Diversity, equity, inclusion, & justice
We embrace CSU’s Land Acknowledgment (just below) and Principles of Community as points of departure. In the following, we set out our current thinking and engagement with issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) specific to our actions as a research group.
CSU Land Acknowledgement
The CSU Land Acknowledgment is a statement crafted by a variety of Indigenous faculty and staff, as well as other officials at CSU. The statement recognizes the long history of Native peoples and nations that lived and stewarded the land where the university now resides.
Lab actions
Informed largely by conversations with Dr. Rickey Frierson, WCNR Director of Diversity, and Chaudhary & Berhe’s “10 simple rules for building an anti-racist lab,” we commit effort to the following actions. Notably, we broaden our focus beyond supporting Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) to include women, LGBTQ+ identities, people of formerly colonized regions (particularly the Global South), and others marginalized and underrepresented in the conservation and natural resources fields, while understanding intersectionality with many of these identities as they relate to oppression.
(1) Do just and inclusive science. Engage in co-production of research alongside communities and stakeholders. Adhere to and question established principles of conduct and ethics. Cite underrepresented groups
(2) Devote recurring lab meetings to reading and discussion on racism and oppression within science and academia. Bring in a facilitator ~once per semester to advance and rethink the purpose of these discussions.
(3) Actively recruit and support lab members, particularly undergraduates, from underrepresented identities. Prioritize generating funding for these roles.
(4) Work to secure funding and institutional support for HDNR and WCNR grad student community-building.
(5) Be supportive, effective mentors. Include postdocs, grad students, and undergrads in mentor-mentee relationships. Share and continually revisit our lab compact to promote transparent expectations.
(6) Hold faculty and CSU administration accountable for individual and institutional action and inaction.
(7) Commit time to further educate ourselves on taking action through workshops and programs on campus.
(8) Extend anti-oppression work to the classroom. While our other actions focus directly on research, we are all committed to anti-racism and anti-oppression in the classroom. Whether as students or instructor, we commit to the following:
(a) Make DEIJ content core to our courses and curricula
(b) Diversify content and syllabi with underrepresented scholarship and identities
(c) Elevate underrepresented voices and perspectives within discussion
(d) Hold students and faculty accountable for bias, microaggressions, and implicit or explicit harmful action
(e) Be resources and advocates for students seeking help or belonging through connections to support networks on CSU campus and beyond
(9) Assess lab actions at the end of each semester; rethink, and map efforts for the coming semester.