Dual State Civil Rights Committee
Massachusetts & Rhode Island
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Teleconference
Present: Roylene Rides at the Door, State
Conservationist (RI); Louise Legouis, Chair (MA); Karen Regish, Federal Women
Program Manager (MA); Michelle Moore, Disability Emphasis Program Manager (RI);
Mark Zinan, Advisor (MA); Bill Taylor, Black Emphasis Program Manager, (MA);
Peter Bonome, Hispanic Emphasis Program Manager (RI); Reena Shaw, member (RI).
Meeting started at 9:40 AM The June 6th CRC Meeting Minutes
were approved by email and posted to the MA/RI Civil Rights web site.
1. SEPM Reports:
Bill indicated the BEPM accomplishment reports are due by October 15th.
His report will list Diversity Day 2007. The NOPBNRCSE Annual conference will
be held from Dec. 10-14th in New Orleans. Bill will submit a request
to attend the conference.
Karen indicated the FWPM progress reports are now
quarterly. Her report will also mention Diversity Day. She has been sending no
more than one or two emails per month to all employees in order to avoid
overload.
Peter attended the annual NOPHNRCSE conference in
July. The MA and RI state averages match the agency average, however the
agency’s average is below parity. Peter spoke to about 30 students interested
in doing internships at NRCS in the summer of 2008. He mentioned in particular a
Hispanic female from MD majoring in wildlife and a Hispanic male from PR
majoring in engineering.
Michelle stated she thought Diversity Day went
well. The Disability poster contest deadline has passed and the finalist will
be selected soon. The APDA has an annual training scheduled for December but
Michelle may not attend. She is currently limiting her outgoing emails to all
employees to one a month to avoid overload.
Roylene attended the annual AIANEA conference in
Corpus Christi. She found the information presented valuable and forwarded
copies of the ethics training power point presentations to the CRC members.
2. Review of old business:
a. Proposed MA/RI CR award
criteria: Reena worked last year on a draft for Diversity award
criteria. She will email this to the CRC. Some discussions followed on how the
state awards would be linked to the national awards and whether to have
single-state or joint MA/RI awards. The majority indicated a preference for
single-state awards and for the involvement of the CRC in the nomination of
state award recipients for national awards. Peter nominated Reena for an award
for all her work mentoring Jessie Dyer, a Hispanic intern in the RI office. No
nominees were proposed for the national awards. Louise forwarded information
sent by Mark with criteria for the national award.
b.
FY08-FY09 CRC Business Plan:
The outcome of the discussions on the Business Plan is in the draft plan for
FY08-FY09. The goals are the same as for FY06-07 while some of the action items
are modified for goals 3 and 4. Louise will send the draft out to the CRC for
review and approval. Roylene indicated that CR goals had been incorporated in
the RI Business Plan sent off last Friday. She later forwarded a copy of the
plan to the CRC members. In connection with Goal 2, Mark verified that there
was no mandatory AgLearn training on CR this year. It was agreed that the next
Diversity Training Day would not be held until 2010 (3 year frequency). Mark
suggested that all CRC members review GM230 Part 405.18 pertaining to training
requirements.
c. List of SEPM Contacts:
Louise proposed that a list of current SEPM contacts be developed and kept up
to date to avoid doubling up on contacts, excluding important associations or
organizations, or loosing the information. SEPMs have forward contact
information to Louise who will circulate the current list to the CRC.
d. Diversity Day 2007:
The summary of all evaluations was sent by email to the CRC. A
few additional evaluations have been submitted since then so an updated summary
will be circulated within the next couple of weeks. As of September 19th,
a total of 31 evaluations were received with the following ratings for “overall,
the meeting met my expectations”: excellent:16.1%, good: 61.3%, average: 6.5%,
fair: 3.2%, poor: 0%.
3. New business:
a. FY08
FEORP Report: Mark indicated he received very little
feedback on the report and confirmed the report had been finalized. There are
many actions items and it’s not clear how feasible it will be to implement them
all.
b. Nominations for National
NRCS CR awards and the Chief’s Work Diversity The topic was
discussed along with the state CR awards (see old business item a. above).
c. National CR Review for RI:
Roylene would like the CRC to note that the National CR review
of RI is schedule for March 24-28, 2008. CRC members may need
to be available for the review at that time.
d. State CRC Chair Training at
National CRC: Roylene asked if Louise would be participating in
this training. Louise had not yet received information on this. Roylene
indicated she planned on attending the Inter Tribal Ag Council meeting held at
the same time and place. Contingent on approval for her participation in the
Council meeting, she volunteered to give the presentation for the MA/RI CRC if
funding was not available for Louise to attend. Louise would prepare the
presentation. Mark suggested Louise contact Chris to discuss this training as
well as the training for Bill in December.
e. A new success story from
RI: Jessie Dyer, a Hispanic SCIP intern in RI, attended the
annual NOPHNRCSE conference in July. She had been awarded a scholarship to
attend the event and was expecting to receive a $1,000 college scholarship. At
the conference it was announced that her scholarship had been doubled and she
received $2,000! Roylene also mentioned that she had been recruited by the State
Conservationist of Hawaii for additional training.
Next meeting date – Teleconference Wednesday December 5,
2007 (details to call in to the conference will be sent later on).
Meeting adjourned at 11:15 AM.
Louise LeGouis
Recorder
/Approver/
LOUISE LEGOUIS
Chairperson Page Content
Last Modified:
01/08/2008
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