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Update: Big Ten & Friends Annual Meeting (July 22)

Posted by Avery Maris Maloto on July 6, 2021

The Annual Meeting for Big Ten & Friends (BTAF) will be held on July 22, 2021. Inviting all members, this meeting will discuss the following, as outlined in a message from Lydia Vandenbergh, the Associate Director of Employee Engagement and Education at Penn State University (See the attached file to view the agenda:)

Greetings Big 10 and Friends Members,  

I hope you all have been able to take some time off after such a chaotic and challenging year. It is times such as these that we need to come together and support each other, sharing best practices and brainstorming solutions to barriers. Thanks to all who completed the pre-meeting survey in June to help us plan our July 22nd annual meeting, from 9am to noon EST, that will pursue those two goals, concentrating on several topics that the respondents highlighted:  

  • Staff training (GOCP)  
  • DEIJ connections with sustainability 
  • Student co-curricular engagement 
  • Engaging communities 
  • Connecting health with sustainability 
  • Sustainability curriculum pedagogy 

Please register for the Annual Meeting by July 21st. We recognize there may be some who cannot attend, and we encourage you to designate an alternative representative if possible. We will record the session and send out the recording and abbreviated notes to all on this list.   

One of our first items for discussion will be BTAF leadership, specifically whether we should have term limits for co-chairs, to encourage rotating the responsibilities among the BTAF universities. Lydia will be stepping down next summer as co-chair and Amy is willing to step down this August to enable the staggered transition of co-chairs. Please consider volunteering for this role. It does not require a significant amount of time and involves acting as coordinators for our network, specifically:  

  • Scheduling periodic meetings 
  • Creating agendas, invitations, etc.  
  • Facilitating affinity groups: launching, defining scope, finding co-chairs, advertise to the group 
  • Coordinating body with AASHE 
  • AASHE webinar planning assistance, if needed 
  • Maintain Share-Drive on Google – meeting minutes, contacts, files.  

We will keep the nomination form open until July 21st and hope that someone will join the fun of supporting the Big Ten and Friends group.  Also, if anyone has any changes for the BTAF membership list, you can find it on our Google Drive.  

We have scheduled the meeting for three hours and based on your responses, are changing the format this year to emphasize brainstorming sessions on the above topics, rather than updates from each campus. All participants will be able to self-select one of three brainstorming sessions in two rounds and we hope that each group can select a note taker who will report-out for the group.  The full agenda is attached.
 

At the end, we will have time to explore other topics that members highlight.  

 

Looking forward to connecting with you all and learning from your experiences. 

Lydia and Amy