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2023 DEI Forum Inspiring Belonging and Creating Community

The quad is buzzing with tourists, the cherry blossoms have bloomed, and April has officially arrived. The Professional Staff Organization is looking forward to welcoming Husky students, staff, and faculty to join the PSO for the 2023 Annual DEI Forum this Spring. This year is focused on inspiring belonging and creating community. Rickey Hall, Vice President for Minority Affairs & Diversity and University Diversity Officer, will provide an update on the University of Washington’s progress on Diversity Efforts, as well as join a panel composed of Tri-Campus Leadership to continue the conversation on DEI endeavors.  

During the 2-day event, attendees will have the opportunity to learn from Campus Leadership, Faculty, and Professional Staff while engaging in various workshops and small group discussions rooted in our commitment to social justice. In this space, we intend to spark conversation and further connection throughout our UW Tri-Campus community. Session topics will offer insight on building inclusive spaces, understanding the work necessary to achieve belonging, and begin paving paths for marginalized communities to succeed in all aspects on our campuses.

Register now for the DEI Forum!  

If you are a Professional Staff Member that is passionate about advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the PSO DEI Committee is currently seeking members to join in on developing future programming and contribute to engagement efforts that support our diverse Pro Staff community. You can inquire about joining the DEI Committee or other Standing Committees on the PSO Committees’ page.  

The PSO thanks our sponsors, Greater Washington State HERC, PSO Board members, and contributors to the PSO fund that have made this event and our work possible throughout the year.  

PSO Spring Celebration – May 17

The PSO is excited to host the annual Spring Celebration with UW President Ana Mari Cauce on May 17, 3:00–4:00 p.m. The Celebration will be VIRTUAL on Zoom; however, there will be an in-person social at HUB Games following the celebration (4:30-5:30pm) for folks to meet other professional staff! We will have refreshments and PSO gear to give out at the HUB Games social.  

 

Join us as we celebrate the end of another extraordinary academic (and fiscal) year. Connect with other professional staff, meet the new PSO Board members, see what your PSO has been up to, and converse with UW President Ana Mari Cauce. This year, we are also excited to announce the recipients of our inaugural DEIB Excellence Award at the Celebration! We hope to see you there!  

 

Click here to register and submit your questions to the president by May 1. 

PSO Spring Event Survey Due March 31

Professional staff are invited to complete a brief survey (<1 minute) to share ideas for an optional in-person social following the Spring Celebration on May 17. Your feedback will help the PSO Events Committee create an engaging in-person event for professional staff to meet one another and celebrate the end of the quarter.

The deadline for completing the survey is March 31.

Complete the survey! 

Save the Date – PSO Spring Celebration will be held via Zoom on May 17, 3-4pm. In-person social will be held after the celebration, 4:30-5:30pm. 

PSO to host DEI Forum in April, focused on Belonging

The PSO is excited to host the 7th DEI Forum, with the theme “Inspiring Belonging and Creating Community”. The purpose of this regular forum is to an intersectional space for those interested in advocating for equity to come together to share ideas, network, and build coalitions to advance anti-racism and social justice efforts across UW and beyond. This includes intersecting aspects of identity such as race, ability, age, gender, sexual orientation, language, socioeconomic status, and religion.

This year, the DEI Forum theme will be “Inspiring Belonging and Creating Community”. Pat Wadors, the CHRO of ServiceNow, is credited with adding “belonging” to the Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) space. As she says, “D&I may capture your head, but belonging captures your heart.” In this spirit, the DEI Forum intends to create an inclusive space of belonging, and to provide resources, ideas, and connections so that we as a UW community can support each other in building and sustaining inclusive spaces of belonging in our communities, at UW and beyond.

The forum is developed by pro-staff and for pro-staff, and is open to all of the UW community who wish to participate!

Register now for the 2023 DEI Forum

  • When: April 19, 12-4pm; and April 20, 9am-1pm
  • Where: Zoom

Check out our event page, which will be updated as we finalize the program, and register to join us!

Join us for virtual PSO Spring Celebration 2022, with President Cauce

Join us on May 25, from 3pm — 4pm, ONLINE, to celebrate as we near the end of another extraordinary academic (and fiscal) year. Connect with other professional staff, meet the new PSO Board members, see what your PSO has been up to, and converse with UW President Ana Mari Cauce. We look forward to this gathering every year, and hope to see you there!

Register today!

Submit a question for President Cauce to address at the Spring Celebration before May 1st.

Womxn of Color Celebration a Wonderful Success, Again!

