some universities, and referred to a photo exhibit of out college and high school athletes.

B. Organization and Reports of Standing Subcommittees

1. Rainbow Alliance Research and Service Awards

At the last meeting, Giles, Dewsbury and Cohen agreed to serve on this subcommittee. It was agreed that a message calling for applications should go out to student in January.

2. Transgender Support Committee

This committee is composed of Hernandez and former committee member Kendal Broad. Broad had prepared a list of transgender resources last year. This list is on the Web, but no one knew the Web address. Cohen stated that she knows a graduate student who is interested in working on transgender issues.

3. Methods of Reporting Harassment

Cohen reported that work continues on putting anonymous reporting on the Web. K Brown suggested that Ed Poppell's office could send out an electronic card about the nondiscrimination policy and reporting methods. She stated that this approach had been used with other issues.

In a digression about partner benefits, Cohen stated that a meeting with Ed Poppell was being scheduled. This meeting might include Lamme, Hernandez, Mazur, C Brown and Cohen. She stated that apparently Poppell's office had made the decision to offer these benefits in December. The committee expressed an interest in reviewing the application forms and requirements.

C. Moving Forward with Information and Action

1. Student Health Services

A concern arose at the last meeting about the environment for students at the Student Health Care Center. Treatment staff at the Center serve on teams, and a member of the committee stated that someone had advised that certain teams were LGBT-friendly and others definitely were not. Cohen stated that she had made contact with some personnel from the Center at a recent workshop.

2. University of Florida Libraries

This item was discussed earlier in the meeting. See above under A4.

3. Deans and Administrators

We discussed the issue of how to educate deans and administrators about progress on LGBT issues at the university. The committee felt that the best approach might be to start as high as possible in the administration, possibly with the president or the new vice president for human resources.

As a digression, the committee discussed adding Debra King to the minutes distribution list. We also discussed a procedure for releasing the minutes: 1) send out a draft; 2) wait one week for comments; 3) post on the Web.

D. Procedure for Dealing with Harassment and Discrimination

It was learned in a meeting with President Machen that there will be a person under the new vice president for human resources who specifically will handle cases of discrimination. Regarding the case in IFAS that was discussed at the last meeting, the committee recommended that the individual in question should contact the President directly to find out whether to pursue the issue now or wait for the new vice president.

E. University of Florida Community Campaign and the Boy Scouts

The committee discussed whether it is appropriate for the University of Florida Community Campaign (UFCC) to make contributions to the Boy Scouts of America. Contributions to an organization that has well-known policies which exclude LGBT people seem to contradict the University of Florida's nondiscrimination policy. Several questions were raised by the discussion: Should the Boy Scouts be on the list of UFCC charities; what policies should cause a charity to be excluded from the list; how does any charity become listed; is the group Scouting for All represented in Gainesville (i.e., would an inclusive organization like Scouting for All be a reasonable alternative to the Boy Scouts in order to put a "scouting" organization on the list); what precedent does it set to exclude a group from the list and what are the implications for other groups. Regarding the last question, a case in point was Planned Parenthood, which several groups have sought to exclude because its policies and practices contradict some groups' beliefs about reproductive rights. The committee felt that the critical difference between the two situations is that Planned Parenthood is not violating any policies or laws in its work, whereas the Boy Scouts policies do.

Minutes prepared by Charles Brown.