At the Commission's Oct. 5 meeting, both the PCSW Student Concerns and Staff Concerns committees expressed a desire to determine what women students and staff see as significant issues they are facing on campus and to help students and staff identify existing resources to address those issues. Christa Davis Acampora of the Student Concerns Committee said that group's goals for the year include "serving as a resource conduit for women student's concerns via existing campus resources," collecting information about women students that is useful to the PCSW and disseminating information about the PCSW to women students. "We want to identify places on campus where further programming is necessary and match those needs with existing campus resources," Acampora said.
Martha Talbott of the Staff Concerns Committee said her group's plans for the year are similar to those of the Student Concerns Committee. "We feel like we need to do some broad-based information gathering and issue gathering," Talbott said. "We want to take a look at some Employee Council surveys from the past, some staff exit interviews [conducted by Human Resources] and look at some salary information as it relates to gender equity." She also said the committee is searching for ways to obtain anecdotal information from women staff whose voices are traditionally not heard in surveys, such as the Facilities Management and housekeeping staff.
Leslie Taylor of the Faculty Concerns Committee said that child care, maternity leave and mentoring will be the major themes for her group this year. In the area of mentoring, Taylor said the committee will be considering questions such as what does mentoring really mean and how can it be made to happen for junior women faculty. She said that asking senior women faculty to be partnered with junior women faculty from different disciplines is one possible strategy.
PCSW Chair Sheila Cavanagh said she would like to begin an annual tradition of writing an action plan for ongoing Commission issues, so that new members joining the PCSW each May will have a document that gives the current status of issues and what work remains to be done.
In other business, Women's Center Director Ali Crown said that the University Senate Safety and Security Committee is planning to conduct focus group discussions with Emory community members to gain a broad perspective of major safety issues across the University's schools and divisions. Crown said the committee wants to determine what the major campus safety issues are and what priorities the University should adopt to address those issues.
--Dan Treadaway