Creating Healthy and Inclusive Spaces – Equity and Inclusion Speaker Series

[B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD] 0:02
Good afternoon. I'm Joe Guglielmo, Dean of the UCSF School of Pharmacy, and I welcome you all to the second of our equity and inclusion speaker series. I first thank the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Emma Gunderson in particular, for their leadership regarding this event. As background, this series aims to identify and address school issues regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion. The focus of today's panel discussion was seeded from our very first session of the series. You may recall for those of you that joined us in the inaugural session, Dr. Yvette Gullatt, the Chief Diversity Officer at the UC Office of the President highlighted a number of DEI issues and concerns from the campus and graduate division, to the school, to the department, or the organized research unit, to the laboratories of our PIs. We have two goals for today's session. The first is for panelists to share their experience and initiatives in support of the diversity equity inclusion. Specifically, how do each of them create healthy, respectful, and inclusive environments and culture. The second goal is to provide and further develop a voice for students, postdocs, staff, and beyond, to ensure the school is aware and responsive to these DEI concerns. I'm now pleased to welcome today's moderators who will introduce some of the others here or have themself introduced either one, the first of which is postdoctoral pharmaceutical chemistry scholar, Dr. Angelica Sandoval-Perez, HHMI Hanna Gray, and QBI fellow Dr. Willow Coyote-Maestas. I look forward to their leadership toward a productive discussion. I pass the baton to the two of you, and thank you.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 2:15
Thank you, and Hi, everybody. So I'm Angelica Sandoval. It's a pleasure to be here, it is an interesting panel. So we, Willow and I, will make some questions to the panel based on a survey that we have for the students, postdocs and so on. And we divide these questions a focus on equity, and inclusion, diversity. And then some questions about what are the plans for the future? So we can introduce our first panelists.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 3:06
Yeah, so now we're going to just tell you who the panelists are, but we'll let the panelists give us two minutes, very brief, otherwise, we'll cut you off because we all know, you guys like to talk. So first, and we'll just go one by one through. First, I would like to introduce Mike Kaiser, Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry. Mike, could you tell us what you what you've been doing in your lab and why you think things are important, briefly.

[Michael Keiser] 3:39
Sure, thing Willow. So for us, early summer of last year, we realized as a lab that we weren't having much discussion about DEI, historically, and this was something that really exploded into a lot of people's consciousness, but also had many threads before that, some of which I discussed individually with lab members over the years. And so we started initially talking about this on Slack, things like that. And it became pretty clear that it would be good for us to have a space to at least begin to process some of the things that were going on or have been going on. And so what we did as a lab, is in that time, we committed ourselves to every week, in fact, having a group meeting that was about DEI. And additionally, as we went through this process, there were some things we wanted to do that were artifacts, deliverables, things that we wanted to see some degree of progress about where we stood and how we felt about these things. But over time, it became clear too that it was something we wanted to move into as a practice. And we had to figure out the difference between a sprint and a marathon if we're going to keep this up. And so we've gone through different forms and flavors of this including having parts of DEI discussions at group meeting. That is the scientific group meeting versus a dedicated meeting, there's some things to talk about there. But that's really the core of what we've been doing. And the biggest thing maybe for me, and before I turn it over is, I have tried to step back. And I've tried to make it clear what the lab expectations are about having a space for this. But from a PI perspective, it's been a careful balance that I'm often probably getting wrong, but at least trying to make a space for it. And so that's the sorts of things that I'd be happy to talk about today.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 5:28
Thanks, Mike, for that, that sounds really interesting. Next, I'm pleased to introduce Aashish Manglik, who is also a professor in the Department of Pharm Chem, can you tell us also what you're working on? I think it's somewhat similar, but your own flavor?

[Aashish Manglik] 5:44
Yeah, thanks, Willow. So we, you know, had a similar experience as Mike. You know, a lot of these things, people I talked to me either, you know, about previous to the events that happened in the summer of last year. But the summer of last year, really, I think, made it important for us to come together as a lab to talk about this. And, you know, the initial discussion that we had over zoom was a little bit challenging, but what I realized, and I think all of my entire lab realizes that many of us had faced various versions of, of, you know, challenges scientifically and, you know, outside outside of our careers. And there's one person in particular in my lab that this affected really deeply. And so this kicked off a discussion and really, what we've done over the course of the past year is try to figure out, you know, the world is a very messed up place, you know, what can we do very specifically as, as actors and agents to basically change things and, and we've come up with a framework for what we think, you know, in my lab is an important way that we can contribute, and it's measurable and achievable. So that's, that's kind of what we're striving towards again, just like Mike indicated, you know, we don't know, you know, I certainly don't necessarily know whether we're making the right steps. But, but this is a constant discussion with my lab. And I think that doing something is important.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 7:05
Thanks Aashish for that, that also sounds meaningful. And, and now I'd like to introduce Nevin Krogan is a professor in cellular and molecular pharmacology and also as the director of QBI. Nevin, can you tell us a bit about what you've been working on in this space.

[Nevan Krogan] 7:23
Sure, and I think we've experienced similar things to Aashish and Mike. I can speak a few words about what's going on in my lab. And I could discuss also some of the efforts in QBI, I could do that now or later, but I'll start just with the lab. And really this was catalyzed by students in my group, which I think was fantastic. And we actually set up four different subgroups that meet regularly that address four different areas with respect to DEI. One is talking about kind of a mission statement how what we want the outside world to know about us. There's a mandatory reading list, the watching list for the Krogan lab, there's a book club. The second group is focused on specific actions that we can take in the lab with respect to recruiting, accepting speaking engagements at colleges with say, different demographics. The third area, I think this is what Kelsey is involved in, leveraging worldwide collaborative network to advance DEI with respect to teaching, and training, and grant writing, teaching presentation skills. And then the last one is education in the Bay Area, interfacing with schools primarily comprised of BIPOC. And we have two most mentors there. And I just want to highlight one student in particular, who's actually officially at SFSU that also works in our group, Ernest Paluda. He's actually president of a number of DEI related clubs at SFSU. And he's acting as a really fantastic conduit between groups there and in our lab. And so those are some things gone going on with respect to the Krogan lab. And QBI maybe we can talk a little bit later, but just at a high level. A lot of these efforts are led by Jacqueline Fabius and Gina Nguyen; scholarships for women in developing nations, our events are really trying to focus on the underrepresented groups science, and the media like QBI TV, and grants that we're doing as well with groups around the world. But maybe I'll just stop there. And we can maybe talk about some of those other points with respect to QBI later.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 9:18
Sounds great. Thanks, Nevin. And I'll pass it to Angelica for the remainder speakers.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 9:25
Thank you, Willow. Ao we will like a professor and chair of the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, Tejal Desai, to tell us about you.

