Diversity: Initiatives for Postdoctoral Scholars

Across the nation, faculty searches at institutions of higher learning explicitly state that successful applicants will have the skills or the potential to contribute to diversity and the climate of inclusion.

We believe it is our responsibility to provide opportunities for postdoctoral fellows to develop and hone leadership skills and demonstrate their commitment to diversity, and their ability to contribute as a scholar to campus diversity and cultural climate.

Many postdocs hope to pursue a career in academia, but most have little to no formal teaching experience. We have identified two areas in which postdoctoral fellows can make significant contributions to our diversity efforts while at the same time develop and refine important professional skills: TA training and our professional topics seminars.

Participating in and facilitating the TA training workshops and/or the professional topics seminars helps prepare you for your role as a future educator and lets you demonstrate your awareness of the importance of diversity to future employers outside of academia.

Initiatives

• Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education and Diversity Group. If you are interested in STEM education, teaching, diversity and other policy issues, join the STEM Education and Diversity Discussion Group. For more information, contact Dr. Suzanne Lee.  To be added to the mailing list, contact Dr. Evan Merkhofer.
• Teaching Diversity Initiatives.
  • Post-doc led TA Training Workshop on Creating an Inclusive Classroom. Interested in gaining teaching experience? Please contact Dan Pollard, Suzanne Lee, Saurabh Joshi or Evan Merkhofer.
    • Look at descriptions of postdoc time commitments and impact and goals and learning outcomes for TAs.
  • Postdoc-led BILD95 Seminar Intergroup Dialogue: Skills for Building Effective Multicultural Research Teams, a course for undergraduates. Contact Gabriele Wienhausen or Brett Robertson.