Idea Café Recommendations

Report from ROOT & SHOOT workshop “Equity assessment of ASPB/CSPB activities and processes” held at Plant Biology 2022, Portland, Oregon, July 11, 2022

Professional societies, scientific conferences and journals are intended to serve all in the community equitably, but do they? In this workshop, participants were invited to reflect on and share their experiences navigating professional spheres and collectively identify and work to address processes that are inequitable or opaque.

The workshop was run in an Idea Café* format, a conversational method used to solicit ideas on a particular issue, problem or opportunity for which creative suggestions are being sought. Participants self-selected a topic area and were asked to record their conversations using a Google document. Specifically, they were asked to consider barriers to equity and inclusion, and suggest mechanisms to eliminate those barriers. The notes recorded are listed below and provide thought-provoking reading.

Some issues that were raised in several groups are: affordability of membership and conference fees; a re-evaluation of the criteria and processes used to allocate discounts or opportunities; and increased transparency about how decisions are made, including rubrics used to select who is given honorary or travel awards or speaking opportunities.

These observations and recommendations will help to define the tasks for upcoming Working Groups, and have been provided to the “Inclusive Conferences” working group that recently launched. We are incorporating the feedback we received at this workshop with that received during the April 2022 virtual events, available here.

If you would like to stay informed, including about the opportunity to serve on a Working Group, please complete this form.

Accessibility

Part 1: Reflect on barriers in our professional society relating to the process or identity above. Barriers to equity, inclusion, access, and belonging should be considered. We also ask you to consider how different identities might affect your ability to navigate these spaces.

• Room layouts that are not friendly to people with wheelchairs or canes (too many chairs or tables)
• People not using microphone and assuming everyone can hear well
• Difficulty of speakers hearing questions from the audience or difficulty with people getting up to answer questions
• Difficulty understanding languages when people speak very quickly
• People need help navigating new cities
• SOP for poster/talk slides that are sight-impaired or color blindness friendly
• Moving to more of a hybrid system for meetings so that people can have the option to attend in person or stay at home. There might be some pushback on this, but we just need to jump in and try it. If fewer people come to meetings in-person, then we can hold in-person meetings at smaller venues.
• Safety of certain groups in cities where conferences are held (gender or ethnic groups)
• Food and restaurant accessibility;  people have to walk to get basic necessities like food and they may not feel safe. Or they cannot afford to eat at cafes at the venue.
• Availability of nursing stations in a location that is NOT centrally located.
• Food allergies or religious food restrictions
• Bringing family members with you at meetings and having things for them to do.
• People rely on funding support for travel to be included at events, and funding Pools are not diverse enough for all populations to qualify.
• Events and registration often require defining gender

Part 2: Think about the challenges above and those identified by the larger group. What is one potential small step and one potential bold approach to address the challenge or challenges?

• Sign language interpreters for all talks
• Google translate or other applications that could be used to help with non-native english speakers
• Volunteer interpreters to follow people around to interpret posters
• Chairs in rows of poster sessions so people can rest or sit down for a while
• Welcome table with information on the location – we liked the availability of the transit pass for attendees
• Standardization of using electronic applications to ask questions
• Travel fellowships focused on people with disabilities to help them attend meeting
• Subsidies for child care or other accommodations for people with certain needs (age related, too)
• Selection of event cities that are financially accessible – regular rotation of west coast, midwest, east coast, midwest, west coast, etc.
• Offer safe ride services or escorts that can make sure everyone can travel safely during meetings.
• Offer affordable food choices within a short walking distance of the venues.
• Contact information for people on site with medical training who can be accessed quickly in an emergency
• Spaces that allow people to “escape” to quiet spaces.
• Offering various food options with all ingredients clearly listed (more than just “contains nuts”, or “vegan”)
• Opening ceremonies that provide practical information related to the location and how to travel (don’t go here, how to use a travel pass, nearest print shop is here, cultural differences that people should consider, etc).
• Listings of low cost housing options that may be further away, but will allow people to attend the meeting – and a contact list of people who are also staying there in case it is a less-safe location
• Roommate matching options so that people can save $$ on accomodations
• Selecting cities for future events that are more accepting/welcoming of LGBTQ+ community
• Involve LGBTQ members in the meeting location selection process
• Add pronouns to conference name badges
• Create an allyship statement as part of conference code of conduct
• Create a DEI certification or credential that must be maintained and recognized by NSF that can be used to negate DEI statements on funding applications

Awards

Part 1: Reflect on barriers in our professional society relating to the process or identity above. Barriers to equity, inclusion, access, and belonging should be considered. We also ask you to consider how different identities might affect your ability to navigate these spaces.