[Tejal Desai] 9:42
Thank you Angelica. So, you know, first of all, I just thank you for having me on this panel. I think you know, as PIs we are here, sitting in the spotlight, but so much as you've just heard, and I want to reiterate, of the work in DEI has actually been driven by the students, the postdocs, the staff, so many other people. And so I actually felt a little uncomfortable sort of what the question, which was how, you know, what have we done for the institution. Because I actually think we're, or at least I am here trying to enable what so many other people are doing. You know, in terms of, I guess, sort of my role and beyond the lab, you know, we do a lot of the things that have been said already in terms of DEI and tried to really spark those discussions, including creating a statement of values, which is a living document for our lab, where we are sort of constantly updating that and putting in multiple perspectives. But beyond the sort of lab or local environment, I've been very active in thinking about what is the climate and the culture and the landscape for faculty of color, particularly in bioengineering around the country. And one of the things that I had been involved with was working on a piece, a journal article, that was to highlight the funding disparities for, in particular, Black scientists at the NIH. And I can go into detail more about that. But what that has really spurred as a collective is initiatives in not just NIH funding, but I've talked to foundations, I'm meeting with editors, I'm thinking about how do we highlight authors and citations and on and on. And so you know, some of these tangible little things actually end up sort of going in many different directions, which I think is important.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 11:53
Thank you. Next is professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Professor Jason Sello.

[Jason Sello] 12:05
Thank you all so much for the for the invitation to participate in this event. It's wonderful to highlight all of the DEI work that's happening at UCSF, I moved to UCSF, in the fall of 2019, sort of before the service, this is a sort of global awareness about issues of at least the well, the extent of awareness about issues of diversity, equity inclusion really were as prominent as they are now. So in moving to UCSF, it became pretty clear to me that I would be one of very few faculty of color in the School of Pharmacy, but also more broadly, it UCSF, and one of the things that I was quite interested in doing was trying to sort of galvanize people around trying to deal with that issue directly. And so it's really exciting to see to see things happen, really, with the support and ally ship of people across the institution. So you know, one of the things that we worked out that happened at the executive level of the School of Pharmacy was requiring that all cases for promotion and advancement require a diversity statement. So I think that was a pretty significant, pretty significant achievement that was led by Joe so there was a profile encouraged as I told him to make that decision. So along those lines, things that things that I've been doing, or working on once with searches that are aiming to increase diversity, so I've worked close with deja, and on some searches that are that we've been trying to, to recruit broadly. I've also been organizing co organizing a next generation faculty symposium with that with colleagues at UC Berkeley, and Stanford, to highlight the work of students and postdocs, excuse me from underrepresented groups, and to give them sort of stage to be really competitive on the job market. And so we highlighted 12 people, 12 scientists last year, wonderful, whom is actually joined the faculty at UCSF in 2022. But even beyond that, you know, I think that there just been some practical issues that have come up that, you know, as a personal color, you sort of think about, I remember reaching out very early on to Chief Denson at the start of the pandemic when I knew that security was going to increase by virtue of the of the need to, to maintain, you know, to maintain low levels of low numbers of people in the building so, so I reached out to Renee Navarro and Dan Lowenstein and we made some — we encourage them to make some changes about how security would be handled going to buildings, and so some of you have notes in orange They call that sort of swipe system that came up, that was a result of having some really important conversations about having spaces where people of color would not feel, you know, overly scrutinized, the security went up. And you know, and there's just so many other exciting things to work with Emma Gunderson on that on the base program that's provided opportunities for, for high school students from KIPP the local charter school to come in and have research opportunities at UCSF. So I, among many colleagues, I think even many on this call who actually hosted students from that program to be in their lab. So there has been a lot of really exciting work that's been happening a DI at UCSF, and what's really sort of pardon me, particularly in the past, you know, sort of 15, 16 months is just the allyship that is, really emerged, people have really stood up, and it's important effort. So a lot of exciting things going on. And I think this is increasingly a comfortable and supportive place for people of color. So just a thought, all I'll say at the moment.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 16:06
Thank you very much. And last, but not least, a dean of the School of Pharmacy, Joe Guglielmo.

[B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD] 16:19
Thank you. I will be very brief. I have supported a lot of things you've already heard. But what I really want the group to know is, we haven't done enough, that's what I want you to know, I have not done enough, as a leader on campus, I continue to be uncomfortable, not comfortable with the progress. And my job is to remain uncomfortable. And to make others feel uncomfortable as well, that this is a very long road that we're on and we never can abandon it. So I could give examples. But I think I'm just gonna wait till later, I would even say you're those of you that are looking at me at this moment, we need a lot less people that look like me and leadership at UCSF, we need more diversity. That, in fact, is the ultimate, I think walking the walk to keeping these initiatives going. So that's as much as I'm going to say, I would be very happy to respond to questions as they come up. But thank you.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 17:26
Thank you very much. So let's start with the questions we go, please.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 17:31
Yeah, thank you all for your introductions. Jason, it sounds like you're doing so much and, you know, I'm really grateful that you're here and, and all of the rest of you, but Jason, like, you're carrying a lot there. And I appreciate that. And, Joe, I appreciate you specifically saying that we're not doing enough, because that's what I wanted to have to be the foundation of, kind of like, the agreement that we have here. And then we can talk more about like, what solutions and how we can make things better. So we don't spend time, it's good to talk about what we've done, but it's also good for us to talk about what we can do better. And then specifically, the first topic that we're going to have, we're gonna have a series of questions or broader topics. And each of those will be about seven to 10 minutes that we're going to spend on them. And then we're going to move on to new topics. And these questions were kind of reformulated from a bunch of questions we got from students and staff and postdocs when we asked for, when we had a survey. And so the first question is, how can we best support students, staff, and postdocs who are having issues with their lab being a safe space, either due to different lab members or due to a PI. And we can call on people or if anyone has wants to talk, speak to, that'd be great, too.

