The first item of business during the Jan. 26 President's Commission on the Status of Minorities (PCSM) meeting was the staff concerns committee's survey measuring Emory's campus diversity climate.

Chair John Hammond reported the survey will be administered through Survey Monkey, a web-based application dedicated to collecting survey responses and analyzing the results. Additionally, results will be analyzed by a team of researchers from the School of Public Health. The survey will be released at the end of the month, and data will be collected through the end of March. To restrict the survey to staff, the committee proposed sending an e-mail notice through deans and department administrators.

Following the discussion, Warren announced that the commission is accepting chair nominations. Chairs serve for three years and must be faculty, staff or an administrator, and former chairs also can be nominated.

In other business, Warren updated members on last semester's racial language incident. She said two meetings were held last in December between faculty members and President Jim Wagner--one group consisting of members who signed an open letter to the Emory community and another smaller group of senior African-American faculty members. Discussed in the meeting with the larger group was the creation of a high-level administrative position for diversity issues; Wagner has said he would like to involve Emory's next provost in that decision.

Christopher Grey said PCSM soon will begin accepting applications for its professional development grant fund from minority faculty and staff.   Preference will be given to junior, tenure-track faculty and the money must be used to attend a professional conference.

PCSM will meet again on Tuesday, Feb. 24, at 3 p.m. in 400 Administration.

If you have a question or concern for PCSM, e-mail chair Nagueyalti Warren at nwarren@emory.edu.