Plans for filling the Diversity Advisor role

[Matthew Miller]

Hi everyone! One of the open positions on the Fedora Council is the
Diversity Advisor, which we've defined like this:

  Fedora's Diversity Advisor works on initiatives to assess and promote
  equality and inclusion within the Fedora contributor and user
  communities, and helps develop project strategy on diversity issues.
  Additionally, the Diversity Advisor administers and is the point of
  contact for Fedora's participation in third-party outreach programs
  and events.

  This position is appointed by the Fedora Project Leader, with the
  approval of the Council.

The selection process is left undefined. My plan is to form a search
committee to help find the best person for the job.

In earlier discussion (online and at Flock), we've talked about the
various benefits of asking someone within the project vs. someone more
from the outside, with experience in open source and communities but
not necessarily deeply with Fedora. I think there clearly _are_
benefits and disadvantages either way, and I'm open to either one. I'd
like the search committee to include both perspectives (as well as of
course different backgrounds and expertise with minority groups). That
way, if we choose someone external, we can feel confident that people
with a longer history within the process back the choice (and, indeed,
were part of making it); and if we choose someone from within the
project, that we also have the benefit of outside perspective in doing
so.

I spoke with Jamie Williams, who works on diversity within Red Hat, and
she shared a simple application they used to help form an internal
diversity group; I've adapted that for this search committee.


  1) Why do you believe diversity and inclusion are important for
     Fedora, and why do you want to join the search team for Fedora's
     Diversity Advisor?

  2) What specific minority group(s) or issues can you offer insight
     about or speak on behalf of? What perspectives, experiences, or
     knowledge about diversity and inclusion could you share as a
     member of the search team?

  3) To give us further insight, feel free to provide names and contact
     information for up to 3 people who can speak to your passion,
     interest, or experience with diversity and inclusion.


My plan is to ask people to send these to me directly, and I will share
them confidentially with the current members of the Council, and we'll
form the committee from there. I'll publicize this within Fedora, and
also ask people with connections outside the project to help spread the
word and to directly invite people who they think would be good. Actual
details of how the search will work, we will leave up to the searchers.

Does this plan sound good to everyone? Anything you'd do differently?



(Note that the Diversity Advisor currently an unpaid, volunteer
position. I personally hope we can change that in the future.)

Also, it may end up that someone with interest in being on the search
team will also be the best candidate; I don't see that as a problem.
And, it may be that the committee will want to continue to exist after
the search, in an advisory role or as part of an action team. But I
also don't want to raise barriers by making that an initial obligation.

-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm at fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader