Faculty Meeting

he regular meeting of the faculty of the Department of Statistics was held at 12:30pm, May 8, 2023. Abel Rodriguez, Department Chair, presided at the meeting. Kristine Chan was recording secretary. 

New Business 

Scott Pinkham, Assistant Director of Academic Inclusion and Community Relations in the College of Engineering’s Office of Inclusive Excellence, led a discussion on adopting a land acknowledgement. He went over online training for staff and faculty, which is found here. The faculty and GSRs discussed how to implement land acknowledgement in the department through DICE and social activities. DICE Chair, E. Perkovic, suggests sending the resources to faculty while the GSRs suggested implement some readings in a book club.  DICE will prepare a proposal that includes text for a land acknowledgement and a recommendation on when these should be used, to be voted on by the faculty.  These will be adopted for official department-wide business, but individual faculty will not be required to use them for courses or other non-departmental events. 

The Chair went over the DEI pulse survey that was motivated and put together by DICE. The purpose of this survey is to internally assess the progress the department is making with respect to our defined diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals and to pinpoint potential weaknesses to work on (i.e. this pertains to faculty searches/hiring, admissions into our programs, etc.). The DICE Chair would like input by Thursday, May 25 at noon.  The survey is expected to be conducted in Autumn 2023. 

The faculty were given the opportunity to review the 3/16, 4/24, and 5/8 faculty meeting minutes for approval. None provided comments during the meeting. The minutes were later voted on electronically via Microsoft Forms and approved by the eligible voting faculty. 

Adjournment 

There being no other items to discuss, the meeting adjourned at 2:00pm.