Education and Awareness

To help everyone join in the effort, we need to build awareness of existing issues and provide resources for education. Orientation events and trainings when new community members first arrive should provide an on ramp for them to start learning and discussing about DEI issues, particularly if they have not had much exposure to such topics in the past. The Department should support further learning and growth by funding professional development and making available resources for self-education. Research groups, labs, and divisions should do their part by facilitating regular conversations about DEI to improve their own internal cultures.

 

Recommendations
 

 

Recommendation 23.  (Immediate action requested)
That the Department provide ongoing opportunities for formal education about diversity, equity, and inclusion in physics. 

Cultural beliefs and norms are ever-evolving in society, and it is important for that to be reflected in our Department’s culture. Consider the physicists who have mentored the PGSC President: her master’s advisor graduated college before the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Her bachelor’s advisor was in college already when Title IX came about, and faculty members of her doctoral advisor’s age graduated high school before the Americans with Disabilities Act passed. Even our current graduate students themselves were well into their undergraduate or graduate educations by the time gay marriage was legalized in the United States. It is important to provide students, staff, and faculty with regular and ongoing education and discussions about expectations for how we treat one another as society shifts, and that we teach one another how to actively create a positive environment for all around us. 

A department-provided education regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in an academic setting is one of the most systematic methods we can implement to improve the knowledge, attitudes, and actions of our community. Currently, MIT requires graduate students to participate in interactive online trainings regarding sexual misconduct as well as anti-Black racism and microaggressions through Atlas during their first few weeks on campus, as well as an in-person introduction to the Physics Values Statement during Orientation provided by the PVC. Postdocs, staff, and faculty are required to take a Title IX training upon joining MIT as well. 

It is important to ensure that our involvement in these important issues extends far beyond our first few days on campus, and that we continuously work to educate ourselves and help address deep-rooted DEI problems. To that end, we make a number of recommendations to the department. 

23a) That the Department consider holding anti-racism training for new postdocs and faculty members. 

23b) That the Department hold events to bring awareness and educate our community throughout the year, every year. Possible platforms include annual colloquia regarding the history of underrepresented groups in physics at MIT and beyond, regular DEI speakers at each seminar series, and professional development opportunities. It is important for us to learn from our history and our failures.

The Department should also help our community learn about the past and present of race relations in America. This is especially important for members of our community who may have had little or no prior exposure to these topics, such as new international arrivals, who may also be unfamiliar with American culture and customs, particularly surrounding activism and advocacy.

The Department should advertise, promote, and encourage its faculty to participate in existing in-person and interactive trainings already offered on campus, such as the two-hour training for the You Are Welcome Here campaign. The Department should also collaborate with MindHandHeart and the Institute Community and Equity Office to hold, advertise, and promote additional annual trainings for faculty and staff, especially those who are many years beyond their first arrival on campus. We emphasize that such trainings should be voluntary. Mandatory trainings have been shown to actually have a negative impact on diversity, while voluntary trainings produce a substantial positive impact.

23c) We remark that certain subsets of the Department may wish to host their own internal professional development opportunities related to DEI. Moreover, individual members of our Department may wish to participate in opportunities related to DEI, including professional development events, DEI conferences, and minority-centered conferences off campus. (See also Recommendations 6 and 15.)

To facilitate participation in these activities, we recommend that the Department maintain a list on its webpage of professional development funding, travel grants, and other campus funding sources that individuals and organizations can access for hosting and attending conferences. This list should include both general funding sources and funding sources aimed at underrepresented physicists; for example, School of Science Quality of Life grants, Committee on Race and Diversity grants, the MindHandHeart Innovation Fund, Graduate Student Council Professional Development and Conference grants, as well as Division of Student Life grants.

To fill existing gaps in DEI-related funding, we suggest that the Department create a grant for community members seeking to access professional development opportunities related to DEI, to travel to minority-centered conferences, and to attend other events that further our Physics Values. There is precedent for diversity conference grants in the MIT Math Department. 

