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diversity/equity/inclusionADVERTISING FEATURE: Produced by the Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Officeagree there is an issue,” says Jessica Harris, she/her, a physicist
and DEI consultant who helps organizations address cultural
change through her business, Jessica A. Harris, LLC. “If the team
doesn’t recognize a problem, they won’t be able to address it.”
“When building a lab, you’re thinking about the equipment and
supporting infrastructure to allow the people you recruit to push
the science forward,” says Quintero-Carmona. “But a diff erent kind
of infrastructure has to exist that supports lab members’ success
and growth. Sustained investment in your people is as important
as having working equipment.” Gorman sees it as a leadership
exercise. “It’s about the leader recognizing their responsibility
to give everybody equal opportunity, to [help] every one of your
team members to achieve their career aspirations no matter who
they are,” they say. “If you take
that approach as a leader you
will begin to see the barriers”
that individuals face that can
translate into bottlenecks for the
team and project.
“It starts with educating
yourself always,” adds Outing.
“Discuss with students how
diversity can enhance an
education, how examining the
value of diversity of ideas and
hypotheses and strategies is
important to the world.” He also
suggests that faculty examine
their implicit biases through assessments such as the Harvard
Implicit Association Tests. “Take a reality check of where are you,”
says Adams, “identifying your own shortcomings, biases, myths,
and realities.” She describes her own experience when she needed
some tables moved and announced that she needed some “guys”
to help her. “A student called me on it, and it caused me to look
at pronouns and diff erences on the spectrum. Until I can own [my
mistakes] I can’t begin to change.”
You can often access training programs and resources within
your institutions and professional societies. Biologist and diversity
consultant Lorenza D’Alessandro (she/her) encourages faculty
to take training in “intercultural communications and awareness
on biases, their eff ects at work and consequences also in regards
to harassment and discrimination,” she notes. “By being better
informed, [faculty] could install a cultural change in their groups
by encouraging open and respectful communication with a deeper
understanding of diversity.”
The training can assist a professor in exploring exactly what they
don’t know and becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable
questions and conversations. “One of the first steps is to be
serious about understanding the institutional and structural
barriers that have excluded and continue to exclude people from
marginalized communities,” says Lyndele von Schill (she/her),
director of diversity and inclusion at the National Radio Astronomy
Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia. “If we don’t explore that,
we will run into barriers that exist for other people because we
don’t see them.”can improve how your lab’s science is viewed. “By not creating
more inclusive lab spaces, you risk becoming illegitimate in the
eyes of those who will be seeking these opportunities in the
future,” says Donald A. Outing (he/him), a mathematician and
vice president for equity and community at Lehigh University in
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and the former inaugural chief diversity
off icer at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York.
But there is another reason to enact a DEI strategy for your
group: “Because it’s the right thing,” says Omar A. Quintero-
Carmona (he/him), associate professor of biology at the University
of Richmond in Virginia. “Hiring practices that work to broaden the
applicant pool, giving consideration to as many people as possible,
increases your ability to identify talent that you might have missed
otherwise. Equally important is
developing mentoring strategies
to aid talent to transitioning into
a new environment in a way
that supports their success.”
Asia Eaton (she/her), associate
professor of psychology at
Florida International University
in Miami, who studies how
gender interacts with other
identifiers such as race to
aff ect experiences and access
to power, agrees: “For anyone
who has their own lab in the
privileged position to mentor
grad students, it is their personal responsibility to change the face
of science,” she argues.When best intentions fall short: Challenges
While many faculty have excellent intentions, they face
challenges in orchestrating a sustainable DEI strategy. The first
area for improvement is related to a cornerstone of DEI: putting
yourself in others’ shoes and looking for the barriers, gaps, and
roadblocks that are negatively impacting their success. “It takes
a real sense of self-awareness to see where your blind spots are
located and that you are not setting everyone up for success,” says
Walker.
Part of that trepidation is tethered to how academia views DEI.
While more and more universities publicly tweet that DEI is vital,
there are not as many accountability, measurement, and reward
systems in place for DEI practices. “DEI is still not part of the day-
to-day reality of professors,” says Agrawal. “The pressure on them
is to produce papers and get research grants or to teach. There is
no room or space or time or resources [for DEI] and there are very
few people doing it.” Without policies and procedures in place to
check and assess DEI initiatives, they falter, and professors lose
out on a means to fortify their own research agenda and team.Educating yourself: Strategies
Even if you don’t have a doctorate in diversity, fortunately, there
are a number of mechanisms and resources to school yourself on
how to spearhead a strategy that fosters DEI in your team. “First, cont.> PHOTOS: STEPHANIE ADAMS COURTESY OF UT DALLAS; BREE GORMAN BY 5-12 IMAGINGStephanie G. Adams (left), Bree Gorman (right)1105Recruitment_SC.indd 774 11/2/21 8:59 AM