Scientific societies fostering inclusivity through speaker diversity in annual meeting programming: a call to action

Abstract

Scientific societies aiming to foster inclusion of scientists from underrepresented (UR) backgrounds among their membership often delegate primary responsibility for this goal to a diversity-focused committee. The National Science Foundation has funded the creation of the Alliance to Catalyze Change for Equity in STEM Success (ACCESS), a meta-organization bringing together representatives from several such STEM society committees to serve as a hub for a growing community of practice. Our goal is to coordinate efforts to advance inclusive practices by sharing experiences and making synergistic discoveries about what works. ACCESS has analyzed the approaches by which member societies have sought to ensure inclusivity through selection of annual meeting speakers. Here we discuss how inclusive speaker selection fosters better scientific environments for all and identify challenges and promising practices for societies striving to maximize inclusivity of speakers in their scientific programming.

Female Representation: Australian Diabetes and Endocrinology Societies

“…Scientific societies should be making concerted strategic efforts to build diversity at scientific conferences that would help address the disparities of female representation. The Alliance to Catalyze Change for Equity in STEM Success (ACCESS) is a meta-organisation that has published recommended strategies for fostering inclusivity through speaker diversity in scientific meetings ( 20 ). One such recommendation includes collection and publication of demographic information on membership and abstract submission authors in order to ensure speaker profiles reflect membership base.…”

Chronicling the Journey of the Society for the Advancement in Biology Education Research (SABER) in its Effort to Become Antiracist: From Acknowledgement to Action

“…Several climate reports and reflections by STEM professional societies have proposed the following recommendations to increase diversity and inclusion: 1) establishing and fostering open communication with members from minoritized groups, 2) providing greater and continued support and agency to POC individuals to not only retain them within the society, but to build a welcoming environment that these members see as valuable to them, 3) promoting greater diversity in positions of leadership reflective of the racial and ethnic composition of the society, 4) conducting yearly surveys of the membership to track the progress made towards inclusion and diversity, 5) engaging in outreach activities to support diversity on a wider scale, and 6) integrating programming on diversity and inclusion in conferences (Cech and Waidzunas, 2019;Segarra et al, 2020a;ASM Diversity, 2020;Bell, 2020;Segarra et al, 2020b;Womack et al, 2020;Ali et al, 2021;Madzima and MacIntosh, 2021). The findings and recommendations of these climate surveys largely mirror the initial efforts to increase inclusion by SABER as well as those activities planned to sustain the initial work.…”

The Inclusive Professional Framework for Societies: Changing Mental Models to Promote Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive STEM Systems Change

“…For example, students enter STEM degree programs with varying levels of social capital ( Skvoretz et al, 2020 ), and ProSs keep them in their programs ( Smith et al, 2021 ; Campbell-Montalvo et al, in press ). Some STEM ProSs are actively engaged in STEM systems change to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) through STEM ProS functions (e.g., Segarra et al, 2020a ; Segarra et al, 2020b ; Campbell-Montalvo et al, in press , Campbell-Montalvo et al, 2020 ; Etson et al, 2021 ). However, we believe that to foster greater engagement by STEM ProSs, more STEM ProS-specific tools are needed, especially those that can help make explicit and reframe mental models underpinning STEM ProS functions.…”