Montclair State University PCAA 2002-03

Final Report
August 2003
Submitted by Tina Jacobowitz, Chair, PCAA

Commission Constitution

List of members

Committees and members

Meeting schedule

Upcoming agenda

Minutes

Policies and Proclamations

MSU related links

Other related links

President Cole met with the PCAA at our annual 2002 Advance in May to provide us with our charge for AY 2002-2003. She stated that our role is to address issues relevant to affirmative action through consideration and review of "the facts" and if we see an opportunity or problem, to make recommendations to her. President Cole emphasized that the Commission should not function on "personal opinion, perception and unfounded rumor." Instead, it should recommend to her well thought out plans of action to solve problems.

The following is a summary of the Commission's work over AY2002-2003. It is broken down into three categories, consonant with last year's report:

I. Educating Ourselves and the Campus Community
II. Strengthening the Structure and Work of the PCAA
III. Ensuring Equity on Campus in All Units

I. EDUCATING OURSELVES AND THE CAMPUS COMMUNITY

- Self-Education: Over the past few years, the PCAA has educated itself about issues relevant to our charge. Only in this way, can we remain current about critical events and ideas. This year, the Commission spent time at almost every meeting discussing chapters from "Sex, Race and Merit" as well as a variety of newspaper editorials and articles. Luis Rodriguez, who chairs the PCAA Committee on Recruitment and Retention, continues to send members articles from a variety of sources. In these ways the Commission continues to have valuable conversations about such issues as diversity, race, privilege, admissions, hiring practices and equal opportunity. A major focus of our discussions this year was the University of Michigan case.

- PCAA Website: Cindy Meneghin, the University Web Manager, who serves on the Commission as Corresponding Secretary, continues to maintain our web site. The site includes information about our activities, agendas and minutes from our meetings, the roster of our membership, internal and external links and important documents related to our work, including the constitution. This site serves as a forum for discussions and a resource for our campus community and beyond.

- National Affirmative Action Day: This year we celebrated AA day on February 20, 2003. We began with the flag raising ceremony. Tina Jacobowitz spoke about the challenges facing Affirmative Action particularly at the University of Michigan and the importance of higher education as a pathway to raise socioeconomic status. President Cole read the Affirmative Action proclamation. Following this ceremony, approximately 50 people participated in a round table discussion entitled "What is Affirmative Action…Really?"

- Marriage Equality: The New Jersey Legal Challenge: The PCAA co-sponsored this panel discussion on October 28th, 2002 about the historic lawsuit claiming the right of lesbian and gay couples to civil marriage. Panelists featured representatives from Lambda Legal and plaintiff couple Cindy Meneghin and Maureen Kilian and their children.

- Center of Pedagogy Annual Advance: Members of the Commission attended the annual January Advance, which focused on language and power. The two-day event held in January 2003, expanded participants' understanding of issues relevant to affirmative action.

- Women's History Month: The PCAA Status of Women Committee joined forces with Health and Wellness to sponsor the Wellness Fair, held on April 8, 2003.

- Trip to Washington: The PCAA sponsored attendance of members to the march on Washington held at the Supreme Court in support of Affirmative Action at the University of Michigan. Barbara Milton, James Harris, and a student, Robert Davis, attended the march. In attendance were Senator Edward Kennedy, Martin Luther King III, Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton.

- Hands Across the Campus: Members of the PCAA participated in the ceremony at World Fair Day.

- The PCAA/ Status of Women Committee endorsed and supported the activities and programs sponsored by the Women's Center. Announcements and schedules were shared with the general commission and various female staff on campus.

- The Status of Women Committee encouraged support staff to participate in the fall University Day program on Strategic Planning. The administration advised heads of departments to include support staff in their discussions on the strategic plan for their areas.

- Annual PCAA Advance: In order to strengthen our work in the coming academic year, we invited the chairs and other leaders from the various caucuses on campus that address similar concerns. We asked these individuals to share the concerns and issues they are grappling with so that we could set our agenda for next year taking these concerns into account. By working together we hope to achieve more of an impact related to our charge. We heard presentations and participated in discussions with representatives C. Meneghin and H. Perez from the Gay and Lesbian Faculty/Staff Association (GLFSA), the African American Caucus representative, J. Harris, the Latino Caucus representative, A. Gutierrez, the Americans with Disabilities Act representative, J. Harris, the Asian & Pacifica Islander representative, N. Firoz, and the representative for Women's Issues, M. Coleman Carter. (Details of their reports can be found in the minutes of May 13 on the PCAA website). President Cole also met with the Commission and gave us our charge for AY 2003-2004:

The responsibility of the PCAA is to bring concerns to the President's attention and make recommendations for resolution. The Commission is also charged with creating a kinder, warmer and more open campus.

President Cole also asked members to identify their concerns. Members listed the need to improve campus climate and eliminate low morale, the need to improve communication for all members of our campus, the lack of domestic partnership benefits, and the need to improve recruitment and retention of faculty of color as major concerns that need to be addressed.

Members also indicated their top three concerns from lists that were generated in groups. The Executive Board will examine these lists and present the memberships' overarching concerns in the fall.

