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My first reaction to this news was, “fine, sounds like a silly requirement.” However, being a PhD graduate from a minority background, I really have to thank my

My first reaction to this news was, “fine, sounds like a silly requirement.” However, being a PhD graduate from a minority background, I really have to thank my advisor for the undergraduate outreach work he did, without which there is realistically a negligible chance I would have ended up with a PhD and a great research career. I don’t know what motivated him to do this work, but from a purely pragmatic perspective, if professors know that performing such duties helps them get promoted, perhaps it’s not a bad policy, as long as inequities exist in academia. There are so many other pressures on young faculty, outreach may be something that is hard to justify spending time on unless you have to do it in some sense.

pradn 2y ago
It's also a way to compel action across all professors, not just professors from historically-underrepresented groups, who would likely be bearing the brunt of the work.
dgfitz 2y ago
Perhaps you were simply evaluated against your noggin and not your skin? Edit: what are the arguments against this?
- lazide 2y ago
  they very well might have been evaluated based entirely on their abilities alone. A toxic element of DEI is that now they have to always wonder (as does everyone else) if it was done because of their skin color/gender/race, regardless of what their mentor says. Because it very well may be true as well.
  - judahmeek 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - thewanderer1983 2y ago
    Just like the justice system. People should be assumed innocent until proven guilty. DEI and more broadly CRT are toxic because minorities, like all humans have faults and these ideas promote minorities to assume discrimination instead of faults. Therefore not helping these individuals improve their faults. This also promotes division and hatred in society. Overall net negative.
    - achenet 2y ago
      to be fair, I don't think yelling at someone for their flaws is very effective at fixing them. My reasoning can be summed up as "look at prison recidivism vs Skinner's work on positive reinforcement".
- noobermin 2y ago
  This comment does not make sense in reply to this question...where did they say anything about evaluation, the point they made is the difference it made is their advisor doing outreach.
  - dgfitz 2y ago
    I made the mental leap of “the advisor reached out because they saw the potential” which I assumed… was assumed.
    - nsagent 2y ago
      In this case, "outreach" means [1]: the extending of services or assistance beyond current or usual limits | an outreach program [1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/outreach#dictionary-entry-2 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/outreach#dictiona...
    - kelipso 2y ago
      No it's not on an individual basis, outreach work means something more like the professor talked to a group of students about their work and what they can do to join their lab for a phd. There are lots and lots of undergrads who don't know a thing about graduate school.
- OJFord 2y ago
  > Edit: what are the arguments against this? I happen not to agree with them, but leaving that aside they're often that Ok fine, it's a pipeline problem^, but the solution is to address that at every stage, not just the beginning. (^meaning for example schoolgirls aren't sufficiently interested and encouraged into STEM so university applications are low, so admissions are low, so graduations are low, so job applications are low, so offers are low, so employer gender ratios are low)
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    STEM is something you gotta have some substantial internal motivation to do, such as doing it for a hobby. The kind of work I enjoy, you gotta really like it or it isn't going to work out for you. For example, I was taking machines apart when I was 7 trying to figure out how they worked. I'd break open resistors to see what was inside - just baffling grey dust. Eventually I took bicycles apart, then engines, then whole cars. It was just foregone that I was going to engineering school.
    - kelipso 2y ago
      Maybe decades ago when college students based their choice of majors on feelings or whatever that might have been true. Nowadays college students are much more practical. An obvious example is the rise in CS majors in the last decade. The notion of substantial motivation or hobby to go into STEM is absolutely ridiculous.
      - jasonm23 2y ago
        To go into a subject, with no foundation, no motivation and no interest. How is this a set up for success? I mean, sure, people can go into any subject, but... if they're to succeed?
      - WalterBright 2y ago
        > The notion of substantial motivation or hobby to go into STEM is absolutely ridiculous. Pretty much all the ones I know that are good at it love it. Just like musicians and athletes. Sure, there are those in it for the money. They're usually the tweeners. > Nowadays college students are much more practical. I'm not so sure about that. There's a large number of math avoiders in college, and when they graduate discover their degree is worth a minimum wage job.
- avs733 2y ago
  perhaps he wasn't. clearly we are at an impasse Maybe put some value and engage with someone's articulation of their personal experience as opposed to simply dismissing it because it does not comport with your world view.
  - dgfitz 2y ago
    What did I dismiss? By all accounts they sounds quite successful as well as appreciative of their undergraduate advisor. Engage in their experience? See above. Should I have snuck in there somewhere “nice job kind gentle person, you succeeded” or something? What world view is that?
jimbokun 2y ago
How was the outreach aimed at you different than the outreach aimed at any other students?
- nsagent 2y ago
  It's not about treating students differently. Rather it's about where you spend your limited resources for outreach. For example, during my PhD I did outreach in both elementary and middle schools where teachers said there were skills gaps they needed help with. The demographics in some of those schools happened to be such that 80-90% of the students were black and brown.
  - jimbokun 2y ago
    I think if more DEI efforts were expressed as programs like this, there would be a lot less backlash.
  - EnigmaFlare 2y ago
    That's not really DEI. That's just targeting schools with skills gaps, and it might have turned out to be mostly white. To be DEI, they'd have to be chosen because of ethnicity, gender, etc.
    - nsagent 2y ago
      DEI is applied broadly, for example here's a list of demographics targeted for DEI from one of Biden's executive orders [1]: The initiative will advance opportunity for communities that have historically faced employment discrimination and professional barriers, including: people of color; women; first-generation professionals and immigrants; individuals with disabilities; LGBTQ+ individuals; Americans who live in rural areas; older Americans who face age discrimination when seeking employment; parents and caregivers who face employment barriers; people of faith who require religious accommodations at work; individuals who were formerly incarcerated; and veterans and military spouses. [1]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/06/25/fact-sheet-president-biden-signs-executive-order-advancing-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-accessibility-in-the-federal-government/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
Gimpei 2y ago
I think this is a good point. I wonder how useful diversity statements are for accomplishing this task. It just seems like cheap talk to me. More useful would be to reward people in tenure review for outreach to minorities. I’m from a minority, just not one that is recognized as such in the convoluted system that is racial politics in the US (I am of Iraqi descent). But if I were in the shoes of someone who should be benefiting from DEI policies, I’d be pissed off with how it’s shaken out. Seems like a whole lot of empty, performative symbolism with negligible actual change. Things like DEI statements read like box ticking to me, allowing administrators to say they’ve “tried” without doing anything. Same goes for sensitivity trainings, and flashy renaming of, for example, master to main. The singular focus on symbolism has not done anyone any favors apart from a few semiotics professors, although I wonder if they’ve been chastened by how little their favored policies have accomplished.
- Fomite 2y ago
  One of the things it does do is separate people who treat it as a box checking exercise from the people who approach it seriously.
- jack_riminton 2y ago
  Such is the nature of bureaucracies, whatever is easy to measure will become the measure
gotoeleven 2y ago
Not to be flippant but the saying "when you're robbing peter to pay paul, you can always count on the support of paul" comes to mind. Maybe you really are a super qualified researcher that is doing great work, but all I see as the result of this DEI stuff is sinecures and make work jobs and generally lower standards across the board. (e.g. the former harvard president, or the current press secretary) I dont think anyone would have a problem with DEI if it was about identifying unrecognized talent and making sure it got the proper attention. Thats not what it is right now.
eli_gottlieb 2y ago
I once helped my advisor write a grant application and he put in some great outreach stuff in the DEI section of the app. What turns me cynical about DEI statements/sections is that after we won the grant, there was no money for that inclusion programming and nobody ever checked whether we'd really done it.
- lazide 2y ago
  And that is the ‘performative’ part. It’s similar to making everyone sort their recycling, and then just throwing it all in the same landfill when it actually gets to the dump. Why not actually recycle? And/or if we’re not going to actually recycle, why make everyone go through such a complicated song and dance and spend so much time on something that ends up not mattering? Wait, this is a lot more applicable of an analogy than I was expecting.

