New category: Inclusion, and Monthly Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion meetings

Meta
#1

The extended organizing committee of the DEI PCW 2020 session is planning on a series of discussions to follow up the session and leading up to next year anti-racism workshop at the PCW 2021. Each month, starting in October, we will organize a meeting focused on one of the eight Spheres of Influence. Everyone is invited to each meeting to discuss and further develop the second-order changes and interventions that each sphere of influence had mapped in the 30-minute breakout sessions and/or in follow-up work. The overall goal is to produce a comprehensive roadmap to our equity and social justice goals before the next PCW. We will organize the first meeting in the first week of October. The live meeting will be augmented and supported by this NEW COMMUNITY CATEGORY “inclusion” on community.lsst.org to continue our conversation, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion discussions on the LSSTC slack are hosted in the #inclusion channel and in various Science Collaboration specific channels (contact your SC for more info).
Tentative schedule: First Thursday of each month 12PM Pacific / 3PM Eastern / 8PM CEST

the organizers,

Federica Bianco
Keith Bechtol
Andres Plazas
Brian Nord

1 Like
#2

This is a great proposal for a new category :+1:t2:. We’ll have to decide whether this is a new top-level category (like, e.g., News, Science, Support) or if it would perhaps be appropriate as a sub-category of the Science or Science Collaborations category?

It would be helpful to have a draft “About the DEI Category” to post immediately, too (e.g., like the draft when the Stats Q&A category was proposed).

#3

I do not think it should be a subcat of SCs: this is bigger than the SCs and we are specifically looking at coordinating action with all subsystems. Similarly tho, this is not just Science but also construction, EPO, etc. So i am leaning: a new category
In this category, we will start a topic for each sphere of influence as defined here where we can report on the work that sphere of influence is proposing in the monthly meetings and beyond. If you identify a missing sphere of influence start a new topic with a description of the influence that it has (similar to the descriptions in the previous link). As the theory-of-change charts are made for each sphere of influence, they should be uploaded here. Ultimately we will merge them into a comprehensive roadmap.

1 Like
#4

This sounds like a comprehensive plan :+1:t2:
Let’s wait a bit to allow time for others to consider and comment on this topic? Perhaps they will have thoughts on tags or seeding Topic threads.

#5

I’m all for a new category. Some top levels categories are visible without login and others are not, that should also be decided.

#6

To address Ranpal’s comment about categories being visible without login, I think these three examples illustrate your main choices, but do feel free to describe exactly the security level this category might need and we can try to set it up.

Default: all logged-in users can create new topics and post replies, and anyone can view all posts without login.

Option 1: restrict new topic creation to a few people (e.g., you four proposers), but allow all logged-in users to post replies, and anyone can view all posts without login (like the News category).

Option 2: create a “group” of users within Community, and only allow logged-in users who are members of this group can create new topics, post replies, and view posts in the category (like the Science Collaborations category).

Aside from a decision on security settings, could I get the text for the default pinned topic “About the Inclusion Category” that I make when the category is created? (E.g., like the draft provided when the Stats Q&A category was proposed).

#7

can we restrict access to logged in users, but let all logged in users access (i.e. with no group restrictions?)

#8

Keep in mind that anyone with an email address can create a Community account and login. But I believe forcing a login does eliminate visibility to search engines.

#9

Yes we can. We can restrict the Inclusion category to be seen only by users with a Trust Level 0 or higher, and not by everyone. This is still technically a “group restriction” (Option 2, above), but all logged-in users are automatically in the group.

Here is a good description of everyone vs. Trust Level 0 from this webpage:
“The everyone group is made up of all users, including anonymous users. The Trust Level 0 group is all users who have created an account and are logged into your forum. You can disallow anonymous access to a category by setting the group to trust_level_0 instead of everyone .”

Note for admins: in the Discourse language I would make the security setting be “create/reply/see” for group=“trust_level_0”.

It sounds like this would meet your needs?

#10

yes, i think so!

1 Like
#11

This category has been created. Thanks everyone for their input!

#12

I’ve read through lots of the Slack #Inclusion channel links and the conversations. I’m reading through the Spheres of Influence and I’ll re-read the Theory of Change paper. Am I on the right track?

1 Like
#13

I’m also interested in connections between Rubin research institutions and community colleges. I suspect community colleges may have a more diverse student population, but I don’t know for sure, so I’ll research demographics. I’d like to see a community college class or two where students can learn to access and use astronomical data, much like the pre-Map courses at the UW. They would transfer into a 4 year program with a level of data literacy and self-confidence that would otherwise come much later, and early access to real astronomy data could be inspirational and motivating. The courses would need to be transferrable to 4 year schools, of course. I’m not sure which sphere of influence would fit this best (outreach?).

#14

Hi @babel yes you are on the right track - and we are on the journey together. in other words, do not expect answers on this category, just many like-minded people who are educating themselves and each other!

Continuing this conversation in https://community.lsst.org/t/how-do-we-get-more-involved-with-colleges-with-diverse-demographics/4493 as suggested below

2 Likes
#15

@babel and @fed: you may want to take the last few messages and create a new topic in https://community.lsst.org/c/eji/45 with them, rather than leaving them here in the Meta category. (If it’s not obvious how to do that, I can do it for you if you tell me the topic name you’d like.)

1 Like
#16

Hi Fed,

Yes, we have a significantly more diverse student population. College of the Canyons is a Hispanic Serving Institution. Curriculum changes are a slow process, although for this term we have just received funding for using the Slooh telescope network in out observational labs. I would love to be able to promote more data-centered astronomy courses!

Peregrine

#17

Hi @pmmcgehee do you mind re-replying in this threads https://community.lsst.org/t/how-do-we-get-more-involved-with-colleges-with-diverse-demographics/4493 this post is in the meta category, which is used to propose new categories, while the concersation should happen in the category that was created after this proposal to create one

1 Like
#18

For future reference, it’s possible (at least for administrators/moderators and possibly other users) to select particular posts in a topic using the “wrench” icon and then move them to an existing topic or create a new one. No need to repost, and the message threading is kept.