Department of BiologyFall 2020
Subcommittee members:
- François Lutzoni (FL - Professor)
- Amanda DelVecchia (AGD - Postdoctoral Researcher)
- Jill Foster (JCF - Staff)
- Alison Hill (AH - Senior Lecturer)
- Steve Nowicki (SN - Professor)
- Marie Claire Chelini (MCC - Postdoctoral fellow/Communications specialist)
- Emily Bernhardt (EB - Professor, Chair of Biology Department)
Overarching goal: We want all of those who join our department to have the opportunity to thrive while they are part of our community of scholars.
Roles: Work with the Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUS) office, the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) office, the Steering Committee and Department Manager Randy Smith in designing outreach, advising, and reporting mechanisms, that will enable underrepresented groups in our department to excel.
Action items and accomplishments during the fall semester of 2020:
- Action item 12 - Implement an interactive user-based online assistance system for members of our department subjected to racial and social injustice, and all forms of harassment and inequity (led by NSOE), and develop clear pathways for how submitted concerns, issues, and instances of bias, harassment, and inequity will be handled.
Achievement: The implementation of this interactive discrimination/harassment workflow is scheduled for the spring. AGD, MCC and FL met with Kirsten Overdahl (graduate student in NSOE, developer of the interactive tool) to determine how this tool could be adapted for our department and expanded beyond our graduate student population. We contacted the two NSOE faculty members responsible for the implementation of this reporting tool, who indicated that the implementation was now college wide and is being led by the Graduate School. We are now in touch with the Graduate School who confirmed that each department will be able to use this resource for their graduate students.
Using the system developed by NSOE we plan to develop our own reporting workflow for faculty, postdoctoral researchers, staff and undergraduate students.
- Action item 13 - Advocate for, and be more inclusive, of housekeeping staff, and staff in general, in the Department of Biology
Achievement: JCF posted Thank You signs in the BioSci building during International Housekeeping week (Fall 2020), and departmental leadership provided a breakfast buffet from RISE. During our departmental giving thanks party in November, several dozen personal notes of thanks were written by department members and delivered to the housekeeping staff. Most of our housekeepers came to the ‘party’ and were celebrated and thanked in person.
We will include our housekeeping staff on our departmental staff list, listserv and web page and will invite them (along with departmental staff) to have their photos and bio included as we update the departmental website in Spring 2021.
Collections for the holiday funds for housekeeping and staff were challenging this year. Randy Smith and Johanna Bernhardt found a way to collect and distribute these donations to all housekeeper and staff. A special thank you should be given to housekeeping who have been essential workers during most of the pandemic. We were pleased to learn that both funds received a record level of donations in 2020.
- Action item 17 - Encourage faculty in the Department of Biology to be College Advisors for students with different backgrounds, and support participating faculty with culturally-appropriate mentorship training.
Achievement: On November 19, 2020, FL contacted the Director of the Academic Advising Center, David Rabiner, to determine if he would be willing to come to one of our departmental meetings to inform our faculty about College Advising at Duke. The main goal is to encourage more tenure-track faculty in our department to join this effort.
The timing is good in terms of recruiting and training new college advisors and he is interested (with Kelly Cottrell) to participate in one of our departmental meetings. David indicated that it would be good to know by mid-March how many faculty are interested in getting involved. Therefore, a departmental meeting scheduled for February 2021 seems ideal.
The main goal of this action item (# 17) is to use college advising as a way to better integrate first generation students, students with diverse high school preparation, and students from underrepresented segments of the population into our department. Having more faculty from the Department of Biology advising students during their first- and sophomore-year would enable a smoother transition to the Biology Major and would allow a more integrated and continuous advising experience for students during their four years at Duke. It might also attract more students to select Biology as their major.
Following up on this positive answer from David and Kelly, FL contacted the chair and co-chairs of our department to explore the possibility of having David and Kelly participate in our February (2021) departmental meeting.
- Action item 20 - Provide better support for foreign and underrepresented minority faculty.
Recommendation 20.1: We propose that all faculty in the Department of Biology take the full TFEF training (over the course of an entire academic year) to help them gain a better understanding of the racial, ethnic and social dynamics in the United States.
Achievement: Duke Biology has more TFEF alumni than almost any other department on campus, with sixteen faculty members selected as prior and current TFEF fellows.
In 2020 - we note that nearly all department faculty took part in a series of formal training sessions facilitated by Dr. Krista Robinson-Lyles of the Hope Education Group (and facilitator of Duke’s yearlong TFEF program) during the Fall of 2020. Thirty faculty members attended a training session on culturally inclusive pedagogy facilitated by Dr. Nicki Cagle in early December. Also in December, all members of the Graduate Affairs Committee and Performance Review Committee participated in formal bias training sessions run by Duke OIE and the AdvanceGEO partnership.
Recommendation 20.2: Members of the Biology Department without US citizenship have reported severe problems with visas due to mishandling of paperwork (things done too late, or done wrong). To truly give support to foreign faculty (and staff, and postdocs, and graduate students!), the department needs to sort out the way it handles visa issues, and be more sensitive to the precarious situation in which foreigners often find themselves.
- Action item 35 - Propose a recommendation to the Department of Biology about the appropriateness of calling 911 for minor non-violent offenses, i.e., develop a code of conduct for the Department of Biology. This includes organizing a town hall meeting (led by Randy Smith) with Daryl Mount (Community Outreach Officer for Duke Police) in the Department of Biology during the fall semester of 2020.
Achievement: Randy met with Daryl Mount (Community Outreach Officer for Duke Police) to organize a town hall meeting for the Department of Biology to address concerns, questions and best practices.
A town hall meeting is scheduled for February 2021 to address this issue. Randy Smith and Daryl Mount will answer questions. FL will be the facilitator. Daryl suggested that we use a pre-town hall survey/questionnaire to get a sense of the issues that will be discussed. We will distribute the same questionnaire they used previously for another department.
- Action item 36 - Address the chasm between research and teaching faculty. (Led by AH and FL).
Recommendation: Expectations for PoPs and Lecturers need to be revised globally in partnership with the Biology Steering Committee and A&S. The teaching contributions of PoPs and Lecturers for gateway courses needs to be recognized and acknowledged.