May 30, 2023

by Diane Finley, STP President

I hope that everyone’s Spring terms have ended successfully. If you are beginning a spring quarter or summer term, I wish smooth teaching. This will be a shorter than normal column – I want everyone to spend their time relaxing rather than reading my writing. So, this month, I want to highlight one specific STP endeavor this month.

Before I do that, though, I want to congratulate all the newly elected STP officers and thank everyone who agreed to run. It takes a commitment to serve STP and even to run for office. Please think about future elections and participating as a candidate! More information can be found in the recent newsletter and on our homepage.

This month I want to highlight our call for a Working Group to support our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) initiatives. After the events in 2020, STP has begun to examine our structures, policies, procedures, and programs. We have had several working groups who have already done great work on DEIB. However, this work is not completed. To that end, we are formulating another working group to build on the work of those prior groups. I am including the Call for Applications below, so it reaches a wide audience. Please take some time to consider applying and helping with this work.

STP’s DEIB Working Group

We seek applications for a new STP working group: Integrating DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging) across the structure of STP. Consistent with our Mission Statement and the Statement on Addressing Systemic Racism and Inequity in STP, we encourage applications from colleagues who are from underrepresented groups and have diverse backgrounds and experiences.

In 2020, we put out a statement on our priorities around addressing racism and inequity within STP. As an organization, we have made progress within the four priorities (Critical reflection and assessment, Representation, Equity, and Inclusivity), but still have much work to do. One important area of work that we are now undertaking is an assessment of how to integrate DEIB across all facets of our organizational structure , to ensure that equity and inclusion are embedded within all areas and integrated into the constitution of STP.

To create this structural change, we are forming a working group whose charge is to create recommendations for how to integrate DEIB across the structure of STP. The group would be engaged with questions such as the following:

• What structure can STP build to integrate DEIB throughout the organization, rather than have it as a silo or an add-on?
• What changes would be required to build a new equity-oriented structure? What resources would be needed?
• To reduce the burden for a few, in what ways can this work be shared by many?...

To read the rest of this letter and past letters from the STP President, click here.

To read Diane Finley's presidential theme and task forces for 2023, click here.