Thread by @earth2christine

The magnitude of the problem of systemic racism in #STEM can make one feel powerless to change it.

But, #AcademicChatter, we DO have power in our own spheres of influence. We can change how we teach in our classrooms, how we mentor & lead our research groups. And it counts. /🧵

I finally got a permalink for 🍎Growing Healthy Labs, a workshop I created in 2019 for ✨aspiring faculty on how to create inclusive environments in research groups that develop both excellent science and scientists.🌟

You can access the slides here 👉: bit.ly/GrowingHealthy…

I'm a postdoc and I've never run a lab: why is anything I say worth reading?

While at MIT for PhD, I served as a confidential grad student mediator thru @MIT_iREFS, after training in conflict management. This means I spoke w/ many students about their issues. After a few yrs...

... of listening & counseling, I came to the dissatisfying realization that I was merely treating a symptom of a much bigger problem — the problem being the lack of leadership & mentorship training in faculty.

I also noticed some sad patterns in just *who* came to see me. 🙁

At the same time, I had convos w/ profs about their own grad school experiences. Surprisingly, some of the profs who had poor mentors & vowed to do better themselves were unwittingly making *different* but still harmful easy-to-make mistakes.

These profs were good people, but...

... due to power imbalances, they simply didn't have the awareness to solve problems within their own labs, let alone the tools & know-how.

Faculty, you don't know what you don't know you don't know. (There's no typo in that sentence.) You cannot let your own lived experience...

... be your ONLY info source when you mentor trainees. Doing so leads to an affinity bias — an unconscious tendency to feel you work best with those most similar to you.

Without proactivity, it's not surprising that our field has a whiteness problem. nytimes.com/2019/12/23/sci…

If you are not proactive in applying best practices for mentoring people of all backgrounds, identities, etc, then *you are part of the problem* for why there has been no progress on diversity in 40 years in geosciences.

@rachelxbernard & @ehgcoop's nature.com/articles/s4156…

So, if you're feeling overwhelmed with the prospect of dismantling white supremacy in your STEM field, start close to home — in your own research group, with folks you currently mentor and teach.

Table of contents of workshop slides below. 👇

I hope this resource plants a few seeds in your soul, which you then cultivate, grow, and share with others! These are seeds of lifelong learning.🌱

Huge thanks to @RShivamoggi for her support & expertise; @emsaurios & @aaberhe for their encouragement >1 yr ago; and all ...

... the folks who came to a workshop & provided feedback to make the next one better.

If we all challenge the status quo & have the moral courage to reimagine science, the beautiful world we want could be ours.

@emsaurios said it best: Treat people as well as we treat our data!