Equity & Inclusion in Action: JEDII STEM Series

The JEDII STEM Series offers regular, informal educational sessions and is structured by thematic priorities. This year, themes range from considering JEDII within your research program to setting up inclusive search processes for faculty and staff.

The series has been developed specifically to engage/support people who lead and support JEDII within STEM fields – for example, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Applied Science, Land and Food Systems, Forestry, Pharmacy and Medicine – and who already have some competencies in JEDII-related topics.

The series aims to primarily:
– Build a sense of community across STEM for people working on JEDII within their units.
– Enhance a sense of self-efficacy through sharing of resources, knowledge and expertise.

Through exchanges of ideas, develop a deeper understanding of some of the systemic barriers to JEDII within STEM in order to coordinate action across different units.

Sessions are generally delivered virtually and are available to participants at UBC Vancouver, UBC Okanagan, and other learning sites.

Learn more at equity.ubc.ca/STEM.

Upcoming Sessions

Each session is held from 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM.

Theme 2 – Supporting equity-deserving group

The first theme will focus on actions that individuals or departments can immediately implement to help retain and support members from equity-deserving groups. As always, these sessions are open to all graduate students, faculty, staff and postdoctoral fellows. Although we will center the experiences of people from equity-deserving groups in many of the discussions, allies and those from non-equity seeking groups are welcome and encouraged to attend – it is everyone’s responsibility to create a more just, equitable and inclusive university.

Recruiting, retaining and supporting leaders from equity-deserving groups – June 16
Orientation and on-boarding to support equity-deserving students, faculty and staff – July 14
Managing workload and burnout as a member of an equity-deserving group working in JEDII – August 11

Theme 2 – Deep dive into recruitment

Revising recruitment processes for faculty, staff and leaders is critical to ensuring that we have a work-force that can more equitably share the burden of operationalizing JEDII and ensure that there is a more diverse group of role models at UBC. Engaging in the recruitment process as a unit is important because it can help to surface critical conversations to help redefine the idea of “success” and “achievements” within the academy.

The aims of these three interactive sessions are to help departments analyze and explore their current hiring practices, and to consider changes that can be made to their departmental processes. Prior to each session, it is important for participants to have some understanding of their unit’s existing practices.

Stage 1: Creating the building-blocks for an effective search – June 2
Stage 2: Inclusive and equitable practices in evaluating candidates – June 23
Stage 3: Inclusive and equitable on-campus processes – August 4