pradn 2y ago

It's also a way to compel action across all professors, not just professors from historically-underrepresented groups, who would likely be bearing the brunt of the work.

dgfitz 2y ago

Perhaps you were simply evaluated against your noggin and not your skin? Edit: what are the arguments against this?

lazide 2y ago
they very well might have been evaluated based entirely on their abilities alone. A toxic element of DEI is that now they have to always wonder (as does everyone else) if it was done because of their skin color/gender/race, regardless of what their mentor says. Because it very well may be true as well.
- judahmeek 2y ago
  [flagged]
- thewanderer1983 2y ago
  Just like the justice system. People should be assumed innocent until proven guilty. DEI and more broadly CRT are toxic because minorities, like all humans have faults and these ideas promote minorities to assume discrimination instead of faults. Therefore not helping these individuals improve their faults. This also promotes division and hatred in society. Overall net negative.
  - achenet 2y ago
    to be fair, I don't think yelling at someone for their flaws is very effective at fixing them. My reasoning can be summed up as "look at prison recidivism vs Skinner's work on positive reinforcement".
noobermin 2y ago
This comment does not make sense in reply to this question...where did they say anything about evaluation, the point they made is the difference it made is their advisor doing outreach.
- dgfitz 2y ago
  I made the mental leap of “the advisor reached out because they saw the potential” which I assumed… was assumed.
  - nsagent 2y ago
    In this case, "outreach" means [1]: the extending of services or assistance beyond current or usual limits | an outreach program [1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/outreach#dictionary-entry-2 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/outreach#dictiona...
  - kelipso 2y ago
    No it's not on an individual basis, outreach work means something more like the professor talked to a group of students about their work and what they can do to join their lab for a phd. There are lots and lots of undergrads who don't know a thing about graduate school.
OJFord 2y ago
> Edit: what are the arguments against this? I happen not to agree with them, but leaving that aside they're often that Ok fine, it's a pipeline problem^, but the solution is to address that at every stage, not just the beginning. (^meaning for example schoolgirls aren't sufficiently interested and encouraged into STEM so university applications are low, so admissions are low, so graduations are low, so job applications are low, so offers are low, so employer gender ratios are low)
- WalterBright 2y ago
  STEM is something you gotta have some substantial internal motivation to do, such as doing it for a hobby. The kind of work I enjoy, you gotta really like it or it isn't going to work out for you. For example, I was taking machines apart when I was 7 trying to figure out how they worked. I'd break open resistors to see what was inside - just baffling grey dust. Eventually I took bicycles apart, then engines, then whole cars. It was just foregone that I was going to engineering school.
  - kelipso 2y ago
    Maybe decades ago when college students based their choice of majors on feelings or whatever that might have been true. Nowadays college students are much more practical. An obvious example is the rise in CS majors in the last decade. The notion of substantial motivation or hobby to go into STEM is absolutely ridiculous.
    - jasonm23 2y ago
      To go into a subject, with no foundation, no motivation and no interest. How is this a set up for success? I mean, sure, people can go into any subject, but... if they're to succeed?
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      > The notion of substantial motivation or hobby to go into STEM is absolutely ridiculous. Pretty much all the ones I know that are good at it love it. Just like musicians and athletes. Sure, there are those in it for the money. They're usually the tweeners. > Nowadays college students are much more practical. I'm not so sure about that. There's a large number of math avoiders in college, and when they graduate discover their degree is worth a minimum wage job.
avs733 2y ago
perhaps he wasn't. clearly we are at an impasse Maybe put some value and engage with someone's articulation of their personal experience as opposed to simply dismissing it because it does not comport with your world view.
- dgfitz 2y ago
  What did I dismiss? By all accounts they sounds quite successful as well as appreciative of their undergraduate advisor. Engage in their experience? See above. Should I have snuck in there somewhere “nice job kind gentle person, you succeeded” or something? What world view is that?

