Leveraging Your Power to Create a More Inclusive Environment in Academia

Trying to enact change in a system that has historic and systemic marginalization built into its very foundation can often feel like a Sisyphean task. Institutions of higher education have been guilty of the same kinds of exclusion, bias, racism and sexism as other established systems in this country (and others). While that ship is turning these days, the changes often don't seem to be quick enough or impactful enough to allow for current students and employees to benefit. Many of us in academia understand this problem to some extent, yet feel we are helpless to drive any of those changes ourselves. In this panel, I will talk about how we can all leverage our own power, granted to us through our identities and career status, to create change. I will discuss coalition-building, transformations that you can make in physics departments immediately, low-cost and low-effort programs that can affect recruitment and retention, and larger goals of equity to work towards.