[Tejal Desai] 18:53
Maybe I'll just say a few words. And that's because, you know, I think one of the things that's really important that we need to recognize is that, you know, having having a lab filled with students and postdocs, it should be regarded as a privilege here at UCSF, and that we you know, we are right now, we don't necessarily hold people accountable for their actions within the lab. And so there's been a lot of movement over the last I would say six to 12 months in you know, how do we actually make you know, have a have a stick or carrot whatever either way, but something to make sure that the bad behavior isn't rewarded with what is so important to UCSF with our trainees. And you know, I don't know if we're there yet, but you know, we've made some event or I don't actually don't think we are but we've, you know, obviously instituting trainings and things like that are one small step but You know, I would say, you know, even looking at the participants in this panel, the, you know, the people who attend are generally the people who care, but it's how to reach those who don't attend these types of forums? And how can we make sure they understand that it's not automatic that you are able to train? And can we, and those spaces need to be safe. I'll start there.

[Aashish Manglik] 20:31
Maybe I'll go next. There maybe set a very local level just within the lab. So I think people kind of describe maybe at university level, you know, what needs to happen, I think one thing that I recognize, and I think many people in my group recognize is that, you know, like, expectation setting for certainly for students and for postdocs and for staff is an important aspect of this. And people come in with various expectations and having just a group discussion, at least for us, around, you know, what is communication look like? What do you, you know, if someone says something to you that's, you know, that hits you in a different way than that perhaps it was sent? What's the best way to communicate that back? And certainly, for small groups, you know, my labs, not very large, this discussion was actually very, very high yield and setting expectations for what communication should look like, and you know, in a collegial way, how do you deal with situations where microaggressions are happening, and how to do that in a normal manner? Again, for small groups, that kind of thing? seems to be pretty high yield properly.

[Michael Keiser] 21:35
Maybe I think I'll add to current state, right. And so within a lab, there's one, there's one whole way to answer this, and, you know, and then she sounds like we have a good environment for doing this in some means. And so we have things like conduct, yes. But that's we wrote together, we can edit it together. And then as a group, we try to build up that trust. But that's a whole discussion itself. I also here in this question, a separate question about what if a lab itself is not a safe space? I pee is mentioned in that. And that's a harder situation, then. And so currently, what there's a whisper network, that honestly, most p eyes are not necessarily part of. But trainees are. That's dangerous, too. Because it's word of mouth. And not everyone's going to even hear what they need to hear, to know what's going on out there, especially postdocs coming in, who aren't maybe even as integrated into graduate programs or other things from a graduate program level, where there's also more and more discussion about sheer basic entry basic requirements. And we have run into scenarios and some of the graduate programs that have been part of where people have not really even responded to a basic requirement. And kind of, you know, entry to the, to the whole situation requirement that seemed like it was the sort of thing, an affirmation of participation, something that doesn't take much time. And so then, to John's point, we have to fit with the consequences of better than graduate programs are one source of power for that, because, as we just heard, having students and trainees is a privilege. And if a graduate program will actually not let one of their trainees join a lab. There's a lot of issues with that. But that is a consequence that could happen. And some programs are beginning to try different ways to put their foot down on that. So at least those are our two ways, currently. But certainly not enough. And maybe a question would be, especially when trainees come in, you get an academic mentor. And expectations even coming to the PI from the program vary about what that is. Wouldn't it be good to have a safety valve, it was at least some other PI, that there was a relationship there that had some structure around it that, that could help?

[Tejal Desai] 23:56
Maybe just to add, I think it is part of that safety valve, you know, figuring out how to have funding or support for students that, you know, I think one of the reasons it's such a, it can become a toxic environment is because you're beholden to that lab for your well being your funding, your you know, you may not have any other means. And so, you know, we need to figure out a system where we can really fund our trainees, in a way that is not you're not beholden to that one person for the rest of your graduate or postdoctoral career.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 24:37
think that there's a really important question that was just added to that on this point. That was added to the q-and-a. Just there's a pilot bias response team and the grand vision and the deans anonymous portal in the School of Nursing. What's limiting us to doing that in the School of Pharmacy to have some anonymous feedback form.

[B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD] 25:02
I guess that would be mine to answer now answers nothing we should. I wasn't even aware of it is the answer. And, and I guess it seems to me, as you know, all too well, there is an interesting blend between the schools and the graduate division that we all just have to recognize. So if the right thing to do, this seems like should be a campus issue, not a school specific issue where all the schools participate, but again, in collaboration with the graduate division, I think we all kinda have to be holding hands on this one, and get something organized. And maybe we use nursing as well, we'll call it a pilot and decide what has worked and what has not worked and will give us the impetus to move forward. So I, I absolutely think that would be a good thing, not just for the School of Pharmacy, but for the entire graduate division.

[Nevan Krogan] 25:50
Maybe I could add one thing there. In terms of anonymous forum, actually, a number of my senior scientists started at a lab anonymous forum for people to comment on things that maybe they wouldn't be comfortable commenting to me or to the senior scientists on. So that's been incredibly helpful, I would say, and that I could suggest that could be implemented across all labs.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 26:14
Yeah, I think these are really important points. I think I think sometimes these anonymous firms run into difficulties with very small labs, I think, because it's harder to be anonymous, but on a grad division level, perhaps that's a really good idea.

[Jason Sello] 26:30
Nevan, can I just follow up on that? It's an interesting idea. How would you respond with information that comes to you via that forum, just out of curiosity?

[Nevan Krogan] 26:40
Well, there's there's a couple of senior scientists in the lab that handle it. And for example, there's been some recent comments about being worried about coming back on campus with respect to COVID. And I, I think there were some very valid points raised, and we just I discussed it with my leadership team. And we responded accordingly. But it was basically a concern about coming back to the lab with COVID, to lab meetings in particular, that was the last comment that was posted there. And we responded by saying, you know what, let's, what we can do hybrid, I mean, it turned out, we can't meet at all now, this was before the Delta kind of rose up, but we responded by saying, you know, we can do a hybrid going forward for those that are uncomfortable. So that was just one example. And I think that's where the forum did work successfully.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 27:28
Alright, thanks. Thanks for this just, oh, you want to say something more, Jason?

[Jason Sello] 27:32
I just said, thanks. You know, whenever there is a mechanism to provide, you know, space to raise issues, I guess there must be a commensurate mechanism by which to, you know, to address them. And that's where I think, that's where things become challenging with where the rubber meets the road. So you're just having an empty portal into which people can just sort of, you know, throw, you know, complaints, I, you know, that doesn't feel very good. So I think one of the things that I think would have to come along with this would be having mechanisms in place to respond in that probably requires staffing. And I think that's one of the things that I keep seeing, you know. As we have tried to address issues of diversity, equity and inclusion on campus, it really stretches the existing infrastructure. So it requires, you know, institutional resources in order to deal with these problems. So, it will be interesting to see what happens at school nursing how these things.

