Attendees: Elizabeth Baranger Catherine Bender, David Crossman, Irene Frieze, Charis Jones, Amy Knapp, Tom Metzger, Ivanka Nikolova, Susan Sereika, Bruce Steele, Evelyn Talbott, Johnathan J. White

Minutes

The minutes were reviewed and approved.

Business

Irene Frieze was invited to report on the Campus Climate Survey that the Women's Studies Program conducted in 2001-2002 among the undergraduate classes.

Women appeared to be satisfied with their experiences in classrooms, but African-American men expressed dissatisfaction with their experiences. The report was sent on to Jack Daniel and John Cooper.

One-third of all students reported having at least one instructor tell a sexually explicit joke. The sample consisted of 910 University students from Nursing, Business, General Studies and CAS, etc.). The students with the most favorable impression of campus life were the youngest, the women and those that attended religious services. The least favorable were the least traditional students.

Most questions were open-ended and most were of the opinion that males and females were treated equally. There were general questions regarding climate, a small group said there were sexism problems.

The Provost has been informed and has a Women's Web Site.

Dr. Silvestre wants to put together a Sub-Committee who could have a dialog with the students about their concerns for women, gay and lesbian issues and what the next step will be.

Johnathan White made a point that many of the students may not be urban and may not be accustomed to racial diversity. Maybe having older black grad students as mentors for the new and younger students, will give the new students some motivation to handle any problems that they may have. It may improve if senior mentors get assigned to undergrads.

Dr. Baranger commented that at Duke it was reported that fraternities had a negative impact on some young women's social life. Fraternities are also known for casual sex, and date rapes.

David Crossman was concerned for the international students. He indicated that many Pitt students are not well-traveled and may not appreciated the problems that international students experience.

In Pittsburgh, the University is mostly regional and Pittsburgh is the only large city for a long distance. Our international students are well traveled.

There will be a Senate column in the paper and it should mention the Sexual Harassment web site that the staff had to go to take a test and get a certificate. It was suggested that web site should be visit and the test should also be taken by all faculty at psh@newmedialearning.com

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Irene suggested that the committee take on a project for the Senate Plenary session in the Spring. A written report for How to best address needs of women students in and out of the classroom (needs like sexual harassment).

By the next meeting, there should be a draft of general recommendations

Ivanka Nikolova had a question regarding part-time instructors. She thought that if you qualified you should be told early if you were going to have a class. If you well trained and well prepared, you could qualify and be told earlier instead of last minute. It was determined that each department has there own qualifiers and everyone is told as soon as possible depending on enrollment. Circumstances make classes difficult to arrange. Even if that is the only job they have, the instructors with other jobs cannot be eliminated. Criteria are different from Department to department. There are many specialized classes with specific needs.

Next Meeting: February 17th, 109 Parran/GSPH, 12 noon