Add files via upload to AVDS_repo folder

AVDS_repo_markdown/01_README.md

@@ -1,14 +1,14 @@
-**Purpose**
+Explanation of purpose and contents of this repository
+------------------------------------------------------
 
 If you are reading this document, you likely understand the necessity of advancing racial equity within an institution or university. Despite this necessity, racial equity work is extremely challenging and often comes with a unique set of barriers, many of which are presented by the institutions themselves. Making real progress often requires shifting power, money, and changing the status quo, all of which are commonly antithetical to how universities and institutions operate. Although barriers to change exist in every system, it is important to remember that every system was created and every system can be changed. Every system that exists that disenfranchises or harms groups of people were created by people, and people can change any system that was created. 
 
-Our group has learned invaluable lessons about working within and around ingrained and resistant academic institutions and culture and we want to share these lessons with anyone interested in advancing racial equity at their institution. This repo will contain documents that explain simple steps for getting started, common barriers one may encounter and how to tackle them, as well as an abundance of materials developed by AVDS that can be used as template materials (including surveys, standard operating procedures (SOPs), onboarding materials, bylaws, Code of Conduct, etc). 
+Our group has learned invaluable lessons about working within and around ingrained and resistant academic institutions and culture and we want to share these lessons with anyone interested in advancing racial equity at their institution. This repository contains documents that explain simple steps for getting started, common barriers one may encounter and how to tackle them, as well as an abundance of materials developed by AVDS that can be used as template materials (including surveys, standard operating procedures (SOPs), onboarding materials, bylaws, Code of Conduct, etc). 
 
-We are still continuously learning how to radically and meaningfully engage in racial equity work and certainly do not know all of the answers, but we hope our material helps you in your work. 
+We are continuously learning how to radically and meaningfully engage in racial equity work and certainly do not know all of the answers, but we hope our material helps you in your work. 
 
-**Pie in the sky goal**
-
-Ultimately, this repo may serve as a foundation for making AVDS a national group with local chapters. 
+How to use this repo
+--------------------
 
 ADD explanation for how to post a comment/issue so that people know how to contribute/ask questions
 

AVDS_repo_markdown/04_FAQs.md

@@ -1,48 +1,53 @@
-**Logistics to consider/FAQs:**
+Logistics to consider/FAQs:
+===========================
 
-**Should we become an official student group at our institution?**
+Should we become an official student group at our institution?
+--------------------------------------------------------------
 
 This will depend on the specifics of your institution and what the costs and benefits of being an official student group might be. For instance, common benefits include guaranteed funding (universities often give student groups a certain amount of money per year), access to listservs, and inclusion in university communications around “diversity” events and activities. Cons might include censoring and limitations on what you are allowed to do and say. It may be helpful to talk to other students or trainees who have formed an official student group to understand the benefits and drawbacks of being “official.”
 
-**How do we structure an organization like this? How much work is it?** 
+How do we motivate faculty to care about these issues and get involved?
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
-Something something flat structure (I’ll come back to this and fill it in -KSL)
 
-**How do we motivate faculty to care about these issues and get involved?**
-
-
-* One possible solution is to push for *mandated implicit bias training*. However, no one can be forced to engage with this topic and doing so runs the risk of making people resentful for having to do this kind of training. Furthermore, implicit bias training does not equal anti-racism training and may actually accomplish very little in terms of a culture shift. However, universities are more likely to be amenable to enacting implicit bias training, so it could be a good first step to simply bridge the subject if racial equity isn’t a common topic of conversation at your university. This sort of training may also help you identify faculty who are enthusiastic for doing this work. 
-* Get faculty involved on their own terms by forming a faculty committee for your group: this allows you to hold faculty accountable for addressing these issues in ways that they think makes sense and can be accomplished given their unique positions of power at the university. It also allows faculty to learn more about what works and what doesn’t by receiving feedback from the larger group on strategies they’ve come up with. This also allows people to have a sense of ownership over the project so that they don’t feel defensive or resentful of being “told what to do.”
+* One possible solution is to push formandated implicit bias training. However, no one can be forced to engage with this topic and doing so runs the risk of making people resentful and resistant. Furthermore, implicit bias training does not equate to anti-racism training and may actually accomplish very little in terms of a culture shift. However, universities are more likely to be amenable to enacting implicit bias training, so it could be a good first step to simply bridge the subject if racial equity isn’t yet part of the discourse at your university. This sort of training may also help you identify faculty who are enthusiastic to do this work and may be potential allies. 
+* Another strategy is to get faculty involved on their own terms by forming a faculty committee for your group. This allows you to hold faculty accountable for addressing these issues in ways that they think makes sense and can be accomplished given their unique positions of power at the university. It also allows faculty to learn more about what works and what doesn’t by receiving feedback from the larger group on strategies they’ve come up with. This also allows people to have a sense of ownership over the project so that they don’t feel defensive or resentful of being “told what to do.”
 * Ideas to incentivize faculty to be involved: 1) pay them for their time, 2) specifically look for and acknowledge this type of “service” or “volunteer” leadership/work as part of promotion and tenure, and/or 3) find ways to publicly highlight advances in this area with badges or other digital gold stars - this might work as a way for faculty to be inspired to engage via peer-pressure or FOMO.
 
