Meeting Date
- Access Info
- Introductions
- Council Business
- October Planning
- Council invited to work with the Office of DEI, Disability Culture at U-M, and others to develop programming based on the Student IDEA board
- Student IDEA board was an ad hoc committee that made recommendations for improving lives of students with disabilities at U-M
- Disability Month always happens in October, so we are combining planning for all October programming
- Please reach out if you have ideas about programming for October
- Pam McGuinty ([email protected]) is a lead and will be working with anyone who wants to be involved
- Council invited to work with the Office of DEI, Disability Culture at U-M, and others to develop programming based on the Student IDEA board
- Neubacher Award
- We’ve received critical feedback and in response we rewrote the award criteria and instructions for nominators
- We’re hoping to update the process of how selections are made this year
- Award will be presented in October
- Advisory Group
- Thank you to our current members!
- Stephanie will send out a call for council members who are interested in being on the advisory group
- The Advisory Group is an internal group that advises the Chair and the Council as needed, and ensures that CfDC is grounded in the existing networks of disability advocacy at U-M and beyond. Some seats for the Advisory Group are reserved for individuals to represent various organizations but we still have available seats for interested council members who are not formally representing another group.
- October Planning
- U-M WISE Recommendations
- Invited Guests: WISE Committee Co-Chairs
- Pam Gabel
- Bobby Hewlett
- Krista Farmer (unable to attend today)
- WISE Committee Information
- Workplace Innovation and Staff Experience
- Formed in June 2020 at the request of the provost and other staff members and met through Nov 2020
- Charged with rethinking how staff might experience the university and how work might change in the pandemic
- Committee was intentionally broad
- Representative of AA, Dearborn, and Flint campuses
- Intentionally weighted towards staff in non-leadership positions to ensure those experiences were heard
- No specific group/category in membership
- Originally asked for two deliverables
- Short term recommendations: What are the immediate needs for staff for the Fall 2020 semester?
- Recommendations included: Improved and increased communications, support continued flexibility, support staff through the highly unusual circumstances of the pandemic
- Delivered in August 2020, well received by executive officers
- Long term recommendations: Thinking beyond the pandemic, what could work look like when the pandemic is over?
- Looked at work (frequency, flexibility, etc.) and enhancing staff experience (how could U-M improve staff experiences, and what are other organizations already doing that we could implement?)
- Short term recommendations: What are the immediate needs for staff for the Fall 2020 semester?
- In total, committee created 108 recommendations
- Committee didn’t try to narrow or prioritize the list other than creating a top ten
- Sent to the “policy owners” - the people who can make change. Waiting on their report back to determine their prioritization
- A small group made additional recommendations delivered in April 2021
- All people working off site should have a tele-commuting agreement (templates are in progress)
- Don’t do any international hiring right now
- Legal and tax implications
- Go slowly on out of state hires (similar concerns to the international hires)
- Discussion
- To what extent were disabled perspectives considered in the research and information gathering that informed the recommendations?
- WISE Committee didn’t actively consider disabled perspectives, it didn’t come to the front of the conversation
- Did try to use a diversity lens, which included disability
- Not sure if someone on the committee had a disability - members didn’t disclose disability status
- Committee collected a lot of individual employee perspectives, with the recognition that each employee would have different wants and needs
- What is the status of the WISE Recommendations? What happens now?
- Important to remember that these are recommendations (not mandates) and that they were given to executive officers (not specific schools/colleges)
- If/when executive officers agree to move forward with some/all recommendations, then we can start creating accountability measures
- Short term and long term recommendations are separate
- Executive officers will have some responsibility to make it occur, but they may say “this recommendation is up to each individual unit”
- How can we make sure disabled perspectives, who have so much expertise on the issues at hand, are centered in the next phase of these recommendations?
- A longer-term committee will come out of this work, which will facilitate conversations among various stakeholders/groups, so maybe a member of CfDC could be part of that committee. CfDC could also meet with that committee to share experiences/expertise
- This committee doesn’t exist yet
- Once we know the prioritized recommendations (based on what the executive officers decide), CfDC could work with the group(s) in charge of implementing those recommendations
- A longer-term committee will come out of this work, which will facilitate conversations among various stakeholders/groups, so maybe a member of CfDC could be part of that committee. CfDC could also meet with that committee to share experiences/expertise
- Question: I’ve been hearing a lot from people working from home about increased personal costs as job related overhead is pushed out of the university and into the home.
- There have been many discussions about stipends, but there is a concern about the financial impact on the University
- In trying to envision the post-pandemic world, needs may change, want to make decisions that are evolving, and are based on global and national best practices (which haven’t been established yet)
- Electricity can be expensive, a lot of people had to upgrade wifi, increase power consumption, etc. Additionally, some neighborhoods don’t have the infrastructure to provide for those additional work-related needs. Is the University working at all on improving the infrastructure in AA and surrounding areas?
- This is included in one of the 108 recommendations, and network connectivity is a problem even bigger than the University. It would be helpful to have a white paper (or other format) to detail community experiences and concerns
- Interested committee members, please email [email protected]
- A community survey could also be helpful with this
- Discussion about: How to improve home internet
- To what extent were disabled perspectives considered in the research and information gathering that informed the recommendations?
- Invited Guests: WISE Committee Co-Chairs
- Adjourn