jimbokun 2y ago

How was the outreach aimed at you different than the outreach aimed at any other students?

nsagent 2y ago
It's not about treating students differently. Rather it's about where you spend your limited resources for outreach. For example, during my PhD I did outreach in both elementary and middle schools where teachers said there were skills gaps they needed help with. The demographics in some of those schools happened to be such that 80-90% of the students were black and brown.
- jimbokun 2y ago
  I think if more DEI efforts were expressed as programs like this, there would be a lot less backlash.
- EnigmaFlare 2y ago
  That's not really DEI. That's just targeting schools with skills gaps, and it might have turned out to be mostly white. To be DEI, they'd have to be chosen because of ethnicity, gender, etc.
  - nsagent 2y ago
    DEI is applied broadly, for example here's a list of demographics targeted for DEI from one of Biden's executive orders [1]: The initiative will advance opportunity for communities that have historically faced employment discrimination and professional barriers, including: people of color; women; first-generation professionals and immigrants; individuals with disabilities; LGBTQ+ individuals; Americans who live in rural areas; older Americans who face age discrimination when seeking employment; parents and caregivers who face employment barriers; people of faith who require religious accommodations at work; individuals who were formerly incarcerated; and veterans and military spouses. [1]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/06/25/fact-sheet-president-biden-signs-executive-order-advancing-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-accessibility-in-the-federal-government/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...

Gimpei 2y ago

I think this is a good point. I wonder how useful diversity statements are for accomplishing this task. It just seems like cheap talk to me. More useful would be to reward people in tenure review for outreach to minorities. I’m from a minority, just not one that is recognized as such in the convoluted system that is racial politics in the US (I am of Iraqi descent). But if I were in the shoes of someone who should be benefiting from DEI policies, I’d be pissed off with how it’s shaken out. Seems like a whole lot of empty, performative symbolism with negligible actual change. Things like DEI statements read like box ticking to me, allowing administrators to say they’ve “tried” without doing anything. Same goes for sensitivity trainings, and flashy renaming of, for example, master to main. The singular focus on symbolism has not done anyone any favors apart from a few semiotics professors, although I wonder if they’ve been chastened by how little their favored policies have accomplished.

Fomite 2y ago
One of the things it does do is separate people who treat it as a box checking exercise from the people who approach it seriously.
jack_riminton 2y ago
Such is the nature of bureaucracies, whatever is easy to measure will become the measure

gotoeleven 2y ago

Not to be flippant but the saying "when you're robbing peter to pay paul, you can always count on the support of paul" comes to mind. Maybe you really are a super qualified researcher that is doing great work, but all I see as the result of this DEI stuff is sinecures and make work jobs and generally lower standards across the board. (e.g. the former harvard president, or the current press secretary) I dont think anyone would have a problem with DEI if it was about identifying unrecognized talent and making sure it got the proper attention. Thats not what it is right now.

eli_gottlieb 2y ago

I once helped my advisor write a grant application and he put in some great outreach stuff in the DEI section of the app. What turns me cynical about DEI statements/sections is that after we won the grant, there was no money for that inclusion programming and nobody ever checked whether we'd really done it.

lazide 2y ago
And that is the ‘performative’ part. It’s similar to making everyone sort their recycling, and then just throwing it all in the same landfill when it actually gets to the dump. Why not actually recycle? And/or if we’re not going to actually recycle, why make everyone go through such a complicated song and dance and spend so much time on something that ends up not mattering? Wait, this is a lot more applicable of an analogy than I was expecting.