23d) That the Department build formal education about ethics and DEI, as well as their intersections, into its curricula. While physics distilled down to its deepest conceptual foundations is a purely objective science, subjective measures influence its practice, its practitioners, and its applications. 

Ethical questions that could arise for students trained in physics are manifold. For future teachers and professors, it is important to discuss the “why” of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and highlight the aspects of society that influence who participates in physics, and the work that we must do towards creating a more equitable community. For future researchers, ethical questions in physics can arise across a range of areas from astrophysical researchers constructing observatories on sacred Indigenous sites, to biomedical physicists grappling with questions of medical ethics, to disputes over authorship and research misconduct. For physicists who will one day take their technical skills outside of academic settings, it is important to think about the consequences of new technologies, ranging from the use of artificial intelligence in policing and its effect on vulnerable populations to the construction of the nuclear bomb. 

One potential way in which the Department could implement ethics education for graduate students might be to hold seminars in small groups (<10) in which students meet 1-2 times per week to discuss relevant readings, moderated by a faculty member or a more senior graduate student trained in facilitation. 

For undergraduate students, the 2015 BSU Recommendations request that: “The current mandatory undergraduate HASS-Elective (Graduation Requirement) be restricted to a newly designated ‘Immersion studies’ HASS-Elective (a designation for current or future courses focusing on topics of multiculturalism or diversity [e.g. race, gender, sexuality])”. Such a requirement would allow non-marginalized students to engage in conversations on diversity and inclusion that they may not have had previous exposure to, and would indicate to minority students that their presence is valued and the issues they face are recognized by the Institution. We recommend that the Department consider instituting a scientific ethics subject requirement for its majors as well.

Recommendation 24.
That the Divisions foster regular informal discussions about diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Having regular conversations about race in a safe environment can be a powerful way to teach participants how to recognize racist structures and their impact in their own lives. 

24a) We recommend that the Divisions sponsor regular reading and discussion groups about DEI topics. The divisions could also provide funding for reading materials and refreshments, to support the image that DEI education should not be seen as something taking time away from research; it will make students better mentors, teachers, and research group leaders in the future. For example, see how hosting a virtual reading club has impacted the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, or Beverly Daniel Tatum’s article in the Harvard Educational Review about leading a class on the psychology of racism. 

In holding these events, it is important to foster a climate of safety by ensuring confidentiality, discouraging insults and judgmental remarks, asking participants to speak from personal experience instead of generalizing to broader groups (i.e. “I think…” instead of “People feel…”), and acknowledging that this is a difficult topic for most people to talk about. 

24b) Furthermore, our physics students often feel that physics is the only appropriate topic of conversation in public or work settings. We would appreciate it if the Divisions could actively encourage nonacademic conversations. Such open discussion can not only improve the sense of community and inclusion felt by MIT students, but also facilitates learning regarding issues such as race and gender, which can be traditionally uncomfortable or difficult to discuss publicly at first.

Recommendation 25.
That the Department expand the resources and information on its website. 

We commend the Physics Values Committee for the recent launch of the PVC website and encourage the Department to carry forward these efforts to inform members of the community about DEI in both its current website redesign and in its physical spaces. It is important that our public-facing efforts reflect our ongoing internal conversations about making our community more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

25a) That the website provide further educational materials. The training and professional development events discussed in Recommendations 23-24 provide important opportunities for physics community members to become more informed about DEI. However, it is important for community members to keep educating themselves beyond these one-off events. The Department can help bridge the gap between guided in-person introductions to these topics and further individual learning by providing a list of recommended resources for self-education on its website and in its reading room. 

We recommend that the Department provide resources pertaining to MIT’s campus, the physics community, and broader society. Like in the GSC-DEI Allyship Guide, these resources should address a range of marginalized groups, including Black physicists, other POC, women, LGBTQ+ physicists, people with disabilities, international students, and intersections thereof. Information provided could include hard data, research papers, articles more focused on anecdotes and stories, as well as books. Community members have a range of preferred learning styles, and the Department should consider including in its list readings, podcasts, videos, and interactive formats. 