The Commission elected the officers for the Commission for AY 2003-2004:

Chairperson: - -T. Jacobowitz
Vice Chair : - -N. Connolly
Recording Secretary: - - M. Brown
Corresponding Secretary: - - C. Meneghin

- Strengthening the Membership: The Commission continues to review attendance records to see if every constituency is represented at every meeting. We will notify President Cole about any constituency that has not been represented regularly to ensure that a new member is appointed who can come to all of the meetings. We will also make sure that every voting member has an alternate member.

- Revisiting the Committee Structure: At times, members felt that the current committee structure was not suitable for discussion of all of the issues that came to our attention. This issue will be examined in the fall. We will look at the concerns of the membership expressed at the Advance and determine if our agenda for addressing these concerns will fit with the current committee structure or if we need a new structure. This would involve a change to our constitution.

- Racial and Ethnic Make-up of the PCAA: While the Commission is ethnically and racially diverse, it still does not reflect the demographics of our campus. The Commission continues to ask President Cole to appoint more white males to the group.

PAR Concerns: This past year, the Commission learned that some members of the support staff are concerned that PAR Developmental Plans were being used to discriminate against workers on the basis of age. They report that they are receiving poor evaluations as compared to positive evaluations in past years. Some support staff expressed concerns about issues of dignity, respect and being valued in their units as well as at the university in general. The Commission agreed that PARs should be used to improve performance by setting goals and recommending ways of achieving them. The Commission will continue to seek clarification about this issue from VP Hain.

- Physical Plant Concerns: On November 4, 2002, the PCAA Executive Committee wrote a letter to President Cole, expressing concern about limited access to university information via computers and telephones that is available for PPD employees. President Cole responded on December 6, 2002 stating that these concerns had been addressed and that steps had already been taken to increase the availability of internet and e-mail capabilities for the Physical Plant staff. She also said that enhanced training opportunities would be made available.

- The long-awaited Physical Plant report was placed in the library for Commission members' perusal. Tina Jacobowitz stated that the report was comprehensive and addressed all of the PCAA's concerns regarding the Physical Plant. The Commission invited Mr. Walter Watkins, Associate VP for Facilities Operations to its April meeting to discuss the report and to give an update on the physical plant department workforce. According to Mr. Watkins, our concerns will continue to be addressed. (A summary of this discussion can be found in the April 24, 2003 meeting minutes.)

- GLFSA Issues/Concerns: On December 16, 2002, the PCAA Executive Board received a letter from Hiram Perez stating concerns of GLFSA that should be addressed by the Commission. The first related to the fact that the university does not recognize same-sex domestic partnerships. The second concern was access to electronic communications by LGBT physical plant employees. The third concern was that the New Faculty Orientation include time for GLFSA to speak to and provide literature for new faculty. A fourth concern was expressed over the possibility of LGBT Latino/a faculty being vulnerable to homophobia within their own departments. These issues and concerns were addressed at our annual Advance and will be included in our agenda for next year.

- Persons with Disabilities Issues/Concerns: The Commission is pleased that Linda Smith currently represents this constituency on the Commission and that James Harris is her alternate. In January, Ms. Smith informed the Commission about laws, facilities and statistics related to students and faculty with disabilities. The PCAA has linked to the Health and Wellness website that includes Students with Disabilities information. It is through these efforts, as well as the annual Advance, that the PCAA hopes to stay informed and active relative to the concerns of individuals with disabilities.

- Latino Faculty Separation Rates: The Committee on Recruitment and Retention reviewed the retention data from 1994 ­ 2001 for faculty who participated in the New Faculty Program. This information was provided by the Provost's Office in its reply to the PCAA's faculty mentoring report. In examining that data, the committee found that of the twenty-four Latino/a faculty hired during this period, twelve eventually left the university. The data showed that this rate of separation is more than double that of the separation rate of Non-Latino/a faculty.

The Recruitment & Retention Committee also reviewed the Division of Human Resources' Employee Exit Questionnaire and made several recommendations, which were shared with VP Hain at the March 27th meeting. There was some discussion on how to improve the exit interview process to determine why faculty leave MSU. The Commission still needs to explore this issue further.

- MSU Profile by Gender and Ethnicity of Full-Time Job Classifications: The Status of Minorities Committee reported in March, that they had examined this profile. The committee observed that while there were increases and decreases in Black employees in the different categories there was no overall growth in the total number of Black employees. The committee will continue to investigate these data as well as to analyze the causation for increases and decreases in job classifications by both ethnicity and gender.

Members of the Commission see positive change in several areas that we have addressed over the past few years, such as educating the campus on issues relevant to affirmative action, enhancing communication and support from the administration regarding affirmative action concerns, increasing recruitment of faculty of color and improving access to communication opportunities for members of the Physical Plant. However, as can be seen in the above report, there are issues and concerns that continue to warrant our attention. Some of the questions we will continue to address in the coming academic year are "What recommendations can the PCAA make to the administration as well as what actions can the PCAA itself take to:

• make our campus climate more welcoming to all members of the community?
• further improve morale on campus for all members of our community?
• enhance communication among all members of the campus community?
• broaden our educational efforts on campus?
• to achieve domestic partnership benefits?
• further increase the retention of faculty of color on our campus?
• work more closely with the caucuses and other groups that represent our constituencies in order to strengthen all of our efforts?"