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We're really just getting started.  With the DEI Committee, we spent a lot of time and effort last year putting some initiatives in place, but we haven't really done sensemaking as a department, and we haven't gone through any process to make a coherent plan and secure faculty buy-in.

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We're really just getting started.  With the DEI Committee, we spent a lot of time and effort last year putting some initiatives in place, but we haven't really done sensemaking as a department, and we haven't gone through any process to make a coherent plan and secure faculty buy-in.

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Amusingly, the plan was just submitted. As for sense-making, it combines a suite of things already happening (or happened) in the department with some new activities that are more directly AGEP focused

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Amusingly, the plan was just submitted. As for sense-making, it combines a suite of things already happening (or happened) in the department with some new activities that are more directly AGEP focused

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Partly we're still stuck on sensemaking, and also, it's hard to know what the plan should be (or even what direction I should be pushing, or what I am trying to have our faculty "make sense" of).  I have looked at the survey results.  The lessons from the survey are that (1) some minority students don't feel like our department is very supportive, and they point out (correctly!) that we don't have a very diverse faculty and (2) some students feel like we are not very supportive of their success, particularly if they are not doing well.  I don't know how to translate that into a discussion in the department that leads us to do (or plan) specific things.  We have already implemented, starting this year, a new first-year graduate course that we hope will help our graduate students in general feel more connected and supported.  I don't know what specific things we can do to make URM students feel more supported, aside from the obvious "hire more diverse faculty", but that seems very difficult to actually do, even though, for example, I was the chair of a hiring committee that hired 3 people last year.  (No, I'm not trying very hard on anonymity here.)

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Partly we're still stuck on sensemaking, and also, it's hard to know what the plan should be (or even what direction I should be pushing, or what I am trying to have our faculty "make sense" of).  I have looked at the survey results.  The lessons from the survey are that (1) some minority students don't feel like our department is very supportive, and they point out (correctly!) that we don't have a very diverse faculty and (2) some students feel like we are not very supportive of their success, particularly if they are not doing well.  I don't know how to translate that into a discussion in the department that leads us to do (or plan) specific things.  We have already implemented, starting this year, a new first-year graduate course that we hope will help our graduate students in general feel more connected and supported.  I don't know what specific things we can do to make URM students feel more supported, aside from the obvious "hire more diverse faculty", but that seems very difficult to actually do, even though, for example, I was the chair of a hiring committee that hired 3 people last year.  (No, I'm not trying very hard on anonymity here.)

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Successes: there is a high level of DEI interest in the department, especially among early career faculty (of which we have many)

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Successes: there is a high level of DEI interest in the department, especially among early career faculty (of which we have many)

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One specific thing would be more guidance about how to choose and hire a facilitator.  This is well outside of my usual job description.

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One specific thing would be more guidance about how to choose and hire a facilitator.  This is well outside of my usual job description.

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Challenges: First, Covid - we'd love to get people together, facility discussion with food, etc. but that 's not possible, and waiting for it to be so delayed planning. Secondly, it's hard to know what will actually generate faculty buy-in until you do it, so we are trying to focus on areas where faculty have expressed interest - remains to be seen how many show up and participate.

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Challenges: First, Covid - we'd love to get people together, facility discussion with food, etc. but that 's not possible, and waiting for it to be so delayed planning. Secondly, it's hard to know what will actually generate faculty buy-in until you do it, so we are trying to focus on areas where faculty have expressed interest - remains to be seen how many show up and participate.

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Truly, an end to Covid! It is increasingly difficult to muster enthusiasm for Zoom events.

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Truly, an end to Covid! It is increasingly difficult to muster enthusiasm for Zoom events.

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A not very diverse faculty sees the current not very diverse student population and thinks the "real" issue is recruitment. I think it is helpful when the AGEP leadership steps aside from what NSF funded to acknowledge this, while continuing to push the idea that the two issues are inextricably linked. Moreover, in some of our departments we have to recognize that what we will do (mostly) first is improve mentoring of non-URM students (whom we've got) with the idea, or hope, that great and effective mentoring will ultimately make us more attractive to URM students, whom we must continue to work on recruiting.

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A not very diverse faculty sees the current not very diverse student population and thinks the "real" issue is recruitment. I think it is helpful when the AGEP leadership steps aside from what NSF funded to acknowledge this, while continuing to push the idea that the two issues are inextricably linked. Moreover, in some of our departments we have to recognize that what we will do (mostly) first is improve mentoring of non-URM students (whom we've got) with the idea, or hope, that great and effective mentoring will ultimately make us more attractive to URM students, whom we must continue to work on recruiting.

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I am in an earlier cohort and am just getting around to writing up my plan. In my defense I've been running  COVID surveillance on campus nonstop since summer 2020. But we have been implementing some possible plan elements already in our department, #GRExit, holistic review, peer mental health support training for students, mentor training.

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I am in an earlier cohort and am just getting around to writing up my plan. In my defense I've been running  COVID surveillance on campus nonstop since summer 2020. But we have been implementing some possible plan elements already in our department, #GRExit, holistic review, peer mental health support training for students, mentor training.

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We have a couple of faculty who obviously need to take the mentor training more to heart and I am not sure how to have that discussion because it definitely involves confronting specific people. We've started to ponder how feedback from students that both did and did not choose that mentor after rotations could be gathered for merit review, RPT, etc.