[Nevan Krogan] 28:42
And I realize obviously impinges on the anonymous form, if you have a, there's a group of 20 versus a group of two, I mean, people are going to be more comfortable saying in the group of 20, but you could, you know, coalesce different groups together, like graduate programs and other types of things as well, to make those groups larger.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 28:59
Great, this is useful news. I really like where this conversation is going, because it's getting to actionable things actually make things better. And I'm gonna hand it off to Angelica for the next question, which is actually like kind of related to what we're talking about now.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 29:12
Yeah, thank you. So the next question is related to exactly something like that. It's like now knowing the inherent power dynamics of PI over their lab. What accountability or incentive structures are in place or can be made to create more equitable or inclusive environments. And there is one question that comes from the chat and is "Would restructuring UCSF academic structure so that graduate division research faculty reports to the graduate team instead of another school dean will help to improve transparency and accountability." So, anyone can...

[B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD] 30:07
So maybe I should start on that one. I think, Angelica, I'll make sure I understood the end of the question correctly. Was the recommendation that the reporting structure should go to the graduate division Dean, as opposed to, for example, School of Pharmacy, Dean? Is that what the recommendation is?

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 30:27
Yeah.

[B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD] 30:28
Well, the reality is, that's already probably the way it is, to tell you the truth. In fact, you all know this better than I, I would argue that the graduate students and postdocs are PCI dependent, and they are graduate division program dependent, what school they're associated with is almost irrelevant as what I would say. So to be very frank, for those who think I have power, I really don't. This is not something that you know, everybody comes to me, the only time they come to me is when we have a money problem or a space problem, as many of you on the call already know. But otherwise, I would respond by saying, I it doesn't go to me and it doesn't go to television medicine either.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 31:22
And I think something is important to clarify, probably for people that is listening is like if there is something in place to balance these power, plays that PI has over the whole lab, is there something in university that is already there, or is something that needs to be done?

[B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD] 31:45
So I'll say one thing in response to that, what I will say, is, there have been events in the past that touch on the things that have already been discussed. And the way that it was handled, for example, was in the days Liz Watkins was here as Dean, both Liz and I would deal with it together, this was not an either or sort of thing. And that is how it was I don't know if the word successfully addressed. But that is how the issue was addressed. And that's the way I would expect it to be addressed in the future as well. I don't see a better way. I mean, it seems like the most inclusive way to do it.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 32:26
Somebody else want to comment on that question.

[Aashish Manglik] 32:36
I mean, I would argue that probably the, the easiest or not the easiest to read, but one way of doing it is to tie promotion directly to you know, a direct assessment of work done. And, and for bad actors to you know, have some direct outcome for their promotion, that, that's reflected in, in, you know, complaints, either that come to an anonymous system, or, you know, really careful canvassing of students and postdocs. Thank you. So that is cool. I was just

[Tejal Desai] 33:13
gonna say, I mean, I think I think that's an important point from a station that, you know, we UCSF does request letters, but to, you know, for mentees or trainees, but the extent to which that is used in the promotion process is probably not very well defined. And to really think about how do we evaluate that component, just as important as many of the other components that we look at a faculty member?

[Michael Keiser] 33:46
And maybe also just to briefly add, right, so graduate programs are one way. What are the other things that matter to a PI, right? funding, space, reputation, promotion? Each of these things, the question is, is there a gate there for that. And of course, as a university, when things get bad enough, there are offices that you can independently contact. And if you're in a bad situation, if anyone you know, is in a bad situation, University has specific offices for each of these things. Maybe one of the questions we're talking about here, though, is whether cases and events that are looked at in that way will have repercussions even if they shouldn't. And then separately, whether a history of cases like that is the sort of thing that is visible to a promotion committee. And so I don't know what kind of crosstalk there is there.

[Jason Sello] 34:41
As you all nod at me, I'm relatively new to UCSF, having spent 13 years on the faculty at Brown. But one of the things I can say I've been impressed by, and I think this is UC wide, the statements required for, the statements that are solicited from trainees, as part of the promotion packages, I think is actually a great thing. And I think that provides an opportunity for, you know, for problems to be exposed and considered. I've not yet served on a promotion case. And our chair of committee just sort of looked at that, but I imagine that those things do come up. But I think it would also be sort of helpful, just in general, to provide, sort of, maybe more mechanisms for students to, and postdocs to be able to express any concerns that they might have. So people are not feeling so alone. So, you know, there are programs, I'm involved in the IMSD program. I know there's the IRACDA program for people ... underrepresented groups, things percolate up, problematic issues can kind of percolate up from that, but it's I think, is was mentioned, it is remarkable, when there are issues that do come up continuously with some PIs, that, you know, that information does enter the ether, and it can influence the capacity of the eyes to attract students. But it would be good to see that be sort of more formalized or and not so sort of informal anecdotal.

[Nevan Krogan] 36:26
So So Jason, are you saying that previous institutions that you know, do not ask for trainee letters with respect to?

[Jason Sello] 36:34
I don't recall at Brown that, that was that was required. So yeah, I don't think that's a universal thing.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 36:53
Okay, thank you for the questions. I will pass the word to Willow and continue with the next one.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 37:00
Before we move on, I just want to highlight one of the questions we got from the, that I think from the audience, which I think is really important, which is what responsibility do faculty have as a self governing body to hold each other accountable? I think that would be nice just to hear. And what could be more?

[Tejal Desai] 37:27
I mean, I think it's absolutely important that we do that. I don't think we do that enough. But I also, you know, I think there is also some different dynamic power dynamics within faculty as well. So not everyone is in the position to hold each other accountable. And this they are feels that they're not in the position to do that. So I think just recognizing that I think that is a goal that we need to think about, you know, who are we as a community? What are the behaviors that we will and won't tolerate? But also there are places where it may not be so easy to do that, given the situation? And so yeah, having having anonymous or other reporting structures, I think would be important at every level.

