Women's Faculty Council (WFC) Report 2017-2018

Women’s Faculty Council (WFC) Report 2017-2018

Prepared by: Sarah Milligan

Executive Officers:

Chair – Sarah Milligan
Chair Elect – Dr. Steph Link
Secretary/Treasurer – Dr. Kim Loeffert
Faculty Council Liaison –Dr. Shida Henneberry

The WFC was very active for the 2017-2018 academic year.

Membership Meetings:

We held 7 WFC meetings. 6 of these meetings included additional programming from invited sources.

September 2016 – WFC meeting and reports. Presentation by Jamie Payne about the Family Medical Leave Act policies for the university.
October 2016 – WFC meeting and reports. Presentation provided by Dr. Cynthia Wang, Association Professor, Business Administration about issues related to women in negotiation including an introduction to harnessing negotiation skills.
November 2016 – WFC meeting and reports. Presentation provided by Dr. Cynda Clary, CASNR Association Dean on tackling professional recognition.
January 2018 - WFC meeting and reports. Presentation provided by Dr. Jean Van Delinder on the unintended bias and outdated attitudes in regards to women in academia.
February 2017 – Research Week WFC/ ITLE/CAS sponsored panel, "Mitigating Implicit Bias in Faculty Hiring and Evaluation Processes." The panel was organized by CAS Dean Bret Danalowicz and included Dr. Flera Rizatdinova, Dr. Jeff Loeffert, and Dr. Laura Arata.
March 2017 – WFC meeting and reports. Presentation provided by Dr. Kenneth Bartels on the Ombuds office at the university.
April 2017 – WFC Research Award Reception. Updates given.

Administrative Work:

WFC Research Awards: Fall 2017 the executive officers focused a lot of time and effort soliciting funding for the annual WFC Research Awards, as well as sending out communication requesting application for the WFC Research Award and the Undergraduate Scholarship Award due in February and March 2017.

We reached out to 17 different colleges and divisions on campus and received commitments of support from 13, totaling $19,750 commitments
We received confirmed actual cash transfer or fulfilled commitments for $14,750
There was a $4,000 carry-over in the WFC account from 2017-2018
We awarded $19,500 from these

Sponsors for the WFC Research Award included:

Center for Veterinary Health Science
College of Arts & Sciences
College of Education, Health & Aviation
College of Engineering, Architecture, & Technology
College of Human Sciences
College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources
Graduate College
Institute for Technology and Learning Excellence
Office of the President
Spears School of Business
Vice President for Institutional Diversity
Vice President and Provost for Academic Affairs
Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer

There were 25 volunteer WFC Research Award application reviewers representing all the different colleges. Marianna Patrauchan volunteered to chair the awards committee and work was done between March 1 – March 31^st to review and score the applications.

Undergraduate Scholarship: The Ann Ryder and Clara Smith WFC Leadership Endowed Scholarship for Undergraduates realized $750 from the endowment to be awarded for this scholarship. WFC executive officers donated funds to allow for a $1,000 award. There were 3 volunteer reviewers to review the 4 persona application pool. Sarah Milligan chaired the review committee. The recommendation for the next year's award of this scholarship will be to drop the award to $750 to be more in line with actual earnings.

Planning: The Executive Board met regularly between September 2017 and May 2018 to work on programming, increasing membership participation, and general logistics.

Budget: The WFC started the 2017-2018 academic year with $4,960.29 in our budget. After solicitation for WFC annual research awards donations, we were pledged $19,750. Because of the lack of transparency in accounting with the transfer system through Banner, we were only able to confirm $14,750 was received. We awarded $19,500 to WFC research award recipients. In April we were contacted by Red Rock Bakery who informed us they had never received payment for the 2017 awards reception catering (which was submitted to our financial point of contact in May 2017). We were able to pay that bill for $146.98 and requested funds to pay for catering for the 2018 awards reception (cost of $144.97). After months of back and forth, we still haven't received confirmation that this bill has been paid but continue to follow this. We also opened an OSU Foundation account specifically for WFC Research Awards donations through the Office of Institutional Diversity - this account is separate from the Undergraduate Scholarship account, which is an endowment handled by the OSU Foundation through the CAS. We haven't received a clear accounting of the close of the 2018 fiscal year, but expect to with early FY2019 meetings with our sponsors in the Office of Institutional Diversity.