• Awards that are based on gender (Young Women’s Travel Awards) are not mindful of gender diversity; or, does a gender diverse individual qualify for these kinds of awards?

Part 2: Think about the challenges above and those identified by the larger group. What is one potential small step and one potential bold approach to address the challenge or challenges?

• Make the award rubrics public.
• Rubrics include more contributions (service, outreach, etc.)  to science in award rubric than purely science.
• Don’t weigh the nomination letter in the award because that does not necessarily reflect the quality of the nominee.
• Allow self-nomination (works well for best student paper award)
• Giving out more awards based on the number of applicants – everyone gets something approach
• Early-career or mid-career awards should be based on years from last degree instead of age

Editorial Processes

Part 1: Reflect on barriers in our professional society relating to the process or identity above. Barriers to equity, inclusion, access, and belonging should be considered. We also ask you to consider how different identities might affect your ability to navigate these spaces.

• How does the identity of an author affect the review process. (Loads of data – peer review, grading, etc). Sometimes its even hard to find reviewers.
• Can we do double blind peer review? Title, first author name, abstract then find a reviewer.
• Non-anonymous review? The reviewer names are put on the published paper. We already have a hard time finding reviewers….
• When reviewer names are listed upon publication, there’s a tendency for the reviewer comments to be more civil.
• Another identity issue: Quality of English does not equal quality of science. Some reviewers won’t review a paper if it’s clearly poorly written (language issues). Could editors first provide feedback to authors before it’s sent out for review?
• Reviewers get annoyed when they are asked to read a poorly written paper.
• Accessibility – color blindness. Green and red is default for most programs. Need to raise awareness of the need.
• Diversity in editorial board needs to be conscious. How to balance without getting too much growth?
• Reviewer / editor training (implicit bias).
• Sometimes editors object to being asked to talk about equity.
• “Sharing my personal information can only hurt me”. Desire for privacy.

Part 2: Think about the challenges above and those identified by the larger group. What is one potential small step and one potential bold approach to address the challenge or challenges?

• Reviewer training? NSF has reviewer training for grants. Do every year or two (watch a short video). (One more reason to say no).
• Provide information about why demographic data is being collected – and not.
• What would be the perfect way for scientists to share their findings? We like having the check of peer review. There isn’t much conversation about pre-prints.
• How do we get our editorial boards (established PIs) to reflect the diversity of this meeting? Experience.

Society Opportunities

Part 1: Reflect on barriers in our professional society relating to the process or identity above. Barriers to equity, inclusion, access, and belonging should be considered. We also ask you to consider how different identities might affect your ability to navigate these spaces.

• Lack of transparency with how opportunities or awards are decided –
• Named awards may not reflect the current diversity of the society
• Do rubric categories reflect only science or other aspects of a quality nominee
• Which committees exist and how to get involved is confusing
• People from industry may not be viewed strongly for awards, or may not get nominated.
• There is still a barrier to nomination with fact finding – you may not know how old someone is!!!
• The fact that talks are picked from submitted abstracts is not always clear.
• Ways to feel empowered to be a member of ASPB.
• There are so many opportunities to be involved (Ambassadors, Early Career Reps, Assistant Features Editor, etc) but it is hard to tell the difference or what each one entails.

Part 2: Think about the challenges above and those identified by the larger group. What is one potential small step and one potential bold approach to address the challenge or challenges?

• Rubrics – award committees should make these public
• Awards could include the aspect that is being awarded! “The Shull Award for mid-career research accomplishment goes to Adrienne Roeder”
• Committee meetings could be public – this is true for some committees at APS
• Solicit award and committee nominations from former travel, talk, or poster awardees. Or invite them to see how the process works, give them a front row seat in the committee meetings. Do not make this extra work and feel like an obligation
• CSPB does “Best student paper” – self-nominated by students.
• Like having the community submit proposals for workshops and concurrent sessions–that is an equity barrier reducer.
• Concurrent session have chosen talks from the abstracts–let people know–good increase in inclusion.