Held 11:30 am to 12:30 pm via Zoom
Topic: Meet New Members and Planning for the Year
10 members were present, and Jacqueline Rioja Velarde served as facilitator. The following were discussed:
- Registration for the Lilly conference.
- In November will be an International Education Week. Eun Chong offered an opportunity for the IFSAM to contribute a panel on accents.
- Since this was the first meeting of the year, IFSAM wanted to establish some agenda and objectives. Prof. Velarde suggested a composition of a Constitution. IFSAM has objectives listed for the organization but not an actual constitution. An agreement was reached that in addition to the mission statement and because IFSAM is now a part of Diversity and Inclusion, a constitution will help. IFSAM, however, is very different from any other affinity group since it focuses on professional development. Eun Chong suggested that each member expresses their opinions about the general climate on campus in regards to international faculty.
- Question of outreach, spreading the word about the organization. Since the members represent many different cultural backgrounds, it will be helpful if we had a more official way to reach out to the new faculty. Is it possible to send a mass faculty e-mail so that IFSAM can attract the new faculty. But it has to be carefully worded and approved possibly by administration.
Ebru Diffield suggested that IFSAM is a great platform to announce cultural events like for example Tea Tasting event on October 14th.
A possibility of a short retreat was suggested by Prof. Velarde as a way to get more involved with the association and its goals.
The question of nominations for various university awards was brought up and the members agreed that IFSAM needs to support those initiatives and bring it up with D&I. Prof. Velarde offered to find out what the various awards are for this year so we can start working on the nominations.