Special Initiatives Highlights

Unique Engagement. Several administrators are able to participate in Brave Conversations & Brave Readers/Book Club who don’t otherwise participate in other committees.

Encouraged to Dialogue. In all of these spaces, participants were given space and encouragement to contribute their thoughts in dialogue and reflection on the material.

Modeling Excellence. As skilled facilitators and instructors, Marcos, Christy, and our other AMC Brave Ambassadors ensured that all the participants gained new perspectives around racism and anti-racism, and the lived impact as it relates to our careers and interactions at NYU.

As a new initiative, what was your programming like this year?
The AMC Brave Readers Club was a completely new endeavor that connected the energies of the AMC Book Club and AMC Brave Conversations: Black Lives Matter series. Each month, participants read an assigned chapter from Black Fatigue and discussed it as a group. Each session had returning readers from previous chapters and new readers mid-way through our book. 

As a new leader, what did you bring to the table in your role?
Christy: it was incredibly important to me to engage our participants. I believe my advantage was also being an adjunct faculty member and using those same tools to create a safe space for all despite our different lived experiences. My advice to anyone going into a leadership position is to outline your overall goal. The steps in between will naturally align and, oftentimes, the alignment is effortless.

How would you describe your progress this year?
Created structured discussions and learning spaces for administrators to explore, investigate, and advance anti-racism practices

Is there anything new/cool/surprising you learned this year that you’d like to share?
Any small idea can attract the greatest support and community required to be successful.

• Elicit improvement strategy suggestions from the Administrator community and pursue solutions with AMC Committees and University partners.
• Keep a pulse of, and identify/prioritize trends and salient matters for the attention of relevant parties across the AMC and NYU.
• Contribute to the annual Senate Financial Affairs Committee (SFAC) Letter by sharing data and information to craft our financial priority requests to University Leadership.
• Provide information and resources to Administrators to ensure our entire community is aware of existing programs and initiatives they can take advantage of to meet their needs.
  

What was your programming like this year? Anything new? Anything traditional?
The OpenAMC Working Group meets monthly to review new submissions as well as analyze trends to assess ideas that need to be addressed. Our attendance is consistently high, with members of the group taking on a variety of tasks and providing critical feedback.

As a new leader, what did you bring to the table in your role? What advice would you give someone going into a leadership position for the first time?
I have been involved in various ways with AMC and OpenAMC specifically since I became an Administrator at NYU in mid-2018. In 2020 I became part of the working group, and learned a great deal about how we approach this work and have relied a lot on my predecessors to help guide our work. I think it is really important to seek out those that came before you to understand the history of the work as you set out to continue it.

How has your committee/special initiative prepared for the future with respect to knowledge sharing/transference/succession planning?
The Working Group utilizes AMC’s shared Google workspace to store documents, take meeting notes, and document our activities throughout the year. In doing so we ensure that future leaders can look back on past activities and build upon them.

What do you want to focus on next year?
Continue to encourage participation in OpenAMC and increase engagement with the ideas and comments to ensure constituents feel heard and also receive updates and resources as applicable.

What three words would you use to describe your progress this year?
Encourage, Explore, Enhance