Special Programmatic Efforts:

Book Group: The WFC hosted a 5-part (September– November, 2017) book club in conjunction with ITLE on the book Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia Edited by Gabriella Guitierrez y Muhs, Yolanda Flores Niemann, Carmen G. Gonzales and Angela P. Harris. This book group was moderated by Dr. Erin Dyke and Dr. Lu Bailey. Including WFC officer participation, 20 participants signed up for the discussion group and on average, 5-8 regularly attended.

WFC annual awards reception - April 17^th

Awarded 30 research awards (18 Ph.D students, 6 Masters students, 6 Undergraduate students) out of 67 applicants. Research Awards totaled $16,750. Ann Ryder and Clara Smith Leadership Endowed Scholarship for Undergraduates awarded $1,000. Awardees and their advisors attended, as well as sponsors and WFC members at large.

Targeted Committees/Efforts:

COACHE working group: WFC executive board appointed a representative, Cinthya Ippoliti, to fill the invited roll on the COACHE survey follow up working group chaired by Jean VanDelinder. Meetings for this committee began late in the Spring 2017 semester and completed work by August 2017 on with a goal of evaluation and recommendations on actionable items based on areas of deficiency from the 2015 COACHE survey undertaken by OSU. Ippoliti reported back to WFC membership on the findings of the group, including a full page document outlining the services provided to address many issues provoked in the COACHE survey referred to as OSU Personal and Professional Wellbeing. https://academicaffairs.okstate.edu/content/osu-personal-and-professional-wellbeing

Bylaws review committee: At the beginning of the 2017-18 academic year, the WFC created a committee to review the bylaws, which hadn’t been updated since January 2007. Kim Loeffert was chosen to chair the committee and an open call was put out to solicit membership participation. The complete committee, consisting of Nataša Kaurin-Karača, Shelia Kennison, Stephanie Link, Kim Loeffert, and Laura Talbott Clark, reviewed the bylaws and made comments digitally prior to an in-person meeting in December 2017 where suggested changes were proposed. The committee clarified the functions and responsibilities of the WFC, expanded the composition to be more inclusive, grew the Executive Committee of the WFC, extended the term of Secretary/Treasurer to two years, and committed to seeking an annual audience with the Provost and the Office of Institutional Diversity. The proposed changes passed by unanimous vote in July 2018.

Award Nominations: Based on discussions in panels, with membership, and WFC executive boards invited attendance to the annual OSU faculty and staff awards ceremony, the WFC executive board determined to be an active participant in increasing the number of women faculty being nominated for prestigious campus awards. In 2018, we again targeted the OSU Eminent Faculty Award for greater gender inclusion – considering this is one of the highest university research awards and has only been given to 2 women in the history of the award (began in 1997). WFC executive board members requested nominations from WFC membership for women faculty to be nominated for the OSU Eminent Faculty Award and from the responses received, chose 1 faculty member to formally nominate for this award. The nomination was accepted. In addition to this, the WFC provided a letter of support for the 2017 WFC nominee for this award who resubmitted her application for this award in 2018.

New award initiatives for 2018-2019: New award initiatives for 2018-2019. Due to the success of our annual research awards, we will be expanding our initiative to recognize the diversity in leadership among women faculty. The executive board will work with the Office of Institutional Diversity to form a working group that will develop awards criteria. We expect the first annual award will be recognized at the university awards convocation in the fall.

WFC membership were invited in April/May to nominate 2018-2019 Chair-elect and Secretary/Treasurer candidates as well as volunteers for the WFC Faculty Council Liaison.

Elected WFC executive board for 2018-2019 academic year:

Chair: Dr. Steph Link
Chair- Elect: Dr. Kim Loeffert
Secretary/Treasurer: Dr. Dolores Vazquez

Appointed by Executive Committee:

WFC Faculty Council Liaison: Dr. Tracy Quan