tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531416588591902098.post-75460573060250095292007-11-08T05:38:00.000-08:002007-11-08T05:39:51.159-08:00Hello Fellow SCRAPpers,<br /><br />Here are the notes from last week’s meeting. They’re a little different than normal meeting notes because we had a larger issue dominate our conversation – however we touched upon everything that was on the agenda in an organic way through our larger conversation which was, in fact, quite productive. I hope my notes make sense, and if you have any questions please let me know.<br /><br />November 1, 2007 SCRAP Meeting<br />Becky F. – Facilitating<br />Sarah C. – notetaking<br />Anne, Brandon, Matthew, Kerry, Erin, Cheryl, Kierran – attending<br /><br />1. Go Arounds<br />2. In the last meeting of the Standing Committee on Diversity the Dean made the statement that he personally did not see or understand institutional or, as he put it, “endemic” racism to be a problem here at HDS. Sarah C. brought this up as an issue as these types of viewpoints in the administration and faculty pose a serious obstacle for all of our work.<br /><br />We decided that the best way to deal with this was to assemble a sort of SCRAP Goal List, specific actions that we wanted to take by the end of this term as well as into the Spring. We established some ideas about “teach-in” type events to hold in the Spring that would invite the community to come see a speaker (we would work hand in hand with the Standing Committee on Diversity on bringing a speaker in) and then have a following day “teach-in” event led by Nancy Richardson. The teach-in would be aimed at the broader community – faculty, students and staff. We discussed specific issues related to staff that need to be addressed. Sarah C. is to follow up with Pamela Macey on those issues. We brainstormed some people to bring in as speakers – Tim Wise was a top choice as his work deals specifically with issues of white privilege and would challenge people’s assumptions most directly. Another suggestion, by Cheryl, was Beverly Tatum.<br /><br />We also agreed it would be wise to pay attention to diversity/racism type events being held by other Harvard schools, and aim at working together with them.<br /><br />We are to continue to individually and then collectively come up with a list of people not only as potential speakers to come in for the teach-in event, but also for Cheryl who is looking into other ways that we could bring speakers/guest lecturers to the school.<br /><br />We also discussed other concrete action plans we can hold before the end of the term, and agreed that another movie showing with a discussion led by a faculty member seemed simple enough to do before the end of the term. Farid Esack was mentioned as an excellent faculty member to lead such discussion, but after being contacted by Laura M. he had to decline as he is very busy currently preparing for AAR.<br /><br />We are to continue individually and collectively to come up with a list of good movies to watch. We agreed that these need to deal with issues beyond the “black and white” racism issues, and touch upon broader issues of diversity as well. We also need to think of other faculty members who would be great to lead these kinds of discussions for this upcoming movie event (date to be determined) as well as future events.<br /><br />3. Sarah C. is to follow up with Maritza regarding the staff member upset about the orientation event being held during Rosh Hashanah. We agreed to invite the staff member to our meeting so that we could listen to her pain and offer and opportunity for healing – not a place for us to defend ourselves and discount her trouble with our decision.<br /><br />4. We also broadly discussed coalition building and were alerted to a mass meeting of all students interested in issues of racism at HDS that is going to happen before the end of the semester. We agreed it is important to attend that meeting as it will be an amazing opportunity for coalition building. We briefly discussed issues of SCRAP being misrepresented in the community as a group that is only concerned with white privilege and is only full of white people, and wrestled with the best way to deal with that misrepresentation. Although we came to no firm conclusion, we felt that the best way to deal with those rumors is through our events and putting ourselves out there, being honest about ourselves and our goals. This will be further discussed at our next meeting.<br /><br />5. Becky, Kierran, and Anne are working on creating a SCRAP blog, which will also help with our representation in the HDS community by making our meeting notes public. It will also help us with group communication, as well as create a place for conversation outside of meetings. An update about the blog status will be at the next meeting.<br /><br /><br />I think that’s it. Sorry these notes are so long, but the meeting was really important. All of these issues will definitely be followed up on in the next meeting.<br /><br />Thanks for bearing with me through these notes, and I’m excited to see you all again at our next meeting this Thursday at 6:30, in the same room in the basement of Div Hall (I think its 106 but I don’t want to be wrong). Cheryl has graciously offered to provide pizza for our next meeting.<br /><br />All My Best,<br />Sarah CannonAnnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15826386016883542483noreply@blogger.com