The Interdepartmental Graduate Programs in Life Sciences (IDGPs) believe that a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment is critical to all that we do.  We recognize that systemic racism exists in our society and we pledge to educate ourselves so that we can change our ingrained habits and beliefs. We are committed to make our programs accessible to all and to increase the success of all our members. We dedicate our time, effort and financial resources to these activities. We work with Institutional leaders, faculty, staff and students to achieve these goals. We are providing this pdf link so that you are able to view a working document of our activities. 

We are proud of our amazing students and post docs who have worked tirelessly for the betterment of our community. Our students have fostered a tight-knit, progressive community and their recent efforts have resulted in this petition for systematic change.  We stand with them in recognizing that change is required in order to make progress toward a more equitable, just, diverse and inclusive environment. 

The University has established an Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and their website provides links to many resources. We encourage you to make use of these tools, including links to videos, books and podcasts as well as programing, as we embark together on our journey to improve our community for all our members.  

Overall goals for the PB DEIJ committee 

The Plant Biology Graduate Program is committed to build an environment where all students, postdocs, and faculty can thrive, regardless of their race, sexuality, gender identity, or nationality. Most recently, institutional racism has been highlighted as an enduring problem in the US. Plant Biology is committed to working to dismantle this racism, and to working for systematic change. While we recognize that members of our community face injustice for many reasons, such as for sexuality or ability, we are for now focusing on racism. To this end, the diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice committee (DEIJ) will work with Plant Biology leadership to institute the following in our program, starting immediately:

1.To make PB an environment where minoritized (especially Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, and Latine) students, postdocs, and faculty can thrive.

2.To help all Plant Biology community members learn about institutional racism and how to combat it

3.To recruit a diverse pool of students to our program

PB DEIJ Committee Action Items, year-by-year

DEIJ in the PB community. How are we doing (anonymous questionnaire)? 

As an IDGP member, there are many places where you can go for help if you are facing workplace harrassment or discrimination - including your PI’s department, the College of Natural Sciences, or any of the campus-wide offices listed below. Please feel free to reach out to any of the PB DEIJ committee members if you’d like help navigating a particular issue, or navigating these resources.  Some people and offices you might want to reach out to:

• Talk to one of our DEIJ committee members, or your PB Faculty Buddy
• The Ombuds office can be a good place to start http://www.umass.edu/ombuds/
• Talk to the GEO grievance coordinator - email geo@umass.edu
• CNS DEI https://www.cns.umass.edu/diversity-equity-inclusion 
• UMass Office of Equity and Inclusion Resources https://www.umass.edu/diversity/resources
• The Stonewall Center: https://www.umass.edu/stonewall/
• Center for Counseling and Psychological Health: https://www.umass.edu/counseling/
• Center for Women and Community: https://www.umass.edu/cwc/
• Title IX: https://www.umass.edu/titleix/title-ix-campus-resources
• Additional campus resources: https://www.umass.edu/titleix/resources/additional-campus-resources

Other Useful Resources

• UMass NSB blog : https://blogs.umass.edu/diversitynsb/
• UMass DEI: https://www.umass.edu/diversity/home
• Extensive resource document produced by PB Grad student Kelly Allen 
• SACNAS chapter links: https://www.sacnas.org/
• MANRRS links: https://www.manrrs.org/
• BlackBotanistsWeek - https://blackbotanistsweek.weebly.com/ 
• The mind hears: https://themindhears.org/
• Resources for learning about systematic racism: https://www.umass.edu/diversity/antiracism-resources 
• https://blog.aspb.org/presidents-letter-collections/
•  

Demographics of the PB Community

Shown below are the results of an anonymous poll our committee sent out in Fall 2021, where we asked our community to self-identify. Our goal as a committee is for the demographics of our PB community to mirror the demographics in the US, a goal that is not being met in STEMM more broadly (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 (from Goszytla et al, 2021): Racial/ethnic demographics of STEM faculty.
 

To understand the current diversity within our program, we sent out an anonymous poll to the PB graduate students, post-docs and faculty and asked them to self-identify from the four aspects: race, gender, sex orientation and disability. The result reflects that PB is a diverse group, but also reminds us that we have work to do, and it’s our responsibility to create an environment where all PBers can thrive.

Survey Results