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Lab committment to diversity, equity, and inclusion
The Evans Lab is committed to fostering a diverse and positive lab climate. To this end, we aim to 1) provide a safe, equitable, and inclusive environment through deliberate actions, 2) to celebrate our differences and use them better our science and 3) respect individual needs, styles, and career goals and mentor accordingly 4) find areas to go above and beyond status quo to broaden representation in STEM, correcting historical opportunity imbalances and improving science.
From this committment, we generate accountable ACTIONS, which we will update annually:
Evans Lab documents, for the academic community:
Resources from MSU:
Broader reading on DEI:
Recent Evans Lab DEI Activities
Note these efforts are done by both myself and by my awesome lab members!
The Evans Lab is committed to fostering a diverse and positive lab climate. To this end, we aim to 1) provide a safe, equitable, and inclusive environment through deliberate actions, 2) to celebrate our differences and use them better our science and 3) respect individual needs, styles, and career goals and mentor accordingly 4) find areas to go above and beyond status quo to broaden representation in STEM, correcting historical opportunity imbalances and improving science.
From this committment, we generate accountable ACTIONS, which we will update annually:
Evans Lab documents, for the academic community:
- Tips on writing an email to potential advisors this document. A lot of graduate programs require you to have an advisor to be admitted, which makes initial contact to a potential PI very important, but this is not always taught. We need to keep unveiling #hiddencurriculum
- Reach broader audiences during STEM recruitment. If you are searching for a grad/postdoc/undergrad/tech, do more than posting on a few listserves, targeting only a certain audience.
- See Evans Lab Policies on Expectations and Authorship. Transparency and communication of clear expectations is a great way to create a safe, inclusive culture where many can thrive.
Resources from MSU:
- Policies on Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct
- College of Natural Sciences Council on Diversity and Community
- MSU NatSci Diversity Website
- MSU Misconduct Hotline (for reporting ethical transgressions/microagressions not comfortable discussing with supervisors)
Broader reading on DEI:
- The LTER Network website has an excellent list of resources and reading on diversity and inclusion, organized by topic. I have submitted all readings I think are great to this list!
- What you can do to be an ally (a good thing to keep returning to)
- Characteristics of a white supremacy culture - check your lab to see where this shows up (it does), and discuss what this means, and what you can do about it.
- Recommendations for writing a Diversity Statement (one of the few explicit tips I've seen for writing these)
Recent Evans Lab DEI Activities
Note these efforts are done by both myself and by my awesome lab members!
- December 2020: Evans Lab members participate in Zoom Bystander Training
- November 2020: Sarah participates in a professional development podcast on Mentoring. See the recording here.
- August 2020: The Evans Lab drafts its first Corrective Action Plan after 2 lab meetings of discussion and much drafting and reading.
- August 2020: Sarah enrolls in MSU Dialogues Course through MSU (Robert a long-time participant)
- July 2020: Evans Lab members organize Anti-Racist accountability group
- June 2020- : Sarah serves on the KBS LTER DEI sub-committee and Academic Programs task force.
- February 2020: Sarah co-organizes a faculty mentor workshop, to help faculty learn how to effectively mentor graduate students and postdocs
- May 2020: Sarah was awarded an Outstanding Mentor Award from the Graduate School for her excellent mentoring and work on DEI initiatives.
- June 2020: 6 members of the Evans Lab attended a Black Lives Matter protest in Kalamazoo. We also began several reading groups and lab meeting discussions on how we can take anti-racist action.
- August 2019: Holly becomes chair of the Culture and Inclusion Committee - CiC (Sarah remains a member for her last year)
- April 2019: Robert presents a brown bag seminar on research seminar question participation: Look who's talking now! Two years of observational data reveal striking gender and power disparities in who asks questions at KBS seminars
- Jan. 2019: Sarah serves as a representative at MSU College of Natural Sciences all-day Cultural Competency Training workshop
- Jan. 2019: Robert took it upon himself to log stats from Q&A sessions at a conference and published the results.
- Dec. 2018: Sarah launches a “reaching broader audiences” guide for recruiting more diverse postdocs, grads, and undergraduates. The guide will continue to be updated as we gather more resources.
- Nov 2018: The KBS Climate Survey is launched! Corinn Rutkoski played a large part in developing this survey (in addition to the CiC committee)
- Nov 2018: Evans lab helps plan and participates in the first inclusive science series at KBS. This includes visits from Deborah Goldberg, Checo Colón-Gaud, and James Nieh, and a workshop “Supporting People of Color in Ecology and Evolution”.
- July 2018: Robert and others are awarded a grant (“Advancing inclusion in science through cultural competency training and collaborative workshops with national STEM diversity leaders”) from the Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives at Michigan State.
- May 2018: the Evans Lab all help plan, and all participate in a half-day of Facilitated discussion on KBS Climate
- Jan 2018: Sarah and Robert are among the first members of the KBS’s Culture and Inclusion Committee (CiC).