The Foreign Service Journal, March 2015

64 MARCH 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL AFSA NEWS AFSA Convenes Roundtable Discussion on Diversity As part of its efforts to partner with other groups to enhance diversity in the Foreign Service, AFSA and representatives from 21 federal employee organiza- tions and affinity groups from State and USAID met for a roundtable discussion on Jan. 15. Hosted by AFSA President Robert J. Silverman, State Vice President Matthew Asada and Executive Direc- tor Ian Houston, the meeting took place at AFSA head- quarters over lunch. Asada opened the meet- ing by reviewing AFSA’s ongoing initiatives to pro- mote diversity. He noted that the AFSA Governing Board’s 2013-2015 Strategic Plan includes an explicit diver- sity goal for the first time (see http://bit. ly/1nFz7tl), and that AFSA’s professional staff and Gov- erning Board is the most diverse ever. Participants discussed ideas for build- ing coalitions and AFSA professional and committee staff provided an overview of AFSA’s awards and scholarship programs. Asada described Man- agement Directive 715, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s demographic data reporting requirement for the federal government. Participants discussed how agencies could do a better job of mak- ing the data collected more meaningful. In this regard, several affinity group representa- tives raised concerns about the difficulty in getting good human resources data from the agencies. There was agreement that good data is much needed, along with the ability to “unpack” that data, i.e., more data granularity at the bureau and post level, to discern meaningful insights about trends and challenges. Attending the discus- sion were representatives from Arab-Americans in Foreign Affairs Agencies, the Asian-American Foreign Affairs Association, Blacks in Government, the Thursday Luncheon Group, Executive Women at State, the Hispanic Employees Council of Foreign Affairs Agencies (known as HECFAA), the South Asian American Employee Association, the Council for Career Entry Professionals, the Disability Action Group, Employees with Disabilities, Veterans at State, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, the Asian-Pacific Ameri- can Employee Committee, American Indians and Alaska Native Employees, Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies (known as GLI- FAA), the Jewish Employee Resource Group, the USAID Muslim Employees Resource Group, Presidential Manage- ment Fellows, Women@AID, and Young Professionals at USAID. For additional information on AFSA’s diversity initiatives, see AFSA News in the Sep- tember and November 2014 issues of the FSJ. n —Debra Blome, Associate Editor AFSA ATTENDS SOC I AL STUD I ES CONFERENCE AFSA’s Coordinator for Special Awards and Outreach Perri Green (right) and Publications Specialist Brittany DeLong attended the 2014 National Council for the Social Studies Conference in Boston Nov. 13-15. NCSS is the United States’ largest association devoted to social studies education. Green and DeLong were there to meet social studies educators and promote AFSA’s 2015 National High School Essay Contest and best-selling book, Inside a U.S. Embassy: Diplomacy at Work . AFSA was one of more than 150 exhibitors at the conference, which attracted more than 4,000 attendees, the largest turnout for NCSS since 2006. n