Insights from the Inclusive Environments and Metrics in Biology Education and Research Network: Our Experience Organizing Inclusive Biology Education Research Events

The diversity of the U.S. population and general workforce is not reflected in the current composition of the STEM workforce. Only ~10% of STEM-based jobs are held by individuals from minoritized groups (1–3). According to McCarty (4), “minoritization” (5) refers to the processes of structural inequality arising from the attribution of unequal statuses, opportunities, and roles (6, 7). The minoritized groups in STEM that we refer to here are those which are underrepresented as noted by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Such underrepresented minority (URM) groups include African American/Black, Latina/o, and American Indian or Alaska Native peoples. NSF also considers women and people with disabilities underrepresented in STEM.

Understanding the underrepresentation of minoritized groups in STEM benefits from a nuanced perspective. For instance, women remain underrepresented in STEM occupations even though women and men earn more similar proportions of STEM degrees today than they earned in the past (3). Furthermore, there is still a lack of gender parity in the type of degrees awarded (including more advanced degrees) and the specific fields in which degrees are earned. Likewise, while the share of African Americans, Latina/os, and American Indians who have been awarded STEM degrees has increased, there is still racial and ethnic underrepresentation in STEM degree and job attainment (3).

Diverse perspectives are crucial in STEM, and the current underrepresentation of minoritized groups in STEM throughout these various levels of the academy and in the workforce negatively impacts technological innovation and advancement (8, 9) as well as research productivity (10–13). Concomitantly, who is included and supported in STEM is an issue of social justice, as participation by and integration of peoples in STEM is recursive to their larger social standing and progress. That is to say, STEM gatekeeping can impact groups’ socioeconomic and political standing (14).

To address this underrepresentation in the academy and the workforce, it is necessary to develop strategies that will broaden participation in STEM at various education and career levels across STEM-relevant environments (e.g., classrooms, laboratories, events, etc.). Such strategies include efforts to make academic conference environments more inclusive, which is the topic of this article. Much discussion about the bias and discrimination at conferences occurs through avenues outside of discipline-based literature (i.e., webinars, workshops). Given that work-related contexts share many features with conferences, we can generalize that the kinds of bias that lead to exclusionary practice in other work-related contexts similarly plague conferences (15). Indeed, we posit that the traditional structures and organization of professional societies and conferences exacerbate inequality in STEM.

The critical examination of the non-content structure of conferences reveals the covert ways in which culture and inequalities within STEM are replicated at these venues. The ways in which women, people of color, individuals with disabilities, sexual and gender minorities, and additional minoritized groups are received and treated during these conferences convey messages of inclusion or exclusion. For instance, childcare and nursing station accommodations send messages about the accessibility of science to parents and nursing mothers. These patterns can occur at many levels, from structural/organizational (e.g., prohibitive meeting costs, location) to the micro-level (e.g., gender discrimination in the types and numbers of questions asked to and by women, assumptions that scholars of color are there as service people).

Codes of conduct and organizational policies are one way that the non-content structures of conferences may be addressed (16, 17). However, most conferences, at least in the biological fields, do not have these institutionalized (18). While statements on diversity, equity, and inclusion are a good start, without institutionalized policies and clear consequences, they alone cannot bring significant change.

In recent years, there has been increased attention to improving inclusion in STEM in kindergarten through undergraduate (K–16) classrooms (19), while efforts to improve inclusion in STEM professional organizations and events are less pronounced (or at least are less often published), with some notable exceptions (e.g., [15, 20–22]). We borrow Dewsbury and Brame’s operationalization of inclusivity, defining it as “the practice of including people across differences” that “implies an intentional practice of recognizing and working to mitigate biases that lead to marginalization or exclusion of some people” (19).

Promoting inclusion in scholarly meetings is vital given the pivotal role that professional academic and scientific organizations can play within broader disciplines, and their potential to disrupt inequality in STEM. The establishment of a culture of inclusion at professional events provides a unique opportunity to unsettle the status quo and broaden participation in STEM. First, these organizations hold meetings, conferences, and workshops that may improve the social capital of their members by offering attendees beneficial networking and exposure opportunities (9). At these events, professionals and academics, including early-career faculty, postdocs, and graduate and undergraduate students, can benefit from showcasing their research, receiving feedback from field-experts, identifying future collaborators/mentors, and so on. Thus, the social capital that is potentially gleaned through these meetings could help improve the representation of minoritized groups in STEM. Second, these organizations may contribute to practitioners’ beliefs or cultural models about how their field works by making evident the expectations and values of their specific disciplines (23, 24). These understandings emerge and are reproduced at the micro and macro levels at these conferences through, for instance, the diversity of presenters, the research/discussion topics, and even conference themes. It is reasonable to argue that how these meetings unfold potentially affects participants’ cultural models, including their feelings of belonging, which likely support or discourage their retention in STEM (23).