In the physics reading room, perhaps the Department could maintain a bookshelf with materials about DEI in physics and make sure there are biographies of physicists from marginalized identities on display. Divisions that provide magazines or other reading material in common spaces and rooms can consider expanding the material they leave out in public beyond just pure research-focused journals. 

The Department might find it useful to look to other physics organizations for examples of how it might publicize resources on its website. The Physics Values Committee made a great first step at providing educational materials in its Anti-Racism and Self-Care Resources page. The PhysREFS have already begun to compile a list of such resources as well. Other examples of lists compiled outside our Department can be found on the MIT Office of Graduate Education and Particles for Justice websites.

25b) That the Department improve its web pages about support for diversity, equity, and inclusion. In particular, the current Diversity and Diversity Resources pages should be significantly expanded (see e.g. PVC Resources for Underrepresented Physicists, PVC and Department Initiatives). The web pages geared towards prospective students and employment opportunities should also contain in-line links to DEI information on the department website.  Other information about potential support resources that could be included on the website appears in Recommendations 6, 7e, 8, 11, 13, 23c, and 28.

25c) That the website expand its discussion of our community and our history. Our Department website is an important location for us to show who we are and what we value to current and future members of our community, as well as set an example for other departments internationally. 

We agree that it is important to highlight the inarguably impressive and praiseworthy achievements of our researchers, who have made huge advances in physics, as recognized by the many Nobel Prizes and other awards won by our faculty. While our celebrated physicists and their research prowess are perhaps the first strength one might associate with MIT Physics, the outstanding work done by our Department extends far beyond just the faculty and their research. Our department has prizewinning teachers, staff and students who have improved the experience of all at MIT through leadership and service, alumni who have gone on to make a difference in their communities outside of research and development, and more.

At present, the About page describes the commendable achievements of Nobel Laureates, awards our faculty have won for teaching, and the development of TEAL. This section could be expanded to include the breadth of impressive work going on in our community, in particular by including in-line links to other sections of the webpage. Likewise, the Alumni and Friends webpage is misleading. Perhaps we could have separate “Alumni” and “Friends” pages; the former to publicize the career pathways and/or notable achievements of a diverse group of alumni, which would benefit students thinking about their futures; as well as a separate Friends section of the website to acknowledge and express our gratitude to our generous donors, without whom none of our learning, research, and initiatives would be possible. 

Perhaps the webmaster could devise a function for sorting the articles linked from the News section of the website by topic (research advances, department initiatives, community involvement, etc.); by cohort in the community (undergrad, grad, research staff, administrative staff, faculty, alumni); by source (MIT articles, local newspapers, national recognition), and more. The News tab on the ribbon at the top of the website could also include sub-tabs linking to a broader set of pages than just faculty awards and honors. 

Likewise, the History section of the Physics Department website should be considerably expanded and cover a more diverse array of topics. There are certainly many more interesting moments and characters in our Department’s history than are written in the current pages! It would also be great to see more DEI-related history in the Department, as well as the current status of these initiatives.

Recommendation 26.
That the Department work to actively identify and counteract harmful stereotypes and messaging that are common in our field, such as the false and ageist belief that physicists can only do groundbreaking work while young.

We need to actively challenge people’s preconceptions of what a physicist looks like, along all axes of what “looking like a physicist” might entail. A number of harmful stereotypes and messages persist in our field, and the Department should hold regular conversations at faculty lunches to understand the harm in incorrect messages and to help actively counteract their perpetuation.

For example, longstanding ageist stereotypes in physics, such as the false belief that physicists can only do groundbreaking work while they are young, are often perpetuated in our Department, particularly in the theory divisions. Besides creating a negative environment for senior faculty through stereotype threat, the messaging is particularly harmful for students who have taken a nontraditional educational path, who had less access to academic resources at a young age, who seek to start a family in the early years of their career, or who strive for a work-life balance. This message also de-emphasizes the need to dedicate effort to important activities outside of research like teaching, mentoring, outreach, and DEI efforts. 

Another common and harmful message that we need to work to counteract in physics is the myth of the lone genius being the driving force behind advancements in the field.

Navigation: