[bioundgrd] #shutdownSTEM.MITBio on Wednesday, June 10th

[Alan D Grossman]

Dear All,

I am forwarding with the email below about the #ShutDownSTEM program for the Biology Department community that is scheduled for Wednesday June 10.  I want to reiterate from my email earlier today that I am fully supportive and endorse this program. It is the beginning of open and transparent conversations about racial bias, diversity, and inclusion throughout the department. I encourage everyone to participate.

PI’s, please forward this to all members of your lab and encourage them to participate.

Alan


Tl;dr: #shutdownSTEM programming within the Biology department on Wednesday, June 10th; clear your schedule and sign up on this<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfLGwTDZjlgS2edlqcjMtxVKPJTFBfzg2ccSvywc-xwZfoJkQ/viewform?usp=sf_link> Google form (by 5 pm EDT tomorrow, June 8th) to get more involved. There are discussions planned throughout the day (9 am - 7:30 pm EDT; see attached schedule) in the hopes that those who have essential work to take care of can still participate. If you are a member of the Black biology community and would use a space to connect with other Black members of the community, please fill outthis<https://forms.gle/mWXSTxFCZJFXYbtH8> form.

To the members of the Biology department community,

A group of Biology graduate students, postdocs, and staff recently became aware of a national movement to #shutdownSTEM<https://www.shutdownstem.com/> on Wednesday, June 10th. We have a responsibility as scientists to educate ourselves and initiate and continue difficult but necessary conversations on race and how systemic racism impacts ourselves and our field, particularly through the lens of recent events and how we can better support, amplify, and listen to our Black community members within the department and within our larger communities. These conversations are critical for us to engage in, and taking a day off research to delve into and discuss these issues is necessary for the health of the department and for movement towards a progressive and equitable community.

The #shutdownSTEM program for the Biology department is an event aimed at white and non-Black POC members of the department to inform ourselves about and discuss the history of racism and current ways racism upholds our status quo, with a focus on anti-Blackness in the spaces we inhabit. We encourage all members of the community to clear your schedule for the day and participate in any of the ways outlined on the website or by participating in our programming.

Additionally, to quote from the #shutdownSTEM website, “Black academic and Black STEM professionals are hurting because they exist in and are attacked by institutional and systemic racism. Black people have been tirelessly working for change, alongside their Indigenous and People of Color allies. For Black academics and STEM professionals, #ShutDownAcademia and #ShutDownSTEM is a time to prioritize their needs— whether that is to rest, reflect, or to act— without incurring additional cumulative disadvantage.” We publicly support this aspect of the #shutdownSTEM day.

If you are interested in attending any of the workshops on the tentative schedule attached, be sure to clear your schedule. In order to get as broad participation as possible, all sessions will be self-contained; that is, no pre-reading or watching will be required.

We are calling on members of the department (students, postdocs, staff and faculty) to step up and help facilitate one of the conversations. We specifically need white individuals leading these discussions because the burden of learning and informing should not fall on the POC individuals whose communities too often bear this burden. Facilitation will be done in groups and would involve curating a few resources for participants to watch / listen to / read in the beginning of the session and then generating a few discussion topics for the remainder of the discussion. We will provide a document to help with facilitation and will have more experienced facilitators on call should you need assistance during the day.

The goal of the day is learning, and you do not have to be an expert in any of these topics to facilitate -- in fact, we encourage you to facilitate a discussion you are interested in learning more about. We will try to match more experienced facilitators with less experienced facilitators when we can.

If you are interested in helping to facilitate a session, please fill out this form<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfLGwTDZjlgS2edlqcjMtxVKPJTFBfzg2ccSvywc-xwZfoJkQ/viewform?usp=sf_link> by Monday at 5 pm EDT. We will contact facilitators by Monday at 7 pm EDT so that there is ample time for resource compilation and will send a finalized schedule with Zoom links by Tuesday at 4 pm EDT.

We would also like to create a space for Black community members in the Biology department to check in with each other, if such a space is desired. If you are a member of the Black Biology community and would use such a space, fill out this<https://forms.gle/mWXSTxFCZJFXYbtH8> form by Monday at 5 pm EDT to indicate the best times and we will be in touch with you.

We want to emphasize that this will be a beginning (or for many, a continuation), and not the start and end, of discussions within the department. For example, it is absolutely imperative to have an open and transparent conversation as a department about how to improve recruitment and retention of Black and non-Black POC graduate students, staff, and faculty in the department, and we are actively working on that for the future.

We all must do our part to understand and dismantle the racism that is present in our communities and institutions, and indeed, that many of these communities and institutions have been built on. I hope you will join us for some or all of the events. Please reach out directly to me (tlevitz at mit.edu<mailto:tlevitz at mit.edu>) with any questions or concerns.

Best,

Talya Levitz, on behalf of the #ShutdownSTEM.MITbio team




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/bioundgrd/attachments/20200607/3efc8eb3/attachment-0001.html
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: ShutdownSTEM_biology_tentativeschedule.docx
Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
Size: 13384 bytes
Desc: ShutdownSTEM_biology_tentativeschedule.docx
Url : http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/bioundgrd/attachments/20200607/3efc8eb3/attachment-0001.bin
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/bioundgrd/attachments/20200607/3efc8eb3/attachment-0001.htm