[SPRINT] EDI Reading hour

[yyzhang]

[EDI reading hour]

Do you have a book, a video clip, or a article related to EDI, that you always wanted to read, but can't find time to do so? Come join us to read for an hour. 

Contacts: Yuanyuan Zhang Day/Time: Monday Main communication channel: GitHub repo:

Goals and deliverable

[describe your goals for the week and the deliverables you are aiming for]

Catch up on any EDI tasks for 45 mins Reading list: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Df3ZGEsBzlkIuNvAR_9yHw5thiAjGOjIpJqROnBZ2Nk/edit (or any other topics of your choice)

Resources and skills needed

[describe the resources (software, skills, data, or just enthusiasm) needed for this project] Nothing

Detailed description

[add additional details about the project]

During this hour, we'll spend 45 mins each catching up on our "reading" (but keeping zoom open to keep ourselves accountable), and then the 15 mins sharing with each other what we learned.  You can also spend the 45 mins working on other EDI tasks.

We'll also prepare a list with suggestions of articles/books/videos for those that are looking for something to read/watch.

[yyzhang]

I have spent 45 mins reading a chapter "waking up to Priviledge" by Stephanie A. Sheilds from "Presumed Incompetent". In this chapter, Stephanie identified as an able-bodied, white woman and a full professor in psychology at a US university. She discussed her journey coming from a working-class family to pursue a college degree sponsored by scholarships, and then being in the first cohort of graduate students with a significant female presentation in graduate school, and later her efforts to advocate for women at her University as a professor. She also discussed how she came to realize her priviledge as a white woman, and how it affected her research and her efforts to advocate for all female faculties in the University (one example is that she together with other colleagues advocated to the University to change the name of a room that were offensive to Mexican women, but was dismissed without listening).

[idellant]

As part of the meeting, I read through the Nature communications article "an actionable anti-racism plan for geoscience organizations", by Hendratta Ali et al., with a particular interest in looking at what items would translate well to DESC. I also spent time perusing the NSF PhD statistics in the various sciences, motivated by the statement that geological sciences are among the least diverse stem fields--it turns out that in terms of PhDs granted both to women and BIPOC, geology outpaces astronomy (let alone particle physics). What I took away from the article was that a majority of the 20 concrete actions advocated could be implemented by DESC, starting from the notion of collecting trustworthy data and trusting in the experiences of BIPOC collaboration members, publicly and accessibly stating the collaboration anti-racist goals, and frequently and honestly evaluating progress and reporting on progress transparently. That made me think about the necessity for external evaluation of progress, and making sure DESC finds (or negotiates with DOE) a way to fund independent evaluation. Otherwise, I worry that the desire to equate sincere effort with success will lead to more ineffective policies and delays.