TAA Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Progress Report February, 2021

Last year, in commemoration of Juneteenth, the TAA Council released its Statement on Racism. Through this message, TAA reconfirmed its stance against racism and its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Since then, we have been busy at work figuring out how to put the principles behind the statement into practice. In honor of Black History Month and in support of our continued efforts to promote diversity and stand against racism, we want to share our efforts to date:

June 12, 2020 President made statement to membership at TAA Conference Webinar
June 19, 2020 TAA issues Statement on Racism
July 2, 2020 TAA executive committee begins working on the creation of our TAA Diversity Member Survey.
September 1, 2020 TAA Diversity Member Survey launched via email.
October 5, 2020 TAA announces the development of the Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (CDEI) to oversee our work on DEI. A call for volunteers to serve was made.
October 7, 2020 Survey closed, 223 members completed the survey. As of 12/13/2020 TAA had 2202 members, so this represents 10% of the membership. This survey collected more responses than any previous TAA survey.
October 17, 2020 Eight volunteer members were selected to serve on CDEI along with Laura Frost, TAA President, Kevin Patton, TAA V-P/President-Elect (invited by President), and Michael Spinella, TAA Exec. Director.
October 21, 2020 Each of the members invited to serve on DEI committee accepted the role.
November 23, 2020 The CDEI undertook an initial review of raw survey data and discussed priorities of the committee’s work moving forward.
December 17, 2020 The CDEI drafted a Strategic Plan outlining actions that can positively impact the DEI of TAA in particular and academic authoring in general.
January 8, 2021 The CDEI began identifying goals and objectives directly related to the Strategic Plan. The committee divided into 3 sub-committees to advance efforts in each of the main goals of the Strategic Plan.
February 1, 2021 The CDEI began discussing the Diversity survey analysis and progress reporting. 
February 22, 2021 CDEI finalized the progress report and reported on the work of each sub-committee.

 

The CDEI hopes to have all quantitative and qualitative data analyzed and available to the membership in the coming months. We will continue to be transparent in our efforts and will be releasing the full survey report and upcoming programs, resources and tools designed to support our diversity, equity and inclusion efforts moving forward. As authors, we want to strengthen our capacity to educate in a manner that promotes social equity, is culturally informed and that challenges racism, bias, and any other structure of oppression. We are excited for all that we can accomplish as we move forward in solidarity together.

We look forward to engaging the membership as we continue our efforts towards fostering an inclusive culture that encourages, supports, advocates, and celebrates the diverse voices of our membership and the communities we serve through our work.

As such, we are always looking for innovative opportunities for our members to make personal contributions to developing an inclusive culture. If you have ideas to propel this work forward, feel free to reach out to the Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (CDEI) at [email protected].

Laura Frost, Florida Gulf Coast University
TAA President and CDEI Chair

CDEI Committee Members
Steve Barkan, (ret.) University of Maine
Stacie DeFreitas, University of Houston - Downtown
Nicole Dillard, Northern Kentucky University
Morgan Grant, KPMG
Kevin Patton, St. Charles Community College
Sumor Sheppard, Prairie View A&M University
Brian R. Shmaefsky, Lone Star College - Kingwood
Dione Taylor, Point Loma Nazarene University
Pilar Wyman, Wyman Indexing
Michael Spinella, TAA Executive Director