More than 350 professional staff attended The PSO’s 4th Annual Diversity Forum held on March 3, 2021. The event, presented by the Professional Staff Organization in partnership with the Whole U, centered on the theme of (Re)Building Cultures of Equity and Inclusion through Policy, Procedures and Budgets.
The remote venue allowed for an engaging discussion between attendees and panelists, who included leaders from the non-profit, private, and academic sectors:
- Annette Anderson, Office of Diversity and Equity, UW-Bothell, and member and ex-officio president of the PSO Board
- Ebonee Anderson, Diversity Recruiter, UWHR, University of Washington
- Mariasol Hill, Global Intern Program Manager, Microsoft, and former Administrator for Residential Life at UW’s HFS
- Jamilah Williams, Board Chair of Sustainable Seattle, and Assistant Director of Marketing and Communications at UW’s College of Built Environments
- Moderated by Deci Evans, Harborview Medical Center Trauma, Burn and Surgical Critical Care and longtime PSO Board member and chair of our events committee.
Full bios of the panelists can be found on the event web page, and you can watch the event recording on YouTube. (Unfortunately we were unable to capture the chat transcript, but have followed up with the panelists and hope to highlight their thoughts to some of the additional questions in a future post.)
Panelists shared their experiences and offered valuable insights as to how necessary it is for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) work to be explicitly included in discussions of institutional policies, procedures, and budgeting. Some of the takeaways that the PSO Board left with include the following ideas:
- Representation is important, and it does not mean just offering a seat at the table if the table was designed to exclude you: it means creating a new table.
- Bring an equity lens to all budgeting–because DEI work needs to be funded/paid work and not “stuff we expect people to do for free in addition to their regular job”
- Collaboration and working together is often at odds with the dominant white culture value of the individual. Doing independent work without including other people can be exclusionary, and it leads to a lack of accountability where folks can agree to do something then never show up. Additionally, groups of people who are super focused on getting work done at the exclusion of making connections often don’t look good (or safe). On the other hand, groups of people who work well together, with respect, look inviting; moreover, they are able to develop more robust and inclusive policies and solutions.
- Institutions need mechanisms for sharing DEI resources across the organization. One of the great places this is happening at UW is on the Department of Surgery’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council website, an effort co-led by Deci, our panel moderator. Relatedly, during the event, the PSO made a request to UW-IT to add a DEI event tag to their cross-campus Trumba calendar platform, for more effective sharing of such events. We hope this change happens and will follow up accordingly!
- We must all work to be antiracist and to work toward justice, regardless of our job descriptions or areas of expertise – this is not just the purview of folks working in DEI offices.
The event was a huge success – the panelists were generous with their time and stayed beyond the scheduled hour to answer additional questions and share their thoughts. A huge thank you to the panelists, the attendees, and Whole U. We are so glad to have been able to be in conversation with you all. And we’d love to hear your thoughts – please let us know what aspects of the event resonated with you!
Based on the level of engagement both in the chat and via email after the event, it’s apparent to the PSO Board that many professional staff as well as others across the UW are eager to continue this conversation. We are already planning the next one! We invite you to participate in continuing this conversation – reach out to the PSO Diversity Equity and Inclusion committee to get involved.
Additionally, we invite you to tell us about DEI work that is taking place across campus – each month, we highlight DEI activities from book clubs to discussion groups to campus initiatives in our PSO member newsletter, and we’d love to amplify your work. Email psoboard@uw.edu!