The Inclusive Environments and Metrics in Biology Education and Research (iEMBER) Network is an NSF-funded research collaboration network focused on fostering interdisciplinary research collaborations that study and address inclusion in biology (see www.iember.org). A core component of this network is the offering of workshops and conferences that bring stakeholders from diverse backgrounds and fields together to develop novel research projects. In this article, we examine iEMBER’s efforts to create intentionally inclusive conference sessions at the iEMBER 2019 meeting and NABT (National Association of Biology Teachers) 2019 iEMBER workshop to offer insight on what has and has not worked, as well as to suggest practices that can further foster inclusion within these types of events.

The social sciences, including anthropology, sociology, and psychology, as well as the field of education studies, provide several theoretical frameworks that are pertinent to the topic of inclusion in STEM. In this article, we highlight two frameworks in particular: participatory social capital and cultural models. We refer readers interested in additional complementary structural and/or behavioral theories of inclusion to scholarship on those topics (25, 26).

Participatory social capital refers to the people and resources to which an individual has access through their participation in organizations (9), such as professional biology organizations (e.g., NABT, an organization that promotes biology and life science education; https://nabt.org). This concept relates to our work in that we mobilize it to recognize the impact that iEMBER and other professional meetings can have on helping individuals become successful members of the biology community. Indeed, Skvoretz et al. (9) argue that participatory social capital, including the social capital gained through participation in the organizations and meetings that are the focus of this article, might play an important role in undergraduates’ persistence and retention in their engineering degree programs.

It is likely that participatory social capital might similarly play an important role in the retention of undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs, and early-career faculty in biology and STEM more broadly, especially for those from minoritized groups. For instance, disciplinary conferences often offer an opportunity for minoritized scholars to network and be around people in their field who may share similar identities, an opportunity they may not have in their own department. National STEM diversity-focused conferences, such as those offered by the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS), are perhaps a more focused source of such support and resources (27). Regardless of the specific targeted audience, all organizations have a responsibility to implement policies supporting members’ equitable access to their resources, which we believe requires greater efforts toward developing and deploying inclusive policies and practices.

Cultural models refer to the shared, internalized cultural schemas upon which people within a culture draw to construct and organize what they believe, the meanings attributed to phenomena, and their practices (28). Smith et al. (23) apply cultural model theory to engineering undergraduates in their articulation of the Cultural Model of Engineering Success concept. This concept holds that beliefs about how to succeed in engineering are taught through a curriculum that is both overt as well as hidden. The authors propose that students who practice behaviors in accordance with these beliefs might be more likely to be successful in their degree programs. We extend D’Andrade (28) and Smith et al.’s (23) theorization by applying cultural model theory to biology and STEM professionals more broadly, specifying that professional biology education-related meetings are a source through which individuals at all levels of their career are socialized toward the norms of their field (including their feelings of belonging within that field). Conferences that nurture cultural models more consistent with the identities and experiences of diverse individuals likely promote a greater sense of belonging for attendees within their disciplinary fields (23). This is important given that sense of belonging in STEM has been shown to be key to supporting and retaining undergraduate students (29), graduate students (30), and more advanced minoritized scientists in STEM (31).

In planning and executing iEMBER events generally and specifically, including the iEMBER 2019 meeting and NABT 2019 iEMBER workshop discussed here, we rely on multiple sources. These sources include structural, social, and behavioral theoretical frameworks on inclusion, as well as existing resources relevant to inclusion in STEM meetings and classrooms, on our own experiences at conferences and workshops, and on the feedback we receive from participants attending our events. IEMBER group discussion rooted in each of these sources drove us to create sets of guiding questions that we refer to when planning and running events. These guiding questions are presented and discussed in the next section, see especially Table 1 on planning events and Table 2 on executing events. For iEMBER, these two tables are continuously evolving documents. We provide them here as examples for other organizations to use to plan meetings or to develop their own guiding questions. The documents also illustrate the factors we take into consideration, which help us explicate the behind-the-scenes of efforts at making conferences inclusive.

A first important existing resource guide on running inclusive meetings is the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE): Minorities in Engineering Division, and the Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN)’s webinar on how to organize and host inclusive events (21). This resource provides crucial insight on how to disrupt power differences in STEM meetings. Central in this resource is how to unsettle academic hierarchy and traditional meeting norms by, for example, beginning an event by articulating meeting norms/expectations, which seeks to level the playing field. The authors also recommend built-in time for networking and mini-poster sessions where participants introduce themselves. The authors additionally offer tips on how to facilitate meetings as a discussion between participants rather than at them. A second resource providing valuable insight into our efforts is the 500 Women Scientists’ guide on inclusive scientific meetings (15). Here, the authors endorse including and recruiting a diverse organizing committee, advertising attendee funding opportunities, promoting inclusion in advertising and event materials, maintaining rigorous time limits and Q&A procedures to prevent particular members from monopolizing the meeting, and collecting feedback on inclusion to determine whether specific goals were met and to inform future meetings.

Two articles on practices to promote inclusion in the classroom are also core to our meeting organizing: Tanner’s (32) teaching strategies to promote student engagement in the classroom and Dewsbury and Brame’s (19) inclusive teaching handbook with complementary online, evidence-based guide. The main principles of these guides apply well to science meetings and include developing empathy and self-awareness, addressing climate, making intentional pedagogical choices, and fostering a sense of belonging, among others. Dewsbury and Brame note that warm climates nurture students’ sense of belonging and foster in students a value for class tasks and feelings of competence or self-efficacy regarding those tasks (19). To apply these practices to the iEMBER 2019 meeting and NABT 2019 iEMBER workshop, we held explicit discussions on inclusion in which we shared our own reflective practices for self-awareness and empathy and discussed how to be intentional during the facilitation of activities to promote a welcoming climate and social belonging. The outcomes of these discussions are further elaborated upon in the discussion section of this article.

From our own experiences, we have seen examples of inclusive conference practices. Reflecting on these helped us consider how the advice given through the resources above might look in our context. Some of the examples from our experiences that we discussed as a group included, in terms of incorporating diverse perspectives into their leadership structures, that the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the Genetics Society of America (GSA), and the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) all seek to foster leadership development of early-career researchers through support in organizing regional or local events. Similarly, NABT publishes leadership meeting times and locations with an open invitation for all conference participants to attend. In terms of dismantling silos, the Midwestern Psychological Association states that its annual meeting is open to psychologists, students, and members of the public, which helped one of the authors of this article feel welcome attending as a biology faculty member. Similar to the actions of other organizations, the American Chemical Society created “diversity-identified” committees (i.e., the Committee on Minority Affairs, the Committee on Chemists with Disabilities, the Women Chemists Committee) in an attempt to provide opportunities to increase inclusion in the chemical sciences. The ASCB Minority Affairs and Women in Cell Biology committees host networking events and table-talks to facilitate conversations and questions from junior scientists regarding specific steps and stages in career progression—many programs are open to all while others are focused on those underrepresented in the field. We have also observed micro-level practices promoting inclusion at sociological conferences, specifically the inclusion of self-identified pronouns on name tags. This making of space for participants to self-identify gender identity promotes the address of others in comfortable and non-judgmental terms. We have also observed meeting leaders and keynote speakers taking a moment to share their background, as a first-generation student or veteran, or a piece of their culture, such as an introductory sentence in their first or native language, dialect, or accent.

Finally, we constantly re-evaluate our conference practices in response to feedback from our event participants. Specifically, feedback from the iEMBER 2017 (34) and 2019 meetings helped us identify which of the practices we used made attendees feel welcome and included. Those strategies were then prioritized in the planning of our NABT workshop later in 2019. Some of these practices that participants most appreciated included the use of first names and a lack of titles on nametags; changing seating often along with ice breakers to foster community and facilitate meeting new people; intentionally welcoming attitudes and behaviors of iEMBER facilitators; and explicitly stating the event’s values/norms of expected behavior. Clearly, the recommendations made by the resources we reviewed earlier that we adapted to our context were valued by many of our attendees.

To articulate how iEMBER has addressed the challenges we experienced in attempting to conduct more inclusive conferences and meetings, we break down the conference stages into two categories: pre-event planning and the execution of the event. The practices listed below are not the only practices that promote inclusion, nor the only practices we used in our events, but they are the ones that we have repeatedly found to be effective in our contexts. In this discussion, we also provide examples of some of the accommodations and compromises iEMBER has made in line with our guiding concerns and balancing of needs with the resources available, as well as highlight some of our struggles and areas we have identified that could use improvement.

Inclusion practices and advocacy work on the part of committees and members in a professional society are neither easy nor straightforward. We struggle at times. Considering the event schedule, location, and cost is a balancing act, and compromises are often made. Attempts to pack in content and structured discussion sometimes come at the expense of networking time. Event leaders who moderate inclusion can have distractions or moments when their best efforts are not the most effective. Discussions and individual projects, even within a group committed to looking at inclusion, can veer into deficit models/ways to help others improve. Pushback against such models can introduce group conflict. We recognize that conversations on diversity and inclusion can contain biases and microaggressions (i.e. intent versus impact), may lack collective efficacy, and can include behaviors that continue to infiltrate and negatively impact conferences, the scientific enterprise, and the academy.

Yet we highlight how critical it is for conference organizers and those throughout academia to make conscious efforts to identify, interrogate, and address biases, microaggressions, and isolating/exclusionary environments in professional societies and events. Such efforts can help improve underrepresentation in STEM, as they can help decrease environments which can negatively impact (especially minoritized) attendees’ participatory social capital, cultural models, and successes within STEM.

We hope that by offering a self-reflective narrative about iEMBER’s ongoing efforts to be inclusive, we can encourage and aid others as they work towards fostering inclusive practices in their scientific conferences and events. In offering this applied commentary, we likewise further the discussion and scholarship on STEM inclusion by highlighting the organizational processes behind scientific meetings and the many ways and levels at which inclusive practices can be incorporated.

This work was supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation’s Research Coordination Networks in Undergraduate Biology Education program, Award #2010716. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.