Q&A with SWADAAC

In honor of Women’s History Month in March, the UC Davis Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion has selected the Status of Women at Davis Administrative Advisory Committee (SWADAAC) as the March DEI Champion of the month. SWADAAC is one a DEI administrative advisory committee (AAC) that is focused on examining issues regarding the status of women at UC Davis and UC Davis Health.

We had a chance to chat with current SWADAAC chair, Nobuko Koyama, to ask her a few questions about this group and learn more about its upcoming plans. 

Q: Thanks so much for chatting with us today. We know SWADAAC has many important aspects to its mission in supporting women at UC Davis and UC Davis Health. So, we were wondering, what are SWADAAC’s goals for this academic year? 

A: There are many things we are working on, but our biggest goals this year are (1) to have our virtual Summit on April 11, (see sidebar for more information); (2) after years of remote work and teaching due to the pandemic, we wanted to get back on our feet as an active group, to make our presence known to people through multiple DEI events, and to get connected with more people who share the same interests and goals; (3) to begin tackling and addressing issues we are focused on one by one; and (4) to get connected with sister ERG (employee resource group) and AAC groups in DEI for collaborative work.

Q: We’d love to know a little bit more about this virtual summit, which is just around the corner. Can you tell us a bit more about why this year’s theme is “Inclusivity and Visibility Support and Mentoring?” 

A: Of course. After years of isolation (due to the Covid 19), which heavily impacted our engagement and work environment, we felt the need to redefine these sub-themes so that we will learn and address what more needs to be done to support women and individuals with disabilities in this post-pandemic era. As mentioned above, we wish to work on our charges one by one in a tangible (as well as intangible) way. Our Summit is going to be both a tangible and intangible way to propel our charges. 

Q: Sounds like a great event! Is there anything else about SWADAAC’s recent activities or accomplishments that you want people to know about? 

A: We always support fellow women's initiatives, so recently we had a chance to get connected with Womxn in Tech (WIT) group to learn each other's charges and to explore how we could support each other. Womxn in Tech group is a very active group to support the empowerment of women pursuing and expanding their careers in IT at UC Davis, but we were unaware of their presence on campus until recently. So, during this recent connection with Womxn in Tech, we had the chance to learn about their growth and member engagement, and we shared with them some challenges and responsibilities to serve a larger community as AAC's. And as a result, WIT will be officially joining us as a subcommittee of SWADAAC. We are so excited about our collaboration.