[B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD] 38:19
Maybe I'll add something to that question there. You know, hold him accountable. That was a that was the words that was used. But I guess I'm gonna bring up something that maybe we only give lip service to, but or maybe some of us, you know, believe in, that's the pride values. And let me remind you of the pride values that the campus has adopted, the P is professionalism, the R is respect, the eye is integrity, the D is diversity, and the E is excellence. It seems to me if you are going to abide by those principles, that's the ultimate way should be holding people accountable when you see that they're unprofessional, disrespectful, lacking integrity, anti diversity and the opposite of excellence. So that would be my approach on a higher level.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 39:17
All right, great. Now I'm gonna move on and switch the conversation to something else just so that we can talk about something else. And I want to first just talk about give Mike and Aashish a moment to talk maybe a little bit more about what you guys are doing. And then as well maybe Nevin because I wasn't aware that you said that your group is doing the sort of DEI subgroup meetings as well. But can you can you tell us a bit like how you decide on different topics, you know, who's leading that is that student led? And then also, yeah, firsthand to that, and then there's a follow up question that I want.

[Michael Keiser] 39:54
All right. Okay, so we've gone through an evolution on this. The way we started, it was initially in the earliest days, people would volunteer. And yes, and so this was a we had a question earlier, I think in the survey, which is, you know, what is the structure to it. And so people would bring up topics. Often the earliest topics were about things we wanted to know that we felt we lacked, like a code of conduct that we publicly adhere to, and the disgust statement about, about diversity at all on the lab website, which hadn't been there, things like that, pretty quickly, we moved through the sorts of things that were present, say artifacts or deliverables that we meet want to be on the same page about. And we began to go through a priority list because one of the early things we created was a list of things before we're interested in. After that, we began to bring in structure of having rotating lab members, leading each of the discussions. But there's something I also want to mention, which is made some real mistakes. We have an hour meeting on DEI, later in the week, and our meetings are on Monday. So accurate business, we also made a 15 minute time, that was where there'll be a separate presenter that week, who would simply present two to three slides or equivalent content of raising awareness on a topic of their choosing. And this worked pretty well for quite a while. And actually people really liked it, it was efficient and informative, and was separate from the more discussion and deeper sessions that we had separately. The thing though, that I learned by experience was a problem was sometimes that brief awareness topic was really painful. And maybe not really painful to everyone, but to someone. Sometimes, if you have had these lived experiences, and people are bumbling around trying to figure it out with good intentions, and they're doing it before each group meeting, some are fine. And some of them mean that you've just been context switched, you've just been triggered, you've just been reopened to trauma. And now you're going to spend the next hour and a half listening to something about machine learning. That's not going to land for you. And furthermore, it's gonna get more and more painful over time. And so as much as that was a really, more often than not for much of the lab, positive experience that raised awarenesses, we realized we couldn't put it back to back on Monday, right before our scientific part of the group meeting men so we really had to restructure and make a space for that type of process in the DI separate meetings that we particularly put in our case on Thursdays later in the day.

[Michael Keiser] 42:40
Some other things that are important. And also by the way, as we move forward in topics, we realized we needed guardrails, we needed people who are presenting to a week in advance, disclose a moment or two what their topic is. And we have a survey. Again, this is back to gain resource where administratively, we have an anonymous survey where anyone can weigh in, I'm not comfortable with this, or I think it should be professionally moderated, where I just have a concern at all about it. And we always check that survey before that session. Additionally, there's some just kind of cultural guardrails and as a lab, which is, if you're beginning to feel triggered, leave, it's okay. You know, when people need to leave, we don't even need to know your reasons, that's easy on zoom, it'll be a little harder in person, we had to figure that out. But that being a basic expectation, and furthermore, having ways even through the survey that people could raise actually, not only just me, but I think we should continue this discussion right now, without having to be the person that raises their hand in zoom and says it, because sometimes we hit really hard topics. And that's some of the things we've learned from it. Additionally, we have both identify and try to identify practically topics that we think we would like a pro or a moderator to come in and help us with. And even if a topic is not necessarily, you know, we know it's going to be a difficult, uncomfortable, disturbing topic. Even if it's a core topic, we're also beginning to invest in working with either UCSF in it and also paying outside of UCSF for moderators to come in. And we can't do that every week. That's a matter of organization. But we've worked for instance, with UCSF, FSAP, the faculty and staff, oh I should look at the acronym, office who are fantastic and brought a speaker in to lead our discussion, UCSF Faculty and Staff Assistance Program. And Kate Holly was our speaker there. But just to give you a sense, then I'll turn over to Aashish. I want to be too long. We have a bunch of different categories. We try to pre flag ahead of time what our topic is going to be about. We have a project management board, we use GitHub issue tracking for this. And so we can also have a history of what's happened in the lab before and links to previous presentations, resources, discussions and things we've made. And so we've recently discussed just under because we have a category for that scientific racism, history of diversity and stem socio economic roots of academic faculty case study which is for sterilization United States compassionate listening bias and fairness and machine learning, strategically planning your PhD, self reflection and white supremacy representation in the workplace, and academia, and other topics like this, and we've got about 60, something topics that we discussed are on the list. And so we try to use a lot of these resources to catch as best we can, when something is likely to be traumatic, or require more help. But part of it too, is recognizing that we just need our own safety valves if we accidentally hit things because sometimes they can ambush us individually.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 45:33
Thanks, Mike, that actually addresses the follow up question I had, which was what do you do when people get triggered? Or how do you keep people from, which I think is important, and she showed up, if you could share to your model doing

[Aashish Manglik] 45:44
it? Yeah, our model has not been as I think organized or my, your model seems very inspiring, and something that we're going to strive towards, I think, to having a very focused kind of one at a time, specific time, you know, and, and a rotating set of topics, I think, for us, what's what's been important as for my lab, again, which is pretty small group of about five or six people has been to really focus on you know, what we think accent problems are define them, you know, talk about them as a group more at a very collegial level, and to do it regularly, but then also defined very clearly what our values are going forward. So one of the big things that came out of this for my group is a very clear expectation for real work that every member in the group is required to put in as part of being a member in the lab. So just like, you know, every single person lab has specific duties that they're required to do as part of being a lab community, we now have a very specific, you know, almost a social contract that there's, you know, X number of hours, we've defined, we've pegged it at, I think 20 hours, you know, per, per quarter, right on a per semester of study specific words that they're going to do on DIY initiatives, and people are held accountable, you know, for what they've done over the past, you know, six months or whatever, when they meet with me, and I similarly am accountable to people in my lab for specific activities that I'm doing and what work has been put in. So for us, it's not necessarily been about, you know, raising awareness in the context of discussion, but really worked on specific initiatives, either mentoring students, you know, with various programs or other outreach activities to really, again, take agency for the small part that we can.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 47:23
Great. Thanks. And Aashish did Sorry, sorry. I'm just curious to know, how do you how are you protecting your students of color in your lab? You know,

