Justice | Equity | Diversity | Inclusion

The Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Initiative was conceived and implemented by two graduate students and their mentors: Lillian Horin (BBS, Systems Biology Department, Mentor: Tim Mitchison) and Alana Van Dervort (BBS, Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Mentor: Doug Melton), in hopes of creating a transparent process for assessing and improving equity and belonging, and encouraging conversations on the topics of diversity, equity and inclusion within and between these two departments.  Horin and Van Dervort each received the prestigious Gilliam Fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and chose to use the funding they received to pursue this initiative.

The Report

For the first phase of the initiative, the Gilliam Fellows and the Systems Biology and Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology departments co-commissioned a study to analyze the state of the social climate of their respective departments. The study was conducted in 2021 and completed in 2022 by Dr. Bryan Dewsbury, the leader of the Science Education and Society program at Florida International University, Dr. Meghan Bathgate (Director of Educational Assessment at Yale University), and Dr. Becky Wai-Ling Packard (Professor of Psychology and Education at Mount Holyoke).

This is the report that details the outcome of the study for the Department of Systems Biology. We are sharing this report in full to help inform the ongoing discussion within our Department on how to improve our social climate. The report identifies many possible areas of improvement and makes explicit suggestions about how improvements can be made.  The Department's leadership team is looking forward to a community-wide conversation in which we all (faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, non-tenure track scientists, and staff) work together to find and prioritize solutions.

Next Steps

In order to continue these conversations, Dr. Bryan Dewsbury will be speaking at the 2023 Department Retreat and is planning to visit the department again later in 2023. The goal of these post report discussions is to use the findings of the report for creating tangible benchmarks for change within the department.

Interested in what’s being done to address the JEDI report findings?