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!

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.

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!

UW Community Circle

On behalf of our colleagues at the Population Health Initiative, the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity, Race & Equity Initiative, and the School of Public Health Office of the Dean, the PSO would like to share the opportunity for professional staff to participate in the newly launched UW Community Circle:

Are you in search of a space to be in solidarity with other UW faculty and staff about the recent losses and ongoing trauma we are experiencing collectively? If so, we invite you to join us on October 28 for a virtual community circle guided by the work of Resmaa Menakem and his book, “My Grandmother’s Hands.”

The purpose of the community circle is to come together as a UW community to remember the relatives we are still losing to the pandemic of covid and racism, acknowledge the collective trauma we are still experiencing, and gather together to highlight lessons we have learned in the past 20 months and integrate them into our work as professionals in population health and higher education.

As we move forward to try to co-create a “new normal”, we strive to intentionally approach that work with an anti-racist, socially just, and equitable lens. This community circle is intentionally created for UW faculty and staff to span the academic year to allow us time to build together to live and work in a healthier space physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

Part of this circle is a journey with the book, My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem, which focuses on how we can build a community of care together by addressing our embodied trauma. E-books are available via UW Library. This opportunity is open to all UW faculty and staff and created in partnership between the Population Health Initiative, the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity, Race & Equity Initiative, and the School of Public Health Office of the Dean. See flyer here for more information.

Register for our virtual conversation launch by Monday, October 25th here: https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/salazar6/412538

A zoom link will be sent to you before the event.

If you have registration questions, please contact Andrea Salazar-Nuñez at alazar6@uw.edu

If you have questions about the event, please contact Arti Shah at artishah@uw.edu

The University of Washington is committed to providing access and reasonable accommodation in its services, programs, and activities. Accommodation requests related to a disability should be made by October 14th to Population Health Initiative, Arti Shah, artishah@uw.edu.

PSO, staff partners across UW to host DEI Forum in October

The UW Professional Staff Organization (PSO) is joining with staff across the campuses of UW to host a forum, by staff & for staff, on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion at UW and beyond. Taking place on October 20-21, the event goal is to create an intersectional space to come together 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 identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and religion. The primary audience of the DEI Forum will be staff from UW. Faculty and students are welcome to attend!

The DEI Forum will include various sessions, panels, and workshops on aspects of the topic, hosted by professional staff from all over UW. Learn more and register!

CORRECTION: Tri-campus HR Institute

CORRECTION: the PSO newsletter incorrectly shared the tri-campus HR Institute as an event that was open to PSO members. This event is for an identified community of practice and not for the broader professional staff community. We regret the error. Please email psoboard@uw.edu if you have any questions.