Cross-posting: Solidarity from APS COM & AAPT COD

7/8/16
Dear Members of the Physics Community,

We, the undersigned, members of the American Physical Society’s Committee on Minorities (APS COM) and the American Association of Physics Teachers Committee on Diversity (AAPT COD) stand with Black physicists and all members of the Black community in the U.S. as we are faced with the recent killings, within 36 hours, of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile at the hands of police. Although Sterling and Castile are referenced here and are the impetus for this statement, we note that their names add to a long list of police injustice against Black people as well as other people of color.

Last night, during a protest in Dallas affirming the value of Black lives, snipers unaffiliated with the protest killed 5 officers, and wounded 7 officers and 2 civilians, further highlighting the violence and tragedy that systemic racism can bring about.

These events affect the physics community. Safety, justice, and equality underlie our ability to succeed at all endeavors, including physics. Systemic racism exists. Systemic racism exists in physics. And we all must work tirelessly to challenge the structures that allow it to exist.

The APS COM and AAPT COD are dedicated to building a community where people of color can learn and practice physics free from racial harassment, bias, and fear. We are alarmingly far from this goal and we call on the entire physics community to join us in making this endeavor a reality. One way to move toward this goal is to engage in self-education and anti-racism training to build understanding in the ways that power structures combine with bias and racism to differentially impact physicists of color. This understanding is critical to our ability to affect change. We must create a climate that encourages and supports people of color in their pursuit of physics and physics careers.

The undersigned affirm our commitment that Black lives matter and that racial justice matters, in our society and in the physics community.

Nadya Mason, Chair, APS COM
Edmundo Garcia, APS COM
Angela Little, APS COM
Marie Lopez del Puerto, APS COM
Jesús Pando, APS COM
William Ratcliff, APS COM
Luis G. Rosa, APS COM
Dimitri Dounas-Frazer, Chair, AAPT COD
Ximena C. Cid, AAPT COD
Abigail R. Daane, AAPT COD
Deepak Iyer, AAPT COD
Mamadou Keita, AAPT COD
Geoff Potvin, AAPT COD
Mel Sabella, AAPT COD
Monica Plisch, APS Director of Education and Diversity
Asmaa Khatib, APS Bridge Program Coordinator
Arlene Modeste Knowles, APS liaison to COM
Kathryne Sparks Woodle, APS Education & Diversity Programs Manager

Please reach out to APS COM and APS COD for strategies and resources on working toward equity in our field.

This statement is an unofficial statement by members of the American Physical Society Committee on Minorities and the American Association of Physics Teachers Committee on Diversity. These are our personal views and the statement has not been officially endorsed by the APS, APS COM, AAPT, or AAPT COD formally.

AASWOMEN Newsletter for June 13, 2014

AAS Committee on the Status of Women

Issue of June 13, 2014

eds: Daryl Haggard, Nicolle Zellner, Meredith Hughes, & Caroline Simpson

This week's issues:

1. A Great Reason for Prospective Graduate Students to Pick Princeton 

2. Sexual Harassment: One campus's response

3. Sexual Harassment: Understanding the Impact of Advisors who Prey on Students

4. Career Profiles: Astronomer to Data Scientist

5. Parking and the Professor

6. A Test That Fails

7. Outstanding Doctoral Thesis in Astrophysics Award

8. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

9. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

10. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

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AASWOMEN February 28, 2014

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of February 28, 2014
eds. Michele M. Montgomery, Daryl Haggard, Nick Murphy, & Nicolle Zellner

This week's issues:

1. STATUS newsletter for January 2014 now available online

2. Guest post: AAS Dinners to Discuss Dual-Career Couples

3. Addressing the Campus Rape Culture in the US

4. US Position Threatened?

5. Additional Women's History Month Resources

6. Embracing Adventure, Achieving Success

7. APS March Meeting Events Focused on Women and Minorities

8. Summer AAPT meeting requests posters/papers

9. Job Opportunities

10. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

11. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

12. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

CSWA Climate Site Visit Program for Astronomy Departments - Benefits

As a graduate student, I participated in a Committee on the Status of Women in Physics (CSWP) joint site visit of the physics departments at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs and University of California, Berkeley. The site visit was very valuable for both departments in highlighting not only the areas where we could improve in creating supportive environments for women, but also areas where we were doing quite well.

First I'd like to say that site visits create a better department for everyone.  Women (and other underrepresented groups) tend to be disproportionately negatively affected by general climate issues within departments.  For instance, graduate student salaries effect everyone, and having higher salaries helps with recruitment and retention for both genders.  However, we found at Berkeley -- a public school that tends to pay graduate students less than our private school competitors -- that admitted female graduate students were disproportionately more likely to reject our offer based on salary than male students.  Perhaps this is because women are more likely to anticipate having a family while in graduate school, and are more concerned about finances than their male counterparts?  I don't actually know the reason.  All I know is that increasing salaries disproportionately increases the acceptance rate of women graduate students.  So even if you are a person who doesn't think you are affected by the "climate for women" and that these site visits are of no benefit or interest to you, that simply isn't true.  Most likely the outcomes of the site visit will be a better department for everyone.