SWEEET 2021
Past Recruiting: How can we support a diverse workforce?
Monday, August 16, 2021
Symposium Time: 11 am - 12:30 pm PDT
Location: Virtual
Symposium Time: 11 am - 12:30 pm PDT
Location: Virtual
Hiring people with diverse backgrounds is a major component of progressing EDI initiatives in ecology and evolution workplaces today. But hiring diversely is only the first step, we also need to ensure that new hires from equity-seeking groups feel like they are being treated equitably and are supported and included in their workplace. This is much harder to ensure as it requires more substantial changes in everything from workplace culture to how the workplace itself is run.
The theme of the 2021 SWEEET symposium was recruitment and retention. In past symposia, we have talked about issues of barriers to access to positions in different scientific institutions. This year, we wanted to focus on what happens after we access those positions.
2021’s EDI symposium discussed strategies for building an inclusive, diverse, and equitable workplace--with practical strategies and tools for people at all levels in ecology and evolution workplaces. This was delivered through presentations and workshops from invited speakers (1.5 hrs total), similarly to previous SWEEET symposiums, appealing to individuals seeking to learn more about EDI initiatives and how they can be sustained.
We had two speakers that helped us navigate this complex situation.
The theme of the 2021 SWEEET symposium was recruitment and retention. In past symposia, we have talked about issues of barriers to access to positions in different scientific institutions. This year, we wanted to focus on what happens after we access those positions.
2021’s EDI symposium discussed strategies for building an inclusive, diverse, and equitable workplace--with practical strategies and tools for people at all levels in ecology and evolution workplaces. This was delivered through presentations and workshops from invited speakers (1.5 hrs total), similarly to previous SWEEET symposiums, appealing to individuals seeking to learn more about EDI initiatives and how they can be sustained.
We had two speakers that helped us navigate this complex situation.
Invited Speakers
Dr. Jess Auerbach
"Making the Workplace Safe for Love: a critical reflection on ecology, academia and a planet in crisis" Jess is an anthropologist based at North-West University in South Africa. She holds a PhD from Stanford as well as degrees from Oxford and the University of Cape Town. She is also the author of two books, From Water to Wine: Becoming Middle Class in Angola and Archive of Kindness: Stories from the Other Side of the South African Pandemic. Today she will speak to the themes in a paper she co-authored titled Decoloniality and Anti-oppressive Practices for a more Ethical Ecology and how these themes relate to supporting diverse backgrounds in the workplace. |
Dr. Erika Marín-Spiotta
"Beyond bias: transforming workplace climate in the ecological and environmental sciences" Erika is a professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she leads the Biogeochemistry and biogeography lab. She focuses on how changes in climate and land use alter terrestrial ecosystem processes, such as nutrient and carbon cycling. She is the lead principal investigator of the ADVANCEGeo Partnership, which is a program funded by the National Science Foundation. This program aims to transform workplace climate in the geosciences through the development of bystander intervention and research ethics training that address harassment, bullying, and discrimination as scientific misconduct. In her presentation today, she will talk about how low diversity can result from workplace experiences and academic culture and what we can do to initiate community engagement to tackle systemic exclusion in academia. |
2021 Organizing Committee
- Anne-Sophie Caron (PhD Student, McGill University)
- Ariel Greiner (PhD Student, University of Toronto)
- Leila Krichel (University of Toronto)
- Sian Kou-Giesbrecht (Environment and Climate Change Canada)
- Ariane Cantin (University of Calgary)