Members of the four IFO Equity Committees (Feminist Issues, Multicultural Issues, LGBTQ+ Issues, and Disabilities Advocacy) held a joint meeting on November 10, 2017, to share their experiences and explore how they can partner with and engage faculty to support the shared values of the committees and the IFO. The group discussed how the new IFO website can be used to better communicate the mission and action of the IFO through committee web pages. They also met with IFO Director of Organizing Matt Smriga to outline organizing challenges and strategies on each campus. Matt will work with the equity committees for a big membership push in the spring semester of 2018.
2018 is an IFO Delegate Assembly (DA) year, and the committees all agreed that they must take advantage of the time they have together at DA. The group made plans to maximize their organization and effectiveness at DA by:
- Forming a subcommittee of three [Laurie Blunsom (Moorhead, FIC), Ellen Holmgren (Metro, LBGTQ+IC), Ajay Panicker (St. Cloud, MIC)], to work on new Delegate Assembly resolutions relating to equity issues.
- Deciding to hold affinity group caucus meetings (Faculty of Color, Faculty with Disabilities, Women Faculty, and LGBTQ+ Faculty) at Delegate Assembly in lieu of individual committee meetings.
For more information on the work of the IFO equity committees or to submit a comment to the committees, please visit the committees’ respective web pages at:
Multicultural Issues Committee
Disabilities Advocacy Committee
IFO faculty of color and LGBTQ+ faculty also have begun organizing caucus meetings. You can stay up to date with those meetings by visiting the web pages for the respective caucuses at: