This meeting is organic in its nature as not every discussion, presentation, or talk will be led the same way. We want to meet in person following the guidelines on room capacity, and while we encourage an in-person meeting as much as possible to facilitate interaction, we understand that we are still in a transition period and we will offer a hybrid solution. Connection details will be circulated with the announcement email.
We hope to have a healthy and equitable discussion climate. Topics that will be discussed in this meeting may cause discomfort, and we ask that you pay attention to these ground rules:
This is a space for everyone to learn and grow!
We will work together to prioritize the voices and needs of the most vulnerable in any given conversation.
Disagree with ideas, not people; use "I" statements and make sure you speak from your own personal perspective, rather than making generalizations.
Be conscious of how much space you're taking up in a conversation; be extra conscious if you hold a privileged or dominant identity when discussing a form of inequality or oppression.
Avoid playing devil’s advocate: specifically, do not argue for contrarian positions that you do not actually hold.
Upcoming: November 20 2023 - OC218/hybrid (pizza in OCW116)
The topic will be religion and science..
Upcoming: October 16 2023 - OCW017/hybrid
We will hear from non-binary members of the department.
April 24 2023 - hybrid
This month, the session was on neurodiversity and neurodiverse individuals.
March 27 2023 - hybrid
This month, the session was on work-life balance.
February 27 2023 - hybrid
This month, the session was on LGBTQIA+ themes.
January 30 2023 - hybrid
This month's discussion will focus on the workplace environment survey and its results and will have a somewhat special format. We will have space to share our own reflections on the report, in line with our "traditional" IDEA sessions.
This will be followed by a discussion led by Leah Morabito and Anna McLeod to brainstorm ideas and actions to improve our workplace. This latter discussion will take place in small groups.
November 21 2022 - hybrid
The discussion will focus on "how to react when you are receiving or witnessing inappropriate behaviour or comments during work-related social events. The purpose of this session will be to discuss how to react when witnessing or being the target of sexist/racist/discriminatory comments or jokes, or bullying behaviours in work-related social situations, such as conferences, which favour socialisation between people at different career stages, and hence can make it challenging to react appropriately (when at all possible).
October 10 2022 - hybrid
For this month, we will talk about Black History Month and the relation between the Black community and the academic environment. We encourage all of you to engage in the discussion on Monday.
If you are interested in learning more about black history month before the meeting, you can find some resources at the links below:
June 6 2022 - hybrid
For this month, we will discuss how to improve the inclusion of "ethnic and international" minorities within academia.
With the help of a few other members of Astronomy, Azi will lead a discussion on topics related to the experience of being a member of an ethnic and/or international minority group in academia. The aim of the session is to raise awareness about the potential issues, and share ideas about creating an environment that is more inclusive towards ethnic and/or international minority groups. All members are encouraged to engage in the discussion, either spontaneously or feel free to get in touch with Azi beforehand.
If you prefer to ask a question or raise a point in an anonymous way you can submit
April 25 2022 - hybrid
The goal of the discussion is to inform folks about microaggressions in science, ways that we can disarm and/or avoid committing microaggressions in the workplace, and discuss the relative pros and cons of conducting a short physics-wide multi-institution survey about microaggressions, with the goal to make a more inclusive academy.
February 28 2022 - online
Announcement:
We will discuss ”Impostor Syndrome”. This discussion will be led by Dreia and Sunny with the participation of Senior faculty, faculty, recent faculty, PDRA, and PGR.
Everyone is very much welcome to attend as this is something experienced by people in every career and every level. We encourage people to take this short impostor syndrome test (https://paulineroseclance.com/pdf/IPTestandscoring.pdf) before the session and if comfortable, feel free to share their realisations and experience! The session will start with an anonymous zoom poll going over some of the questions from the IS test after which, we will have a panel with Victor, Azi, Alastair, Mathilde, and Ryota to talk about impostor syndrome at different career stages and ways that they cope with IS.
January 31 2022 - online
” Challenges of parenting in academia ” discussion led by Alis D., with the participation of Anna M., and Kyle O.
December 6 2021- OCW 017 - hybrid (online and in person)
For our first meeting, we thought that we could bring the discussion around the Workplace environment Action Plan - link and the recommendations from the astronomical decadal survey around “The Profession and Its Societal Impacts: Gateways to Science, Pathways to Diversity, Equity, and Sustainability” - link. We will leave some space for us to discuss what the rest of our meetings would look like. Such as your engagement with this initiative, its time commitment, healthy conversation guidelines, support from the organisers, external speakers, and the best communication outlet for it.