Summer may be right around the corner, but it’s the busiest time of year for ERAC.
This past month, the Lehigh community participated in our annual election. Thanks to your support, interest and participation in our elections reached a record-high. Over 40 of our colleagues were nominated for ERAC, and 17 of you put forth your names for candidacy. Nearly 350 members of Lehigh’s staff cast their ballots.
We’re thrilled to welcome the following individuals as the newest members to ERAC, beginning this June:
Angela Scott, Academic Diversity
Katrina Kraft, Center for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology
Clara Buie, International Affairs
Ashley Baker, Registrar’s Office
JoAnne DeSalvatore, Chemistry
Morgan Nelson, Marketing
We also want to thank Catherine Headman, Yatin Karpe and Jeanne Kassis for their service to ERAC, which ends this June.
Our new members join ERAC at an interesting time. Our committee is excited to host a series of meetings to gain more insight into how we can better serve our staff colleagues on campus. We will be conducting focus groups in May. And we will be meeting with the Faculty and Staff of Color Network (FSCN) to discuss ways our two organizations can partner on shared priorities, particularly with regard to the goal of fostering a more inclusive and welcoming climate at Lehigh.
We’ll share what we learned from our focus groups and the FSCN meeting later in the summer. We want to offer a special thanks to those of you who have agreed to participate in these gatherings.
ERAC members will be participating in two-day training sessions with consultants from VISIONS that will result in a better understanding of the challenges—and opportunities—facing Lehigh’s campus climate. Our hope is to find more productive ways to contribute to the conversations about diversity happening around campus.
If anyone has questions about these—or any other—initiatives, please feel free to contact either Tom Yencho (chair) or Carla Kologie (vice chair).