GAIN 2021

GAIN stands for Graduates Achieving Inclusion Now and is the name of a soon to be national virtual event. Th purpose of this virtual event is to empower both faculty and graduate students of mathematics and statistics community to converse about issues of discrimination and systemic inequity. We aim to inform faculty members of the problems and potential solutions with respect to the following topics: racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia, ableism and mental health, allyship and mentoring, measuring graduate success, and avoiding objectivity theater. To execute our mission, we work with invited graduate students and postdoc speakers to give presentations on both how the issues at hand unfold and potential action items to improve graduate student experiences. Audience members will walk away with a better understanding of how to advocate on behalf of the minoritized graduate students in their department both by listening to their concerns and taking concrete action.

Seppo, Sarah, and myself teamed up, by perhaps unconventional means, to organize this event because we felt that graduate student in the mathematics community should be stake holders in how the culture of the discipline operates and progresses.

We feel there is a need for such event because: 

• Graduate students' voices are often not taken into consideration on matters that affect them. 

• Assimilation into mathematical culture is often emphasized despite the ways in which current mathematical culture is harmful, particularly to minoritized students.

• Talks relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) often ask the speaker to relive trauma in order to convince the audience to care instead of being solution-oriented.

• DEI work is typically not compensated.

After what we considered a successful first event, we are are having discussions about whether or not we will host another. 

Below is some of the feedback we recieved: 

• "I like that the conference was not afraid to face topics a lot of mathematicians try to avoid."

• "The parallel sessions I attended were really great, I loved being able to talk to people with similar experiences since that's very hard to find within my own program."

• "It has been a treasure to be able to participate and learn so much."

After what we considered a successful first event, we are are having discussions about whether or not we will host another.