[Aashish Manglik] 47:36
yeah, again, it's it's it's a little bit different my group because I think it's, it's a smaller group. So a lot of the a lot of these discussions are, you know, the specific person in my lab is who's a person of color, his personality is just very, he's, he's able to take feedback or you know, or give feedback very freely. And as a result, it's it's, I think, we've been able to create a space for that student or the other students that have been in the lab for easily, mostly by having very open conversations. I think, you know, as my lab grows, I think that dynamics to change, especially as people with different backgrounds, you know, are people who don't necessarily have been open for this discussions, join or relieve and I think that's something that we're still trying to figure out how to do? Well,

[Nevan Krogan] 48:21
maybe I could just add coming from a different perspective from a slightly larger lab in issues and how our di framework kind of transpired. Last summer, we had a larger group meeting, obviously via zoom, and there was a discussion around what are we going to do and I thought it was really inspiring for the students were incredibly proactive. And they really helped define these four different areas that we wanted to help address that I alluded to, at the start of this discussion. And we had some split out groups, breakout rooms in the zoom and then we came back together and we shared our kind of our game plan. So right now it's, I would say these four students, Kelsey house, Paige house, Joe Hyatt and snag that are leading the charge at present time, or they're having now these kind of smaller group meetings, and we're going to soon hopefully have another larger meeting, we bring everyone back together so that we can communicate within the larger group. So that's how it transpired with our with our lab.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 49:23
Thanks, Nolan. I'm gonna pass it back then. Angelica for the last probably what's going to be the last question of the section before we move on to the next.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 49:33
Thank you wait. And so the question is related to what is the school doing to ensure that the work related with the AI is not just put on students or staff, postdocs or five faculty members of color, especially black and indigenous people? Since it is known that most of these work is done by minority groups.

[B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD] 50:04
I guess that's mine since you said the school. So I guess the first thing I'm going to repeat what I said at the beginning, and that is I fully acknowledged that we haven't done enough. I also acknowledge something really very important that you just brought up, Angelica, and that is, it seems as though a lot of times there's a disproportionate amount of responsibility put on underrepresented groups. And in fact, that's not a fair way to do that. The my answer would be, I guess, is that the school has had several things that some of the folks here know about. And I would have to say there has been a sensitivity that just what you said that we're not overly taxing the same groups, because that really accomplishes nothing at the end of the day. I could give some examples, but they don't relate as much to the graduate division, they relate more to the school and how it recruits students to PharmD students and how it supports them. And the anti racist task force for the PharmD curriculum. So I would just say that it's again in awareness. In fact, what you just said, it is my responsible as a leader to not let that happen. Do not go back to the same well again and again, it's everybody's responsibility, not just a few.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 51:33
Thank you. Um, so the next question is a 14 year old. So a, we know that you have a paper work related with a funding black scientists. So we would like to hear about like to work and when to book? Sure.

[Tejal Desai] 51:55
So first of all, I would say so it wasn't, it wasn't my paper, it was actually spearheaded by Lola Eniola-Adefeso. And so she's a professor of chemical engineering at University of Michigan, and Kelly Stevens, at Washington. And they realized that we are collectively we've all been talking about, how do we recruit faculty of color? How do we keep, you know, women in the pipeline, particularly when women of color actually have even sort of dual crises in terms of having to deal with both sides of things, and realize that if even if we bring or keep people into the Academy, as you go up the ladder, there are all of these barriers that are inherent to the academic pipeline. And so being engineers, we're very data driven. And so instead of just, you know, sort of putting together another piece complaining, we wanted to see the numbers. And so we collectively brought together a group of 20 plus women to do the research, to go through the NIH data and really see, you know, what is the funding rate for all of these different groups? Has that changed over the last 20 years, there was a report called the report, which was many, many years ago, over a dozen years ago, which basically highlighted a funding disparity between black scientists and everyone else. And basically, that funding disparity has actually even gotten worse to some extent. And it's, you know, it's this is not about small numbers. It's not about coming from, you know, different resourced schools. It is you are one in every single category, there is this funding disparity? Why does that matter? Well, if you don't get the NIH grants, you don't get the promotions, you don't get the awards, you don't get the papers, the citations. There's this whole cycle, which we then went on to examine, you know, citation metrics, first author, high impact review papers, we had a subsequent follow up paper in nature reviews, materials that talked about putting together review articles and how you know how those authors that are cited are often again, the same sort of majority scientists.

[Tejal Desai] 54:33
And, that, you know, we did a lot of social media to make sure that, that got through and actually, you know, had a number of meetings with the leadership at NIH, including Francis Collins, as well as Institute directors to figure out how to do some real things that would move the needle. And so they actually initiated the NIH UNITE initiative which is their roadmap to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. You know, we're not saying it was because of our paper. But we were happy that, you know, we were part of those conversations to start to at least tackle some of these issues. And you know, tomorrow morning, I am on a panel discussion with five editors from nature to talk about citations, who they invite for the review articles. Who do they reach out to as reviewers? Because again, this is all part of the same cycle in which the same people are highlighted and a lot of people, their voices aren't amplified.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 55:44
Thank you. Um, maybe to close this set of questions. We would like to hear about all of you that have been doing the AI work, like what is the advice to, let's say, less expert, people, or that have less experience in tackling these issues, like, what will be the advice that you each one of you give to them?

[Michael Keiser] 56:25
Okay, I'll start. Look at me, I'm white, I'm male, I'm a professor, I'm not the person who should actually be telling people what to talk about in DEI. And so but there are some things I can do, at least in my world, my lab setting and in the groups that I interact with committees and programs and things like that. So some of the things at least the lab level, I've had the most experience has been making it clear that we're gonna have a space for this, I'm going to commit to that space, I'll resource that space. And, and I am at a certain level of figuring things out for myself. And being transparent about that. So that I'm trying to set expectations in that way. And so there's things like commit to in terms of you know, she's mentioned committing, first come out of these discussions, and I follow through on that as best I can. And so my advice is, especially if you aren't coming from a space of having over the entire course of your life, having had to deal with this all the way through, it's putting your money where your mouth is, following up when you get feedback. And making every way you can showing not telling but the environment is a safe one that you can get feedback. And as a PA, some of the things you get feedback on, you might say, I have different reasons that I'm, I'm not going to change this thing. And here's my rationale, we can have a slight discussion about it publicly. But more often than not, you do change what you're doing based on the feedback. So those are some of the things that I've been trying to do. But if you don't have a setup, where you as the PI can make an error, and learn from it and change, then the whole thing's gonna be fragile.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 58:27
Thank you, somebody else. like to add something. Same thing I passed the next time to Willow.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 58:51
Um, so the one question that I that I think is really important that we recover before before the next section will be on pipeline. But because we talked about a lot of potential solutions and talked about different structural problems, but it's important that we actually measure how things are improving. And we can measure things like the diversity of our body, but how can we what is being measured to for equity and inclusion, and creating safe spaces on campus and what could be measured more?

