March 5, 2001
LGBT seeking members
for 2001-02 year
By Eric Rangus erangus@emory.edu
Nominations for new members will be made at the LGBT commission April meeting, but March will be the most important month for recruitment, as new members are sought and current members re-sign. Slots up for election include two faculty, three staff, two administrator,
two alumni and four student positions. Student positions are for one year,
and faculty/staff positions are for two years. All are renewable. One open position is that of chair Jennifer Gossett, who left the University
earlier this month. She did, however, return to campus to lead the commissions
most recent meeting, Feb. 20 in the Administration Building. Gossetts departure means the commission has neither a chair nor
a chair-elect (a position that has been vacant all year). Gossett expressed
her hope that a returning member would fill either the chair or chair-elect
position in 2001-02, and that a new person would take the other slot. Gossett said the chairs two main responsibilities are leading meetings and soliciting agenda items. The chair also sits on committees and is involved in extracurricular
efforts (she cited her work with the campus climate survey; another member
noted she took on the additional role of commission secretary when that
office was vacant earlier in her term). But Gossett stressed the chair
has a lot of leeway in determining her or his workload. Commission members will be getting the word out about membership in the
coming weeks, and they hope to post a downloadable application on the
web. Interested faculty, staff and students are encouraged to contact
commission membership committee representatives Luis Cosme (lcosme@emory.edu)
and Ike Parker (IkeP50@aol.com). In other news, Gossett said all three Presidents Commissions are
working together to come up with questions for a Emory-only survey that
will replace the Campus Climate Diversity Survey originally scheduled
for distribution in late 2000. The commissions hope to come up with a total of 20 or 30 questions. Gossett
said they will be submitted to Susan Frost, vice provost for institutional
planning and research, who will compile the final survey. It isnt
expected to be distributed until fall. Gossett asked that a committee be formed to work with the other commissions
in this effort. Cosme and staff representative Erin Mooney volunteered. In the absence of a chair, ex-officio representative Saralyn Chesnut
volunteered to run LGBTs next meeting, which will be held in the
deans dining room at Oxford College, March 20. Faculty representative
Amy Lang offered to run the commission meetings in April and May. |