Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2023
Volume 68, Number 3
Las Vegas, Nevada (March 5-10)
Virtual (March 20-22); Time Zone: Pacific Time
Session W28: Effective Strategies for Strengthening Physics Through Equity and InclusionDiversity Education Invited Undergrad Friendly
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Sponsoring Units: FPS FDI Chair: Philip Hammer, University of Chicago Room: Room 220 |
Thursday, March 9, 2023 3:00PM - 3:36PM |
W28.00001: The importance of career development resources for Black, Native/Indigenous, Women+ of Color in STEM Invited Speaker: LaNell Williams The Women+ of Color Project (W+OCP) was born out of the need to see more Black, Native/Indigenous, Latina/x women+ in academia -- especially in STEM fields like math, physics, materials science, planetary science, and others. We hope that this effort will begin to change the graduate applicant pool across the United States, thus changing the graduate student population, increasing the number of W+OC PhD's, and ultimately increasing the number of W+OC who pursue academic careers, changing the face of academia across the world. |
Thursday, March 9, 2023 3:36PM - 4:12PM |
W28.00002: OXIDE and Discipline-Based Diversity Research Invited Speaker: Rigoberto Hernandez The Open Chemistry Collaborative in Diversity Equity (OXIDE) is aimed at institutional reform so as to lower inequitable barriers hindering the success of faculty from diverse groups. We implement the "top-down" hypothesis by asserting that academic middle managers---namely, department heads and chairs---held accountable for diversity and inclusion will make sustained and significant improvements in the representation and climate of their deportments. The collaborative itself is a partnership with the department heads of research-active chemistry departments, social scientists and other key stakeholders. The lowering of these barriers increases the likelihood that individuals already in the tenure pipeline will have equitable chances of success and thereby leads to changes in faculty demographics closer to those of the broader U.S. population. The creation of a more equitable climate is also expected to encourage more disadvantaged students to enter academic careers in the chemical sciences. We will report on OXIDE's approaches to increase awareness of effective policies and practices that decrease inequitable barriers and improve the diversity climate in research- active chemistry departments. We will discuss how these findings can inform the intentional management of inclusive excellence, and why the lens of discipline-based diversity research has been useful in chemistry, how it it has been adopted in chemical engineering, and how it could advance physics. |
Thursday, March 9, 2023 4:12PM - 4:48PM |
W28.00003: Systemic racial disparities in funding rates at the National Science Foundation, Implications to Science Equity, and Possible Countermeasures Invited Speaker: Vernon Morris Calls to eradicate systemic racism in U.S. institutions have both amplified and received greater attention over the past few decades. The scientific community – inclusive of academic institutions and federal science mission agencies – have been challenged to self-reflect on systemic racism in their policies, procedures, and practices. We investigate publicly available National Science Foundation data on funding rates, award types, and proposal ratings from 1996 to 2019 and find pervasive racial disparities. White principal investigators (PIs) are consistently funded at higher rates than most non-white PIs. Funding rates for white PIs have also been increasing relative to annual overall rates with time. Disparities occur across all disciplinary directorates and are greater for research proposals. The distributions of average external review scores also exhibit systematic offsets based on PI race. Similar patterns have been described in other research funding bodies, suggesting that racial disparities are widespread. The prevalence and persistence of these racial funding disparities have cascading impacts that perpetuate a cumulative advantage to white PIs across all of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In this presentation, we highlight and discuss the data on funding outcomes NSF-wide and within the NSF Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences. We will also highlight programs and countermeasures to the systemic factors that have resulted in driving the cultural change necessary to advance towards the aspirational goals of equity and justice. Removing the hyperfocus on and the conflation of metrics (e.g. diversity) with aspirational goals (e.g. justice) and outcomes (e.g. equity, sense of belonging) is a necessary first step. |
Thursday, March 9, 2023 4:48PM - 5:24PM |
W28.00004: The TEAM_UP TOGETHER Project: Supporting African-American Students' Successful Completion of Bachelor's Degrees in Physics and Astronomy. Invited Speaker: Mary B James I first discuss the findings of the American Institute of Physics’ TEAM_UP Task Force that examined causes and remedies for the underrepresentation of African American (AA) students earning bachelor’s degrees in physics and astronomy. The task force found that AA students are completing bachelor’s degrees at higher rates in other quant-heavy STEM fields; their underrepresentation in physics/astronomy is due to aspects of physics/astronomy culture and climate over which departments and the wider physics /astronomy community have much agency. The task force identified four factors critical to AA student persistence to the bachelor's degree: 1) developing a strong sense of belonging to the physics/astronomy community, 2) developing a sense of themselves as emerging scientists, 3) effective teaching and academic support, 4) personal support, especially in addressing financial stressors. A fifth factor is committed leadership and the creation of long-lasting structural and policy changes that maximize AA student success. In 2020 the task force recommended that departments, colleges and universities, professional societies, and the broader physics/astronomy community commit to a series of reforms whose goal is to double the number of AA students earning physics/astronomy bachelors' degrees annually by the year 2030. |
Thursday, March 9, 2023 5:24PM - 6:00PM |
W28.00005: Addressing EDI issues in the Classroom Invited Speaker: Jesus Pando Physics educators are hesitant to engage with their classrooms when EDI issues arise. For many this is due to a lack of facilitation skills, fear of burdening minoritized students, fear of retribution, and/or a perception that these issues simply have no place in the physics classroom. Funded by an APS Innovation grant, the APS Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Fellows Program has trained a cohort of physicists to present interactive workshops that address the lack of a physicist’s expertise and comfort level in holding the critical conversations needed to address EDI issues that arise in the classroom. The fellows are paired with social scientists whose expertise is in holding critical conversations. The pairing of an expert in the physics classroom with an expert in holding difficult conversations, presents participants a unique opportunity to gain some of the skills needed to cope with incidents in real time. This talk will discuss the major components of the workshop, discuss the major issues that we have faced in putting together the workshops, and discuss some preliminary results of the pilot workshops we have offered. |
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