Dear members of the ISEA diversity list-serve:

By way of an introduction, for those of you I did not meet in Rotterdam,
I am serving as the chair of the 1997 ISEA which is being hosted by the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where I am on the faculty.

I wanted to start out with a brief statement of what we in Chicago have
initially set out as our goals with regard to having a more diverse
conference next year in Chicago. We have already spent a great deal of
time discussing and working locally on this issue, and look forward to
broadening this discussion onto this list. I am sending this email also
to the RHIZOME RAW list, where I encourage everyone interested in this
issue to subscribe to the ISEA list also. I know that both Cynthia Beth
Rubin and Alain Mongeau have already sent you info on this.

For ISEA97 in Chicago, we have formulated a set of goals which we will
work to achieve to the best of our ability. These are:

1) To get all calls for participation, registration information, etc.
out to as internationally, racially, culturally, and economically
diverse a population as is possible within our means.

2) To make the honorary board, international program committee, and
local program and other committees as diverse as possible.

3) To work to increase community involvement on a local level with all
interested parties.

4) To work to provide resources to assist members of under-represented
groups or communities whose distance or economic situation makes it
difficult for them to attend.

We feel that the correct way is to work "from the top down" making sure
that everyone is invited to submit, and that the review and decision
process is as representative as possible. Our hope is that this will
lead to a conference which includes those issues of importance to
previously under or unrepresented groups at ISEA, and that this
increased diversity will appear at all levels of the conference.
Likewise, on a more local basis, we are striving to these same goals
within the Chicago and midwestern United States region, and currently
already have a number of initiatives underway which we should be able to
announce soon.

What we could use most from this list is help! Specifically, we need
your reccomendations and contacts in the following areas:

1) Suggestions for Keynote speakers you would like to hear from.

2) Suggestions for sources of mailing lists, web pages, organizations,
etc. from underrepresented areas (particularly, Africa, South and
Central America, Asia, and Eastern Europe) which we should contact to
distribute our calls, registration info, information.

3) Suggestions for members of our international program committee

4) Ideas for workshops and proposals for panels which you would like to
see.

5) Potential sources of funds for underwriting travel, conference fees,
translation assistance, etc. with the aim of increasing representation
and diversity.

Over the next several days, look for a number of us working here in
Chicago to introduce ourselves on this list. Please feel free to
contact any of us with ideas or information, or of course to bring it up
on the listserve as well. I look forward to working with you all to
make ISEA97 a success!