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Unit Contributions to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

Thu, 10/04/2018 - 14:49 — chou
Academic Years: 
2018-2019
Department: 
Human Physiology
Division: 
Natural Sciences
Academics
1. Faculty: 

The department has made substantial efforts to increase the visibility of job announcements, particularly to individuals who identify with a group that is typically underrepresented in the sciences. We have successfully recruited more women in both tenure-track and non-tenure-track positions in the past few years. These efforts have improved our representation of women to 40% of our full-time faculty.
All members of search committees complete the Implicit Biased training offered by the university. We have also developed a checklist for our hiring procedures to be used by all search committee chairs. This checklist helps to ensure we are using best practices for equity and inclusion when reviewing applicants, and ensures these efforts are documented. We received funding from CAS during 2017/18 to further improve our equity and inclusion practices around hiring and retention. With this funding, we worked with a consultant to assess the current climate of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the department, held a workshop to develop a plan to improve issues, and are in the process of developing a metric by which to assess improvements over time.
We have included an equity and inclusion speaker as part of our ongoing seminar series within our department, to provide professional development opportunities for our faculty. All faculty are encouraged to seek out and attend additional professional development opportunities in this area. We are working with our Equity, Inclusion and Diversity committee to develop an effective method of communicating these opportunities in a timely manner.

2. Staff: 

In hiring of staff, we follow Human Resources' protocol and advice during interview selections. We continue to utilize the Human Physiology checklist for procedures during staff hires. This checklist helps to ensure we are using best practices for equity and inclusion when reviewing applicants, and ensures that these efforts are documented.
Staff members assist research faculty to help insure equity and fairness in compensation and promotion decisions for their lab staff. If a perceived disparity occurs, the administrator reports the details to Human Resources and advocates for a remedy. Staff regularly attend trainings and meetings to stay abreast of current and pertinent equity, inclusion and diversity policies, and they disseminate these changes to departmental stakeholders. A staff member attended the ACAA workshop on intercultural communication which focused on helping undergraduate students who are experiencing difficulties working with international graduate employee instructors and the UO’s Implicit Bias workshop.
All staff are encouraged to attend professional development opportunities involving equity, inclusion and diversity efforts. One staff member is on our departmental Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity committee and all staff were involved in our September Workshop on best practices for equity and retention of Women in Science, funded by a grant from CAS.

3. Graduate Programs: 

We actively and aggressively seek out additional funding sources to assist our current and prospective minority students with their educational expenses. This includes monitoring and matching students with scholarship opportunities, as well as special programs in the graduate school assisting with tuition for qualifying minority or under-represented students continuing their studies in our graduate program. We continue to try to recruit and retain graduate students and lab personnel that represent the diversity of our nation through various fellowship and scholarship programs on campus or professional societies, such as the Promising Scholars Award from the UO Graduate School and the Porter Fellowship from the American Physiology Society.
Our graduate students are heavily involved in the delivery of our undergraduate curriculum, where we have specific initiatives around equity, inclusion and diversity. This provides them with training around the importance of inclusive teaching practices. Our graduate students also attend our departmental seminar, where we include one speaker per year who addresses equity and inclusion topics. We also encourage our students to seek out additional professional development opportunities in this area and have a graduate student representative on our departmental Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity committee.

4. Undergraduate Programs: 

We have developed a teaching mission statement as follows: “In the Department of Human Physiology, we value engaging, inclusive and evidence-based teaching. Teaching is engaging when students participate in active learning, inclusive when students belong, are represented and have a voice, and evidence-based when course design and classroom activities are grounded in the scholarship of teaching and learning.” It is expected that all faculty teaching courses in HPHY have objectives around making students feel they belong, are represented, and have a voice and present specific examples of how this will be achieved on the first day of each class. During 2017/18, we had undergraduate students complete a survey for each course at the end of the term, specifically addressing how well the objectives of making them feel included were met. Overall, the results of these surveys indicated the student experience of equity and inclusion was high and indicated specific under-represented groups for us to focus our efforts in the future. The department reviewed detailed results of the surveys in our Annual Teaching Academy and discussed changes to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The widespread adoption of evidence based-teaching in our department also supports the mission of increasing diversity in our community. Multiple studies show college science courses with more structure and more active learning reduce achievement gaps for under-represented students, reduce DFW rates, and increase student learning. Our department provides an annual two-day Teaching Academy to train new and returning graduate students and faculty members on evidence-based teaching practices. Our departmental commitment to evidence-based teaching also extends to our peer-review of teaching process which was recently updated to include the Teaching Practices Inventory (TPI), a peer-reviewed and validated instrument that measures the degree to which evidence based practices are employed in a course.

5. Outreach and Partnerships: 

We work with high schools, the Development Office, and the Athletic Department to give tours of our research laboratories to minority and under-represented students who are interested in attending the University and have expressed an interest in our Department. We also maintain contact with our minority alumni and have plans to establish a network of our graduates who can assist us in the recruitment and retention of minority students.
Several of our faculty work with community outreach programs, providing talks within the community, including OMSI and Quack Chats. Our faculty also participate in programs specifically designed to provide lab experiences to students typically underrepresented in the sciences, including the Summer Academy to Inspire Learning and the Summer Program for Undergraduate Research. One of our faculty members also arranges a weekly volunteer opportunity for our students through Food for Lane County. Approximately 20 undergraduate students and 2-3 faculty members from our department participate in this program on a regular basis.

6. Other: 

Our faculty incorporate equity and diversity issues in research designs, by involving subjects who represent the diverse population of the nation, in regards to both minority and sex distributions.

Staff
1. University Service: 

Staff members provide support to under-represented students by directing them to educational and job resources available on campus and in the community. They relay research opportunities and entitlements to interested students from under-represented or vulnerable populations within the bio-medical sciences.

2. Departmental Contributions: 

In hiring of staff, we follow Human Resources' protocol and advice during interview selections. We use the Human Physiology checklist for procedures during staff hires. This checklist helps to ensure we are using best practices for equity and inclusion when reviewing applicants, and ensures that these efforts are documented.
One staff member is on our departmental Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity committee and all staff were involved in our upcoming training on best practices for equity and retention of Women in Science, funded by a grant from CAS. The objective of this workshop was to increase awareness of the challenges related to retaining women faculty in STEM disciplines. There will be a follow-up session this year related to the recruitment of women faculty in STEM.

Staff are encouraged to join campus committees and events that will allow them to advocate for fair and balanced procedures in all campus operations and policies. The DEI representatives for Human Physiology participated in the UO’s Showcase Oregon 2018 Poster Gallery exhibit for which the department was awarded for “best use of data in a presentation.”

3. Community Service and Outreach: 

Faculty and Staff members in Human Physiology continue to recruit via the Educational Services Agreement with the Academy of Health Services, Department of Health Education Training, a department of the United States Army. This educational agreement provides access and support to active-duty military personnel who wish to gain an in-depth research experience in human physiology through our Research PhD Program. One staff member attended training sessions provided by the City of Eugene for inclusion efforts with her community work.

4. Professional Development and Training: 
All staff are encouraged to attend professional development opportunities involving equity, inclusion and diversity efforts. One staff member attended the ACAA workshop on intercultural communication which focused on helping undergraduate students who are experiencing difficulties working with international graduate employee instructors.
5. Other: 

A staff member from our department participates in the Food for Lane County program on a regular basis and all staff members disseminate information related to food pantries, food drives and charity enrollment.