Thursday, October 21, 2010

Another Place To Connect

Hi All,
Yes, we have email and in person and LinkdIn and now a blog so that we can optimize our chances to connect and share. Please feel free to comment on the blog site (be kind!!) - I tried to get something up and others (aka TJ, Nellie) can make it beautiful.

For those of you who where unable to join us at Jefferson (thanks, Luz!) - we had an amazing meeting.

MEETING HIGHLIGHTS
I won't steal Nellie's thunder on the minutes, rather I'll give you a capsule summary.
It seems that times are in flux for many folks
 - what does this "Diversity" office thing mean? who should it be? what role is the work that has come before? where is the best fit?
The group consensus is that this is an ideal time for us to discuss strategic positioning of NEC and it's expertise.

NEXT IN FACE MEETING
In this time of change, we discussed the opportunity to augment the conversation with stakeholders (Dean's, etc.) and re-invite the new head of Diversity at AAMC to join us at our next face to face meeting. Luz offered to reach out with an invitation. We were looking for dates in January - more to come on that...
ONE HOUR THEME DISCUSSIONS
We also talked about continuing our connection with one hour theme focused topics that would occur every 8 weeks or so. As a result of checking in, we neither had time to address the two proposed topics (LGBT and cultural competence; nor sex and gender health disparities) The group consensus was to have LGBT issues as the one hour discussion/resource session and that we would shoot for Monday Dec 6, at 4 pm for a one hour rambo discussion. This will allow Ed to share his findings from the UCSF meeting and also have Dominga (who first brought this up) to be able to join in.

Feel free to email Ed P for the username and password of their new cultural competency site (see Hot Off the Presses)

Please join in the conversation with the blog and add your two cents!!!
Happy Fall - Ana