Subject: Follow up -- Faculty/Staff advisory group re: sexual violence issues on campus From: "Christine Mallinson" Date: Thu, November 1, 2018 8:55 am To: kogan@math.umbc.edu (less) menyuk@umbc.edu "Terry Worchesky" kjb@umbc.edu "Susan McDonough" Dear Jacob, Terry, Curtis, and Keith: Thank you all very much for your input at yesterday's special Exec meeting. Keith, Freeman suggested that I email you as well to ask for your help (FYI I contacted Helena Mentis about this last week but I believe she was traveling and is probably still catching up). I wanted to follow up as promised to send out a description of what the Faculty/Staff Advisory Committee is tasked with -- and to ask for your help increasing participation from CNMS and COEIT. Feel free to copy/paste the text below and re-send to colleagues who may be willing to volunteer, or you can invite interested colleagues to email myself or Susan directly. --- Dear colleagues, As I'm sure you are aware, UMBC structures are being formed and put into place in the wake of the sexual violence issues on campus. One of those is a Faculty/Staff Advisory group, currently co-chaired by myself and Susan McDonough, which will consist of volunteers from the faculty and staff, across colleges, who have expertise and/or interest in these issues. A separate Student Advisory group is also being formed as we speak. We currently have a list of around 12 or so faculty from across colleges -- around 2/3 are from CAHSS, and the remaining 1/3 from CNMS. We would like to increase participation, particularly from COEIT, in order to ensure broad representation on this committee. Thus we are seeking names of additional volunteers to serve on the committee. The Faculty/Staff Advisory group will make recommendations to the University Steering Committee about ways we can improve our campus response to sexual violence. Part of that will involve including one or two members on interviews with an outside consulting firm, which will be hired to review all of UMBC's currently policies and practices and make recommendations on where we can improve. Part of that will also be making our own determinations of ways to improve the campus culture around sexual violence and its prevention. We would also like to have a better understanding of the landscape at other schools: who has robust programs in place to support survivors? To identify and work with potential perpetrators? Part of or work would be to gather that research, see what would be appropriate for UMBC, and make recommendations. Of our current members, some are experts in this area of research, some serve on the university's Title IX board, some are faculty senators, and others who are simply serving as committed faculty members. Through this structure we hope to have a key mix of expertise as well as deep investment that will enable us all to do this difficult work and to get it done right. We don't yet know the time commitment involved. We know how busy everyone is, and we are also trying to squeeze this work into our own overly full schedules as well -- yet, we know this work is essential to building the safe campus community that we all want to see. Those who are interested in participating are invited to submit their contact info via this Google form, and we will be in touch: https://goo.gl/forms/dy06NgMSmjMdRNds1 Best, co-chairs Christine Mallinson Susan McDonough