Safe & welcoming community 2023

Our individual labs are committed to creating safe and welcoming spaces for all members, including students, to share ideas and points of view. In many cases this is a matter of routine.

Members of our labs have diverse lived experiences, and these differences are not necessarily visible. For example, researchers are deeply conscious of income disparities among students’ financial backgrounds. One researcher noted that he served as advisor for a female student who is the first in her family to attend college and is Pell Grant-eligible. Another researcher raised the minimum pay in his lab to $17.20 per hour, in part to help underrepresented students gain equity in society as they learn scientific procedures.

Mentoring efforts extend to undergraduate and graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers. In 2023 our scientists listed at least 50 individuals they mentored who were from historically underrepresented groups. In many cases, this happens organically; in others, we work with students through specific programs, such as the Emerging Scholars Program or the BEEST (Building Emerging STEM Scholars of Tomorrow) program.

Our researchers actively recruit for permanent positions to groups historically underrepresented in ecology by advertising opportunities widely to include these groups, and by writing grants to provide support for individuals in these groups. They also have made accommodation for persons of differing physical abilities.

Nevertheless, it is impossible to quantify efforts toward creating a welcoming environmental for all, as many of these efforts have an extensive and incalculable ripple effect, for example:

• Sara Baer, director, senior scientist and professor, co-chaired KU’s Safe & Inclusive Field Work Task Force, which developed a web page with resources to create safe field work plans, along with a template for writing such plans for specific projects. Bryan Foster, senior scientist, professor, and director of the KU Field Station, also served on the task force.
• Amy Burgin, senior scientist and professor, was principal investigator of the Haskell-KU Bridges Program, which coordinates several externally funded programs at KU and Haskell Indian Nations University designed to increase participation of underrepresented students in STEM.
• Kelly Kindscher, senior scientist and professor, collaborated with Arikara, Omaha and Osage tribal nation members and staff on ethnobotany projects.
• Ben Sikes, associate scientist and associate professor, served as the faculty mentor for the KU’s Chapter of the Ecological Society of America SEEDS (Strategies for Ecology Education, Diversity and Sustainability) program, which had 15 students in 2023.
• Peggy Schultz, researcher, and her team focused on Title I schools, which are highly diverse, providing lessons in both English and Spanish through the NSF-funded MAPS (Microbiomes of Aquatic, Plant, and Soil Systems Across Kansas) EPSCoR Kansas Ecology for Elementary Students.