[Nevan Krogan] 59:29
Maybe I could chime in on that Willow with some of the activities that are ongoing with QBI. And I should preface this by saying that I'm reporting on activities that are not coming from me they're, I'm just I guess just reporting them to this panel. But this is work that's been spearheaded by Jacqueline Fabius, Gina Nguyen, Alexa Rocourt. And it really in my mind is about giving people a voice, giving people a platform, giving people a platform that don't really have a platform and you're talking about well how can you What are the metrics here? Well, with respect to symposium, having female representation, so when we started this, the female representation was like 33%. That was in 2017. And in 2020, it was 49%. And over half of this symposium are now organized by women. And actually, there's a symposium upcoming that you're leading Rolo, right? And in November, what does it have it up here a false circle of native and indigenous scientists and quantitative biology. So this is a symposium that you're going to be leading that's obviously focused on Native American scientists and kind of looking at what gets highlighted with some of the type of media events that were involved in, we started this QBI TV, and we've had an HIV panel with transgender representation. Another one on effects of the pandemic on women scientists, actually, to Joel's paper, she was on with her co authors talking about her great piece in sell as well. So I think if you can, if we can all look at what's been going on, and kind of what proportion of the effort is going to touch a lot of these di efforts, I think, there are metrics that we can look at. And as you know, Joe says he's got a sage advice. We're gonna miss that when he retires. But I mean, there's always more you can do, right? And I think that's what these panels allow us to do. It's like, yeah, we're doing something, but we got to do more. So I think that's the message for me is after I listen to all you guys, there's so much more that we can do. And that's kind of the message that I'm thinking about right now. So I'm now motivated to go back to our teams and say, Yeah, what else can we do now? So I think that's one of the reasons for having these panel discussions.

[Tejal Desai] 1:01:40
Yeah, and I, you know, I would say you asked the question of, you know, what can we measure, I think Nevin said, a lot of different things that are really important to measure. But I would also say, you know, we should also not just measure what we have here, but also measure or get feedback from those who are not here and why they're not here. So what I mean is, you know, the faculty who we didn't attract to UCSF, the students who choose not to, particularly faculty of color, and students of color, and try to understand what is it about our environment, that maybe we could do better in that regard, because I think you're sort of always self select, for what, you know, the people who are here, and everything seems to be going well, but we need to also ask those who are not, or those who are thinking about leaving, that would be the I

[Jason Sello] 1:02:41
think one of the things that always struck me is I, I've always thought that, you know, elite institutions such as this one have a very large role in populating other institutions, with talented faculty, postdocs, and those sorts of things. Because, you know, coming from UCSF or a place like UCSF, Harvard, Stanford, you know, wherever, you know, people of color coming from those institutions have a disproportionately easier time competing in the job market compared to those who have not come from those types of places. So you know, you just sort of look around, and we, when you look at faculty of color at elite institutions, you see they're coming from those same institutions. So, you know, so UCSF really has a very important role to play. And I think that institutions like UCSF, and institutions like it. So I think I'd like to see UCSF think more about and take more pride in the outcomes for trainees. How is it that we are equipping people to become competitive for those for those positions? Are we are we giving people the support the resources, the boost in confidence, the counters of against imposter syndrome, that are actually helping people to achieve their objectives. I'd like to see, you know, part of UCSF success be measured by how well its trainees do after they leave. And so, that often doesn't get discussed, particularly these types of places. But what are we doing, you know, is there someone in your, you know, in your local circle, in your lab, in your department, in the school? You know, are you, are we doing things that can actually help them to realize their objectives to show people things that maybe their careers that they didn't think that they could achieve or, you know, so giving people a different sense of possibility, and then actually helping people to actualize that. So that's one of the things that I think we can, sort of count, that would be great if we could count our success, UCSF by the number of trainees that have gone on to leadership positions in academia and industry sorts of work. So I think that, that's underappreciated.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 1:05:04
I do want to push, I don't think any of these have really addressed the core question, which is how can we measure the, like I appreciate the answers, but they didn't necessarily address the question, which is how can we measure the equity in the community? Or how included, like, the campus environment in the positive? Like, you know, because the environment isn't necessarily always a positive place for people who are blacker and indigenous? So how can we improve that? Or sorry, how can we measure that improvement?

[Tejal Desai] 1:05:42
I think there's, you know, a different answer, depending on what we're talking about students, staff, postdocs, faculty, I guess, as chair, I'll talk about the faculty level, which is, you know, what are the resources that we give to faculty who come into UCSF, it's not just salary, but it's space, the quality of space, it's the access to funding streams and resources, it's the you know, how many more internal awards are certain faculty getting versus others? So there's certainly a lot of things that we can measure for, sort of, having the equity at that level from the faculty side.

[Aashish Manglik] 1:06:27
I mean, having a student of color in my lab just even directly talking to him and asking, you know, what has his experience been, has actually pretty shocking to me in specific things that he's had to deal with. You know, there's a mechanism for doing this at a broader scale for every single student, you know, that's a person of color, or indigenous, or underrepresented, or marginalized. But I think those direct experiences in, and I think what we had, what we talked about earlier, perhaps, you know, a non direct PI interaction that you know of, I mean theoretically, these kinds of things are supposed to happen during, you know, thesis committee meetings, but then again, you know, these are not perhaps the ideal spaces, perhaps, you know, ideal some other mentorship relationship where students and postdocs may feel more comfortable, directly, you know, providing some of this kind of feedback. I think, for me, at least, that was pretty shocking to know, some of these experiences that my student had faced.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 1:07:26
Thanks, Aashish, someone put in the chat, a really good answer, I think, which is just interviewing and asking students and postdocs about, and about how they feel in there, there are qualitative metrics, which people in the more social sciences have developed to measure these sorts of things. And perhaps we could, because we're scientists, we don't know how to do these things, we could get outside help. And, and perhaps I'd be helpful. I'm going to now pass it to an Angelica to take on the next section, which is more about pipeline issues.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 1:08:01
Thank you. So we want to start with something that a I was not aware of that UCSF kind of have a equal distribution in gender a opportunity. So like, Did he like assume a similar number of women and men? So since UCSF is nearing gender parity to recruitment, how we can learn from that successful a guy's story to translate into other excluded or marginalized groups?