The 19th annual Womxn of Color Celebration was successfully held online on March 8th. An event for and by womxn of color was a coming together to find community and share stories and experiences from around the campus to build a stronger future.

Polly Olsen, Director DEAI & Decolonization, Tribal Liaison at the Burke Museum and Charlotte Cote, łuutiis Charlotte Coté (Tseshaht/Nuu-chah-nulth), Ph.D.; Associate Professor, Department of American Indian Studies joined this celebration to share stories and their research to shed light on the difficult history of the region and the land we stand on and circled back to resilience and restoration for the indigenous peoples of this land.

Spring 2022 DEI Forum: registration now open!

After a successful first Tri-Campus DEI Forum in autumn 2021 around the theme of Community, volunteers from the UW Professional Staff Organization (PSO) and departments across UW’s three campuses are once again joining together to organize and facilitate a virtual 2-half-day Diversity Equity Inclusion (DEI) Forum, this time focused on Action. The DEI Forum is developed by staff, for staff, but open to faculty and students as well. It will take place via Zoom on April 20-21, 2022.

The goal of the event is to create an intersectional space for those interested in advocating for equity to come together to share ideas, network, and build coalitions to advance anti-racism and social justice efforts across UW and beyond. This includes intersecting aspects of identity such as race, ability, age, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and religion.

You can now register for this event through the Whole U.

We also encourage UW employees and community members with a connection to UW who are doing DEI work in this area to submit proposals for sessions here. Proposals that are action-oriented and interactive are particularly sought!

More information here:  https://www.washington.edu/pso/get-involved/pso-events/2022-dei-forum/.  If you have any questions or would like to get involved, please email us at psoboard@uw.edu.

PSO Legislative Preview Recap

On November 17, the PSO hosted its annual Legislative Session Preview, with guest speaker Joe Dacca, UW Director of State Relations. Over 100 people joined in to hear Dacca share the University’s legislative agenda and take questions. An important highlight is that compensation is the University’s top agenda item for the coming legislative session that begins on Monday, January 10th. A copy of the 2022 UW State Legislative Agenda can be found here.

For more information about the Office of State Relations, please visit their website. For more information about the PSO Legislative Committee, please reach out to Committee Chair Alex Bolton.

2021 DEI Forum Recap

In late October, for 2 half-days, collaborators including the PSO, UW Tacoma Staff Association, Foster School of Business, Department of Surgery, Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, Whole U, and others, put on University of Washington’s first-ever DEI Forum. Supported in part by the UW Diversity Council Seed Grant program and featuring professional staff from across the university discussing topics broadly ranging from title IX to antiracism workgroups to bringing an equity lens to student experience, the Forum brought together hundreds of staff, as well as faculty and students, over Zoom, on October 20 and 21.

Beginning and ending each half-day with opportunities for reflection and discussion on the community mural board, the Forum sought to center the needs, perspective and priorities of professional staff at UW, creating an intersectional space to share ideas, to network, and to build collective capacity to advance anti-racism and social justice efforts across UW and beyond: including intersecting aspects of identity such as race, ethnicity, ability, age, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and religion.

The DEI Forum grew out of the PSO’s annual Diversity Forum, held since 2018. Originally a one-hour event, every instance of the Diversity Forum brought more staff together than the last, and always ended with calls to have more such spaces at UW for discussing issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Shared one attendee, “we hold so much knowledge across our departments and campuses, and the opportunity to gather and share resources and experiences is invaluable.”

The DEI Forum was thus designed to provide not one but 8 hours of opportunity to share, ask, learn, and discuss topics such as White Supremacy culture, emergent strategy as a model for collaboration, and many others.

Session videos, slides, and shared resources are being posted on the DEI Forum event page, and we encourage all to explore them.

And, in recognition of the continued need to hold space for these conversations, the planning team–and anyone else who’d like to get involved!–is getting started on the next event: the 2022 DEI Forum will be held April 20-21, so save the date, and please reach out to psoboard@uw.edu if you’d like to get involved in planning! https://www.washington.edu/pso/get-involved/pso-events/2022-dei-forum/

Fall 2021 Legislative update with Joe Dacca Nov 17 2:30pm

Join us for a PSO Fall 2021 Legislative Update

DATE: November, 17 2021 @ 2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Join the Office of State Relations for an update on the 2021 legislative session

State Relations Director Joe Dacca will share the latest news from Olympia and answer your questions

You are invited to submit your questions in advance of the meeting to extrnaff@uw.edu

Zoom Registration required – click here to register   (UW NetID required to participate)

See you there!