The SIPS DEI Council is open to anyone in the SIPS community who would like to participate in building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community in our school through monthly online meetings and working groups on various topics.  New voices, viewpoints and energy are always welcome.  Our next meeting is March 8, 10 to 11 a.m. For more information and Zoom link, email: sips-dicouncil@cornell.edu. Visit the SIPS Diversity, inclusion, & accessibility webpage.

Lab manuals as accessibility tools

What follows is from the Cornell AgriTech DEI Bulletin.  Many thanks to our colleagues Anna Katharine Mansfield and Amara Dunn-Silver, Cornell AgriTech DEI Council co-chairs, who are taking such a strong lead with their DEI efforts. They write, like any group, DEI practitioners use jargon as a shortcut to convey specific meanings that may be unclear or confusing to anyone unfamiliar with the terms. As part of our DEI Bulletin series, we are exploring some key terms used to describe important DEI concepts. If there’s a term you’d like us to explore, contact Anna Katharine or Amara, or you can submit a suggestion anonymously. Special hanks to guest author Monique Rivera,  Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology Cornell AgriTech, for contributing this month’s DEI bulletin!

A laboratory manual or a laboratory handbook is a document, usually written by the Principal Investigator (PI) of a laboratory, that outlines the overall expectation for the inner workings of the lab and its culture. With the recent emphasis on mental health improvement in academia, lab manuals have assumed a newfound significance as valuable documents for enhancing satisfaction and outcomes in academic training experiences. Lab manuals also help to uncover the hidden curriculum of a lab, which may not be obvious to all lab members. Hidden curricula can be especially challenging to students who are the first in their family to pursue a research-based graduate degree, but can also hinder students, post docs, and visiting scientists from other cultures. A current and detailed manual helps make the lab environment more equitable and inclusive for all lab members.

What should a lab manual include?

• A mission statement declaring the overarching themes and ideas that guide the lab’s work. What does the lab study? What are key areas of research? Why is the lab’s research important in the broader world?
• Clearly outlined expectations for communication, time keeping, overall work expectations such as the PI’s stance on lab habits like keeping a lab notebook and authorship guidelines for manuscripts. This should also include expectations for the PI such as turnaround time for Letters of Recommendation and lead times for requests as well as detailing more about their overall role in the lab.
• A clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities of each person in the lab.
• Safety guidelines for the lab including information about safety for field work.
• What to do in an emergency – outlining who to contact and the method of contact that should be used.
• Information on how to order supplies.
• Information on administrator roles and how to contact them.

Lab manuals are living documents and should be reviewed and updated regularly.

The benefits of a lab manual hinge on laying out clear expectations. Understanding what is expected reduces employee stress by clearly outlining where the work boundaries are. This is complex in academia because each PI is an individual with different expectations. It’s not easy to understand what expectations are unless they are laid out in a lab manual, or the PI takes the time to explain expectations at length and repeats them often.

Lab manuals also ensure fairness in the lab. Set guidelines are easy to follow and refer to and create a framework for fairness. In turn, the manual creates a clear set of expectations that can guide performance conversations should issues arise. Overall, a lab manual promotes transparency, accountability, and effectiveness which contributes to the overall success of the laboratory program.

At AgriTech we grow things, including inclusive workspaces that help everyone succeed.

View back issues via the SIPS Diversity, inclusion, & accessibility webpage.

The SIPS DEI Council is open to anyone in the SIPS community who would like to participate in building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community in our school through monthly online meetings and working groups on various topics.  New voices, viewpoints and energy are always welcome.  Our next meeting is Feburary 9, 10 to 11 a.m. For more information and Zoom link, email: sips-dicouncil@cornell.edu. Visit the SIPS Diversity, Inclusion, & Accessibility webpage.

Indigenous Summer Research Scholars Program

A grant from the USDA’s New Beginning for Tribal Students (NBTS) program (matched by Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences) has made it possible to fully fund four Indigenous students each year for the next four years to take part in in the Summer Research Scholars Program at Cornell AgriTech in Geneva, N.Y.

In addition to conducting an independent research project focused on the agricultural plant or food sciences and participating in other summer research scholar programming, students will receive additional culturally relevant mentoring from Indigenous Cornell faculty, the Cornell American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program (AIISP) and Indigenous farmers and agricultural professionals in New York.

Application review will begin February 15, 2024 and continue until the program is full. More Indigenous Summer Research Scholars Program and application information.

Dismantling Anti-Fat Bias

What follows is from the Cornell AgriTech DEI Bulletin.  Many thanks to our colleagues Anna Katharine Mansfield and Amara Dunn-Silver, Cornell AgriTech DEI Council co-chairs, who are taking such a strong lead with their DEI efforts. They write, like any group, DEI practitioners use jargon as a shortcut to convey specific meanings that may be unclear or confusing to anyone unfamiliar with the terms. As part of our DEI Bulletin series, we are exploring some key terms used to describe important DEI concepts. If there’s a term you’d like us to explore, contact Anna Katharine or Amara, or you can submit a suggestion anonymously.

Anti-Fat Bias, also known as weight stigma or sizeism, is the only social bias that has increased notably in the last few decades. Anti-fatness is so engrained in US culture that it remains legal in most states to discriminate against individuals for their body size, even when discrimination based on race, gender, religion and other social identities is prohibited. This discrimination is evident in both personal and public life, affecting education, employment, health care, relationships, and daily activities.

Anti-fat bias is often justified with the misconception that weight is a personal choice, which links fatness to laziness, incompetence, and lack of self-control or discipline. In reality, body weight is determined by several complex factors, including genetics, gut microbiome, illness, medication, stress, and environmental factors. Weight loss is not as simple as ‘calories in, calories out.’

Unfortunately, weight stigma and anti-fat bias are themselves detrimental to health. Efforts to shame fat individuals into weight loss is ineffective, and can lead to disordered eating, depression, anxiety, an unwillingness to engage in physical activity, and a general decrease in health-seeking behaviors. Weight bias frequently occurs in health care settings, resulting in mis-diagnosis of underlying health threats by biased doctors. Patients who have experienced such stigma are more likely to avoid seeking health care.

In the US, 42% of adults report experiencing weight stigma, and weight remains the leading cause of childhood bullying. Family and friends often qualify comments with “I’m just worried about your health,” while strangers who provide spontaneous diet advice or derogatory comments in public demonstrate the social norm of devaluing and openly criticizing fat bodies. In both cases, uninvited commentary on someone else’s body, however well intentioned, is both weight bias and a violation of someone’s bodily autonomy.

Ways to combat anti-fat bias:

1.     ‘Fat’ isn’t a feeling. It’s common in our society to say ‘I feel fat’ to describe other physical or emotional states, like fatigue, over-satiety, or low self-image. Using ‘fat’ as a negative catch-all signals that size is a moral state, rather than a physical one, shaming fat folks and those with eating disorders. It’s more constructive to identify and react to an actual emotion.

2.    Reflect on your own perceptions of body size. Internalized weight stigma has been documented across weight categories, and both women and men increasingly aspire to unattainably ‘perfect’ bodies. In addition to increasing risk of stress and disordered eating, these internal struggles surface as derogatory comments aimed at others. Self-acceptance goes hand-in-hand with acceptance of everyone’s body size.

3.    Question the BMI. Despite its popular use as a health indicator, the Body Mass Index (BMI) is scientifically flawed, outdated (it was created in 1830), and ignores differences in race, ethnicity, and sex. View any articles linking health and BMI with skepticism, and push health care providers and insurance companies to consider more accurate metrics.

At AgriTech, we grow things, including healthy foods that fuel bodies of all shapes and sizes.