Anti-racist behaviors, principles, and actions are critical to meeting the mission of our organization and ensuring our community can thrive. We believe our work should begin with the core of our community - the SML staff. All staff members recently completed a three-month diversity and equity training program with New Hampshire Listens to deepen our understanding of institutional racism, unconscious bias, micro-aggression, allyship, and inequality in marine science, academia, and beyond.
This initiative included public forums where over 50 Shoalers joined in conversation with staff to discuss avenues for increasing diversity, inclusion, and equity at SML. The dynamic ideas that our community members brought forth are being used to help formulate a strategic plan that will sustain these efforts over the long haul. As we build this adaptive and living plan to address belonging at SML, we are committed to the following actions:
- Continuing to educate ourselves about institutional and individual racism
- Identifying safe modes of communication for reporting and discussing issues of discrimination and barriers to equity at SML
- Improving recruitment communications for diversifying our programs and staff, including monthly meetings with the Shoals Alumni & Friends Association Recruitment Committee to identify key members of the Shoals community (faculty, alumni, partners, etc.) that can assist with broadening our recruitment efforts to larger, more diverse audiences
- Developing an undergraduate-level coastal environmental justice course that focuses on historical and present-day environmental inequities
- Recruiting a diversity of guest speakers in future career panels and seminar series, as well as speakers with expertise in environmental injustice
- Working with our home institutions to welcome and enhance participation of students of color and from diverse backgrounds in our research, teaching, and training programs
- Understanding and identifying institutional policies and practices that create barriers and working to reduce them
We are extremely grateful for the enthusiasm our community has expressed in contributing to these efforts, and we are excited to continue this work together. If you have ideas or comments you would like to share on this work, please do not hesitate to contact us at shoals.lab@unh.edu.