Bulletin of the American Physical Society
52nd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics
Volume 66, Number 6
Monday–Friday, May 31–June 4 2021; Virtual; Time Zone: Central Daylight Time, USA
Session M01: Perspectives on and Strategies for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Physics and AMO CommunitiesDiversity Education Invited Live
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Chair: David Hall, Amherst |
Wednesday, June 2, 2021 2:00PM - 2:30PM Live |
M01.00001: Disentangling anti-blackness from Physics: perspectives from an AMO researcher Invited Speaker: Charles Brown Swift action is necessary to address the dearth of Black students, postdocs and faculty in the academic physics enterprise. Our discipline will be enriched and progress more quickly toward a richer understanding of the universe for having done so. Over the previous two decades in the U.S., the proportion of Black students receiving bachelor' degrees in physics has decreased from approximately 5% to approximately 3%. In the same period, the rate at which Black students were awarded PhDs remained constant at roughly 10 per year, a small fraction of the total number of awarded PhDs. After extensive research, the American Institute of Physics' TEAM-UP Taskforce has identified, in a comprehensive report, several factors which have led to the persistent underrepresentation of African American undergraduate students in physics. These factors remain relevant to Black students' trajectories beyond their undergraduate years. In this talk, I will describe (briefly) the severity of Black underrepresentation in physics, common hurdles faced by Black physicists, and actionable steps that physics departments should take to address this underrepresentation. |
Wednesday, June 2, 2021 2:30PM - 3:00PM Live |
M01.00002: Integrating equity: Developing actively inclusive physics classrooms Invited Speaker: Janice Hudgings Despite decades of effort to create a more welcoming environment, women and people of color remain dramatically underrepresented in physics and astronomy, and minoritized groups continue to report hostile climates. This unwelcoming environment manifests, for example, in the use of textbooks focused on the achievements of white men, widespread accounts of micro-aggressions, and the conflation of privilege with aptitude. What, then, can we do to make our physics classrooms more equitable and welcoming? In this presentation, I will outline an approach rooted in anti-racist, critical pedagogy, consisting of four main tenets. First, we must examine who is represented in our course materials and challenge assumptions of whose knowledge is valued and why. However, representational diversity in the curriculum is necessary but not sufficient; this work should be accompanied by a critical examination of the forces that shape contemporary physics. Equitable teaching requires a recognition that our field is fundamentally unequal; students and faculty must work together to understand the roles that biases and privilege play in our field, in our classrooms and labs, and in our own lived experiences. This critical reflection on the dynamics of our field should be accompanied by a shift in teaching practices, away from traditional individualistic, competitive, exam-driven physics teaching, towards the adoption of more collaborative teaching strategies centered on disrupting existing inequities. Finally, anti-racist pedagogy emphasizes praxis, or students and faculty putting theory into action; this extends beyond the classroom to impact our work in our departments, research labs, and communities. In this presentation, I will explore each of these four main tenets of critical pedagogy in detail, providing concrete examples of what this might look like in a physics classroom and strategies for integrating actively inclusive, equitable pedagogy into our courses. |
Wednesday, June 2, 2021 3:00PM - 3:30PM Live |
M01.00003: The Practicing Professionalism Framework: Redefining "Physicist" To Reflect Inclusivity Within The Physics Community Invited Speaker: Martha-Elizabeth Baylor Students sometimes perceive the physics community as an exclusive community that values innate intelligence, impressive research, and individuals who can assimilate into a white male-dominated culture. In fact, the physics community, broadly, values hard work, any research that advances our understanding of the physical world, and a spectrum of identities. By framing one course as an opportunity to practice multiple aspects of being a professional physicist, I provide an opportunity to change student perceptions of who is a physicist and what it means to be a physicist. This framework, called Practicing Professionalism, has two major aspects. First, the framework promotes rigor in developing traditional physics content knowledge and skill competencies through a growth mindset. Second, the framework allows for the natural inclusion of coursework that focuses on issues that professional physicists care about that do not typically fall into traditional physics courses such as diversity and inclusion. I will present the Practicing Professionalism Framework along with activities that I use to support this framework. I will present evidence demonstrating student's broadened and more inclusive definition of a physicist and the physics community. |
Wednesday, June 2, 2021 3:30PM - 4:00PM Live |
M01.00004: The APS Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity Alliance (APS-IDEA) Invited Speaker: Monica J Plisch The APS Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity Alliance (APS-IDEA) seeks to empower teams of physicists to transform the culture of physics within their respective organizations to improve Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI). In Summer 2020, a network of 99 teams involving nearly 1500 individuals was launched, involving departments at a wide range of colleges and universities (including over 10% of U.S. physics departments), government laboratories, and research collaborations. The most frequently cited reason for joining was to learn what others were doing to improve EDI. Most teams had goals to increase diversity among students, faculty and/or staff; and the most frequently anticipated barrier to change was cultural, i.e. getting support for change. The APS-IDEA Guiding Principles are designed to facilitate cultural change by challenging existing values and advocating adoption of a new philosophy; they include: (1) centering people whose identities are marginalized, (2) utilizing sensemaking[1] to foster individual and organizational learning, (3) implementing research-based methods for enacting change, and (4) sharing leadership[2] across differences in social power. To support learning and reflection, and facilitate exchange of information and experiences, teams engaged in virtual workshops, monthly Online Learning Community (OLC) meetings involving 4-5 teams each, individual team meetings, and asynchronous communication spaces. Participation in these events was high, with nearly all teams represented. Evaluation surveys confirmed that teams were engaged with the APS-IDEA Guiding Principles, and teams realized a number of outcomes after one year; feedback also highlighted the need for more scaffolding to support many teams with respect to emergent efforts. Going forward, the project will provide support teams to attain greater empowerment to drive change in their respective organizations, ultimately with a vision of driving change across physics as a discipline. [1] Sensemaking refers to the stories we tell ourselves and each other to make sense of and interpret our experiences. In APS-IDEA, sensemaking means that we work to understand the current culture of physics, ways in which it can be problematic, and each of our roles in reinforcing or changing this culture. [2] Shared leadership is a type of participatory democracy in which members of an organization or institution share power, obtain multiple perspectives, and provide internal accountability for outcomes affecting them. In APS-IDEA, that means that postdocs, students, faculty, and staff all hold leadership roles within the teams and participate fully in identifying and prioritizing issues to be addressed, designing and implementing solutions, and assessing outcomes. |
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