UC President Robert Dynes this week appointed a 19-member council to promote staff diversity throughout the UC system, and he selected two Davis representatives to be on the panel.

The Davis representatives to the Staff Diversity Council are Executive Vice Chancellor Dennis Shimek, who heads Human Resources, and Associate Executive Vice Chancellor Rahim Reed, who heads the Office of Campus Community Relations. Dynes chose Reed as one of the council's two co-vice chairs.

Shimek told Dateline: "I am very excited about the formation of this systemwide council. It will provide an opportunity for the entire system to address issues of diversity and formulate recommendations and new approaches that can become part of the overall planning within the institution.

"Diversity is a systemwide issue, and this new council will help focus on a collective approach."

Reed could not be immediately reached for a comment.

Dynes, in an e-mail to employees, said the council will advise senior UC leadership and will work alongside the UC Diversity Study Group.

The new council "will focus on a broad range of staff diversity issues, including the recruitment and retention of a diverse work force, leadership commitment to staff diversity at each location, and systems for threading diversity principles through the fabric of the employment experience at UC," Dynes said.

He named Associate President Linda Williams as council chair, and Reed and John White, associate director of capital planning at UC Merced, as vice chairs.

The council includes administrators from around the system. They include Bill Johansen, business manager at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, representing the Council of UC Staff Assemblies. He is the CUCSA chair.

The council will begin its work shortly, and will report to Dynes on an annual basis, the president said in his e-mail.

He listed seven tasks for the council:

• Develop specific objectives for achieving greater staff diversity.
• Monitor and evaluate progress on staff diversity efforts at each location.
• Assess the impact of SP-2 and Proposition 209 on staff diversity. SP-2 is a UC Board of Regents resolution, adopted in July 1995, that eliminates race and gender as considerations in UC hiring and contracting practices, except where such action would result in the university's loss of federal or state funds.

Proposition 209, approved by California voters in November 1996, prohibits consideration of race and gender in state employment, education and contracting programs — regardless of UC regents or administrative policies.

• Identify and document best practices that develop and promote staff diversity, share these resources widely throughout the system, and advise on the possible development and implementation of these practices across locations.
• Identify institutional barriers that hinder staff diversity, and recommend ways to eliminate those barriers.
• Facilitate dialogue among locations and between the university and external groups on staff diversity issues.
• Provide advice and resources to UC administrators on staff diversity initiatives at their locations.