Inequities in hiring, retention and promotion practices have historically led to disproportionate diversity representation of chemistry faculty. The Open Chemistry Collaborative in Diversity Equity (OXIDE) conducts biennial workshops to change the infrastructure with a top-down approach that emphasizes what department chairs and administrations can do to address the problem. The participants for National Diversity Equity Workshop (NDEW) include chairs or thought leaders of the leading research-active chemistry departments, and experts from social and behavioral sciences. The goal of this workshop is to facilitate the implementation of initiatives and policies, which we call diversity solutions, to improve climate towards inclusive excellence and move the demographics of the faculty towards parity with those of the available pool of doctorates. Through NDEWs, dissemination and direct correspondence, OXIDE facilitates discussions between participants regarding the latest research findings on diversity, biases and barriers and how they translate to the context of chemistry departments. The NDEWs are true workshops in the sense that chairs work through many of these issues during breakout sessions and report-outs. We will also share the assessment data on the impact of the past NDEWs, as well as discuss the upcoming NDEW to be held during April 2017 in Washington, DC.

Enabling diversity conversations with department chairs through OXIDE

252nd National Meeting (2016)

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