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We have a couple of faculty who obviously need to take the mentor training more to heart and I am not sure how to have that discussion because it definitely involves confronting specific people. We've started to ponder how feedback from students that both did and did not choose that mentor after rotations could be gathered for merit review, RPT, etc.

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Still at the very beginning. Need to coordinate meetings with key personnel and constituencies that would benefit from the proposed project

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Still at the very beginning. Need to coordinate meetings with key personnel and constituencies that would benefit from the proposed project

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Successes: Some initial meetings are planned to begin laying out strategies for my project.

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Successes: Some initial meetings are planned to begin laying out strategies for my project.

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At the moment, I have collected a large folder of papers to read about my project topic. But the challenge is finding the time to read all of them Something I need to work on. Frankly, I wish I had a student working with me on this.

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At the moment, I have collected a large folder of papers to read about my project topic. But the challenge is finding the time to read all of them Something I need to work on. Frankly, I wish I had a student working with me on this.

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I am at the beginning of this process, though I do have meetings scheduled with key faculty to discuss this.

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As a positive, I believe our exam procedures in the department for PhD students are fairly constructive. Since these exams are guided by the dissertation committee, selections can be made to mitigate issues.
As a negative, the RPT process lacks formal feedback, and it might be difficult to get this incorporated into the process.

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Comment on the above - A new definition: Resource - a web link to an article you would love to read if you had the time,

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Comment on the above - A new definition: Resource - a web link to an article you would love to read if you had the time,

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Just getting started. There will be meetings with faculty and grad students later this semester. I'm in Cohort III

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In early stages of developing the plan in consultation with the grad and new DEI committees. The department recently voted overwhelmingly in favor of #GRExit and many faculty members are engaged in thinking critically about the climate for minoritized graduate students.

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Successes: more frequent conversations around DEI this year, e.g., in faculty meetings, than in the past. Faculty voted by a big margin to remove the GRE requirement for applicants, although an option is left open for individual faculty to still ask for it.
Challenges: sense making is slower to progress; make up of the department is not likely to change soon so harder to address some of the structural / demographic issues for DEI; COVID continues to make it difficult to have good social interactions in public setting.

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Biggest challenge remains the poor funding of graduate students.

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Challenge: annual review and departmental mentor committees stressing that DEI work, including for this fellowship, is not as important as more traditional items in the dossier, and therefore suggest reducing amount of time on this work.

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Still working on it and results of student survey.

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Still working on it and results of student survey.

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We submitted ours recently

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The department chair is very supportive of the effort, and that really helped to break this conversation to the faculty. So far seems like everyone is on board. One of the challenges is that I got no feedback from anyone in the department - positive or negative. Not sure if people are paying attention. I tried to make sure that most of the work is on me in the hope that it will help with acceptance from the faculty, but it may have resulted in disinvestment. We are about to start our activities that would require faculty participation (IDPs, building a community), so I will get a better sense on faculty involvement.

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I wish I had more financial resources at my disposal for some of the activities. For example, providing meals to the students for community building events. Also, I wish we had some fellowships available so that we could provide some financial assurance to URM students. Graduate funding in our department is very stressful and comes with a constant uncertainty.

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Maybe, some faculty training resources that can be shared with the department.

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At the beginning.  Plan to roll out more details to my colleagues this fall.  We are completing a 5-year review of our program.  We have some data already. 

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At the beginning.  Plan to roll out more details to my colleagues this fall.  We are completing a 5-year review of our program.  We have some data already. 

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Some advances in terms of identifying areas of enhancing the information for graduate students and development of several documents/actions related to DEIJ. Also, an inventory of actions to enhance the DEIJ environment was completed among faculty, staff, and graduate students which will inform future actions.  

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Some advances in terms of identifying areas of enhancing the information for graduate students and development of several documents/actions related to DEIJ. Also, an inventory of actions to enhance the DEIJ environment was completed among faculty, staff, and graduate students which will inform future actions.  

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Challenges: I will (also) point out that the physical isolation due to COVID has been a major element slowing down progress. Lack of time, (due to other commitments) is also a major challenge. 

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Challenges: I will (also) point out that the physical isolation due to COVID has been a major element slowing down progress. Lack of time, (due to other commitments) is also a major challenge. 

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Successes: Faculty and staff are being very receptive to incorporate/discuss issues related to DEI in my department and to discuss how to make it more inclusive.

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I'm just in the planning stage and a bit unsure of where to go next.

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Still gathering information from my department. I've met with my director of diversity and director of graduate studies to start the conversations.

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Still gathering information from my department. I've met with my director of diversity and director of graduate studies to start the conversations.

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Successes: I have a supportive department and active DEI committee. I also discovered that we have a couple of previous surveys from dept reviews with lots of data related to graduate studies and the department in general, including DEI-related issues, so I think I will have most of what I need from those in completing the baseline assessment. Challenges: I have a lot of data to sift through, and the data are not well organized or in the same place, so it will be a lot of work to put together and figure out how best to focus our efforts for the plan.

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Successes: I have a supportive department and active DEI committee. I also discovered that we have a couple of previous surveys from dept reviews with lots of data related to graduate studies and the department in general, including DEI-related issues, so I think I will have most of what I need from those in completing the baseline assessment. Challenges: I have a lot of data to sift through, and the data are not well organized or in the same place, so it will be a lot of work to put together and figure out how best to focus our efforts for the plan.