Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan
In 2004, the Magnet Lab developed a formal diversity plan. A Diversity Advisory Committee advises laboratory leadership and an internal Diversity Committee on opportunities to promote diversity in hiring and outreach.
Build diversity permanence into the Magnet Lab scientific population.
- Ensure that at least one member from the Magnet Lab Diversity Committee actively serves on each search committee to increase awareness and knowledge of diversity issues.
- Train managers and search committees using materials developed by the Strategies and Tactics for Recruiting to Improve Diversity and Excellence program (STRIDE).
- Advertise open positions in publications and other venues such as Web sites and conferences that reach women and minorities.
- Ensure that at least one member of an underrepresented group is invited to visit the Magnet Lab as a finalist candidate for each job search, which disproportionately increases the likelihood that a woman and/or minority scientist will be hired.
- Maintain new hires at a rate above the present level of diversity at the Magnet Lab, particularly for senior hires into permanent scientific positions.
- Track progress using three-year running averages of diversity statistics to provide annual, concrete feedback.
- Provide mentors and opportunities to network inside and outside the Magnet Lab for new hires from underrepresented groups to create an environment of success.
- Promote retention of staff members in underrepresented groups by providing support, feedback and guidance at all career stages, including not only formal performance appraisals but also informal reviews among mentors.
Develop and cultivate individualized early career opportunities for members of underrepresented groups at the undergraduate level and above.
- Establish meaningful relationships with historically black, Hispanic and female universities through the lab’s College Outreach-Workforce Initiative (CO-WIN) program of exchanging scientific visits.
- Recruit women and minorities to apply to the lab’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates, postdoctoral and Visiting Scientist programs.
- Provide financial support for summer research collaborations and seek year-round collaborations with scientists from underrepresented groups, including supporting proposals originated by these scientists.
- Actively recruit members of underrepresented groups at all times, not only when there are predetermined searches. Maintain and cultivate relationships with potential candidates over many years.
- Network to discover unforeseen opportunities to hire, including offering invited talks to female and minority faculty to visit the Magnet Lab and establish connections with lab scientists.
Target educational outreach for K-12 and the general public to broad and diverse groups.
- Communicate the excitement of research, the opportunities available, and the importance of science as a career to the nation’s continued prosperity.
- Broadly advertise the lab’s annual Open House, as well as REU and RET programs and assess the diversity of the group benefiting from each of these programs.
- Aim Magnet Lab education and outreach to the general public and government officials, to present scientific research as an engine for economic growth and national prosperity.
Maintain awareness among lab staff and user programs that diversity matters.
- Understand the national importance of increasing the diversity of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics population throughout the United States.
- Develop explicit criteria to convey the importance of diversity, including an active Diversity Committee, periodic lab-wide informational meetings and links to diversity resources on the Mag Lab Web site.
- Understand Magnet Lab diversity in the national context, including the monitoring of progress through the maintenance of Mag Lab and national statistics on diversity.
Maintain frequent external guidance and review of Mag Lab diversity issues.
- Incorporate diversity presentations and discussions into meetings of the Magnet Lab Executive Committee, Users Committee, the External Advisory Committee and at NSF Site Visits.
- Ensure that the Diversity Committee, Diversity Advisory Committee and External Advisory Committee include a diverse membership, as well as university, regional and national leaders working to improve diversity in the scientific workforce of the future.
- Seek to increase the diversity of the lab’s Users Committee, whose membership is determined by vote of the user community, through active recruiting of a diverse slate of candidates.
For more information, please contact Dragana Popovic, Diversity Committee Chair.