-**How to address lack of racial diversity in faculty**
+How to address lack of racial diversity in faculty
+--------------------------------------------------
 
--note: talk about how AVDS believes that you must first focus on establishing a supportive environment for BIPOC before focusing on recruitment. Bringing people into an unsupportive environment will be very harmful for them and doesn’t address the underlying issue
+We believe that you must first focus on establishing a supportive environment for BIPOC before focusing on recruitment. Bringing people into an unsupportive environment will be very harmful for them and doesn’t address the underlying issues. However, BIPOC who are interested in coming to your university should be given the opportunity to do so. 
 
-**How do we hold faculty accountable for racist behavior?** 
+How do we hold faculty accountable for racist behavior?
+-------------------------------------------------------
 
-**Notes from Hillary for this section:**
+Notes:
 
 
-* Do punitive models work? For example, mandating a remediation training after a faculty member commits a microaggression. My concern is that the ordeal may discourage them from taking on BIPOC students in their lab in the future.
+* Do punitive models work? For example, mandating a remediation training after a faculty member commits a microaggression
 * Long term, do we want to challenge the tenure system? How can we mandate consequences for egregious behavior? And what would be reasonable parameters for this?
 * use a restorative justice model to hear from those who were harmed about how they think the situation could be repaired and have a facilitator guide the faculty through this process?
 
-**Common terms**
+Common terms
+------------
 
 It’s important to make a constant effort to humanize and decolonize the language used by your group in your documents. This is often an evolving process as new terms are introduced into the discourse. Some examples include:
 
 
-* POC vs BIPOC
-* URM vs PEER
+* POC vs BIPOC (add definitions)
+* URM vs PEER (add definitions)
+* Diversity vs inclusion
 
-**How to manage volunteers and deal with the problem where people join but don’t actively volunteer for tasks**
+How to manage volunteers
+------------------------
 
-Typically it’s helpful to give people roles, an idea of what tasks they will be managing, and estimate of how much time it will take them per week or month. 
+Typically it’s helpful to give people roles, an idea of what tasks they will be managing, and an estimate of how much time it will take them per week or month. 
 
-When committees divide up tasks, try to break them down into small chunks that people could tackle in a few hours. It is also important to recognize that people within the organization are students, postdocs, faculty, staff *first* and keep open lines of communication about what the committee needs and what the individuals on the committee can accomplish. If you are constantly finding that you are short on volunteers, you may be taking on too much. 
+When committees divide up tasks, try to break them down into small chunks that people can tackle in a few hours. It is also important to recognize that people within the organization are students, postdocs, faculty, staff *first* and keep open lines of communication about what the committee needs and what the individuals on the committee can accomplish. If you are constantly finding that you are short on volunteers, you may be taking on too much. 
 
-**How to create an AVDS chapter that happens to be all white? How do we actually support and center the voices of BIPOC with these limitations?**
+What if the racial equity group we are starting has only white members? How do we support and center the voices of BIPOC with these limitations?
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 **Start by asking yourself why your group is all white. Do your non-white peers and colleagues already have a group or organization that they’ve created community with? Could you support them in that community instead of creating your own? If your non-white peers don’t have an existing community but also aren’t a part of the community you are creating, you should do self reflection. If you don’t have any non-white peers, you could start by raising that specific issue to leadership (ie “why aren’t there any Black students in our program”). Maybe you don’t start racial equity work by creating an AVDS group, maybe you start by centering, supporting and listening to the non-white voices around you.**