Building Capacity for Systemic Change

In this special session, Julie Posselt (author of Equity in Science: Representation, Culture, and the Dynamics of Change in Graduate Education and Inside Graduate Admission: Merit, Diversity, and Faculty Gatekeeping) will share insights about the inner workings of graduate programs that are making progress in closing gender and racial disparities that are commonplace in STEM. Posselt will provide participants with tools to think about their own equity challenges from a systemic perspective. An equity-minded, systems-minded approach to change is necessary because racial and gender disparities are reproduced at multiple levels: individual interactions, cultural beliefs, organizational practices, and societal structures. To improve student access and organizational health in astronomy, we must pursue change on each of these dimensions to advance equity.