September 24, 2020
The Societies Consortium on Sexual Harassment in STEMM held its second all-members meeting this September. The Consortium was created with over 100 inaugural member organizations standing together against sexual, racial, and other intersecting bases of harassment, conceived in response to a report from The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Now a force of over 130 societies, representatives from member organizations convened to hear updates, exchange ideas in breakout groups on topics including inclusive virtual meetings and re-thinking honors and awards systems, and discuss the goals and direction of the Consortium. Plenary sessions were also given aimed to help members gain a deeper understanding of the epistemic exclusion of underrepresented communities in academia, and to set the stage for a workshop on responding to sexual harassment allegations using frameworks they have developed.
In order to help societies in their efforts to increase equity and inclusivity in their fields, the Consortium recently created the “Roadmap Towards Excellence & Integrity in STEMM”, a three-phase approach. Each phase of the Roadmap — Starting Out, Developing Policy, and Building Community — is laid out with action steps and lists of resources to assist with creating a flexible course or matrix of action. Consortium leadership and other members who have used the tool stressed that the path to inclusivity is not necessarily linear, nor is the work ever completely done.
Drawing from the power of being a collective, the Consortium has also developed a member matching tool. Here, one can filter members using criteria such as membership size, revenue, and policy issue focus to find other societies which may be helpful to partner with and learn from to achieve their goals.
All of these tools, model policies, compendiums, and more are available to Consortium members. Since FABBS is a member, our member societies are also able to access these materials.