[Tejal Desai] 1:08:45
So maybe you just jumped in here. And, you know, I guess I would want to know where that number comes from. I think, you know, technically it is probably right. But it's also understanding where, where's the what is the data representing if it's the whole of UCSF? Absolutely, but if it's in certain areas, including basic science and leadership and sub areas, I would say you probably don't want to follow the rule necessarily. On the other hand, I think Yeah, gender parity is much better than the, you know, having representation for faculty and students of color. So, you know, we made a concerted effort to do to get more gender represent, you know, equitable representation. And and that's, I think, what it's going to take intentionality. You know, we specifically wanted to hire women we did we wanted to hire, we wanted to bring in 5050 into our graduate programs we did. So I think those you know, there has to be very intentional, just like we did for trying to get the gender balance.

[B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD] 1:10:03
I guess maybe I'll add a comment to that I actually might, from where I view this issue in terms of the question that was just posed. To not to think you can do it without monetary support, is probably not thinking clearly. I would say every single time we've had the success, it's been appropriately supported financially. And I could give some examples of that, but I know several people that are part of this group could can attest to that as well. So I say that if you do not pony up the money, you will not diversify accordingly, that would be my answer.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 1:10:52
So maybe there is like a follow up question for that. And he's like, then what, what has been done, like diamonds on funding and opportunities for a underrepresented people to be included, or to be hired or recruited into the university? And it's cool, I think it's a repetitive question. But it's like, we want to be aware of the opportunities and yeah, to make it.

[B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD] 1:11:20
So I guess I have to start on that one as well. I'm happy to let me the rest of you turn, push me aside, please do. So I guess I'll give one example on the professional curriculum. But there's something similar taking place on the graduate division, and that would be the postbac program. The post baccalaureate program is one that on the professional side, at least School of Pharmacy, you may or may not know, those students that enroll in the post baccalaureate program at University of California, they have to pay something on order $35,000 to complete that program to make them competitive, therefore, for application to the PharmD degree. And as you may know, Ryan Hernandez has something very similar that he's starting on the graduate division side. So there's there are some similar models here. But for that specific one, I would say the, the postbac program, the reason that it only took off for the School of Pharmacy is because I basically committed to cover half their stipend. So in other words, like, if they were spending 35 grand, the school covered half of that. And, frankly, that was the stimulus to cause more interest in people going to the postbac program, which then prepared more people to move forward in the applicant pool. And then there's a number of other that faculty incentive programs that some of you know about that I'm not going to detail that this school, among others has put money in for some very recent recruits as well. And I think that's important as well. And I think lastly, I'll say you may know, we were unsuccessful and competing for the first program. And Jason, you're a part of that, I think with Dan, I can't remember, you can correct me if I'm wrong. But we were unsuccessful, but we're trying again, at least speak at School of Pharmacy or once again, committing one to two FTEs toward hopefully that successful outcome. So there's a few things off the top of my head. But I think, Jason, I'd like to hear what Jason and others have to say on this as well.

[Jason Sello] 1:13:31
Yeah, Joe, I think you've summed up everything costs money. And it, you know, it in order for you in order to create opportunities for others, it requires sacrifice. And I think that's one of the things that we sort of bump up against, as we try to deal with the issues of, of equity and inclusion. You know, it requires some sacrifice to create room, you know, to create resources for to do these things. So, it's been, yeah, just anything; the base program that was run this summer, that was a pipeline program required, QBI made of, you know, the Pharm Kinter but there were financial resources that were galvanized to make that happen. I know the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub has been a great supporter for, you know, efforts to diversify the campus. So it really does require funding. And it would be great, I think, as university starts, you know, does these capital campaigns, or schools do capital campaigns, to have funds set aside specifically to support, you know, DEI efforts in all of the different sorts of ways. But it's just that, I can't underscore this enough, all of these things, anything that you have seen that's happened around issues of diversity, has required finding, in short, significant financial inputs. And it's required taking I'm sure taking funding away from other sorts of things, or you know, just are shifting some things around. But that is that's what it requires.

[Michael Keiser] 1:15:10
I like to just reflect something that I've, you know, heard over time. And I think we also see coming in for some comments that people are asking about, which is often when we are talking about diversity. Often the way at the university level we talk about it is as a monolith, a block, which seems kind of silly, given that word right there diversity. And so people are asking legitimate questions about what if we don't treat every underrepresented, marginalized, or other group as one block? How is the university separating out the question of how we're doing for black people? how we're doing for Asian people, how we're doing for indigenous people across all of these different groups, and social contracts? All of it? I don't know that in a lot of the discussions. We've had, we get granular enough, at least, this is an today is not the only time but in graduate program discussions to and others. And so reflecting this from what I'm seeing, I'm curious what people think about that. And why can we do that? Or can we not? What are the problems with it?

[Jason Sello] 1:16:48
That's my goal. I think, to your point, I think one of the questions that's, you know, that's asked sometimes as well, you know, in the room, well, who is in the room? But I think, I think the corollary question I think is, is perhaps more impactful, which is who is not in the room. So whenever you sort of gather, be at your lab, maybe at the school, but you know, ask yourself who's not in the room? And, and think about what it is, you know, why is that? And what can be done to address that? So I think that's the question who's in the room often gets asked, but who's not in the room? I think is a really compelling question.

[Tejal Desai] 1:17:30
Yeah, I mean, I would agree that we have to be more granular. You know, again, you know, we often talk about gender as being sort of this other issue came up in the chat, right, sort of another way to, to skirt the issue of diversity in some ways. But now look at how many women of color we actually have, if they're not exclusive. And, you know, what about black women? We, I can count on my actually less than a hand in terms of, you know, how many are at UCSF? So I think we do need to make sure we talk specifically, but also that identities are not sort of one or the other, right? You're just because you're Asian, doesn't mean you're something else, or you're black, etc.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 1:18:33
Thank you. That was a great discussion. And I think it'll level a lot of open end questions on how also like how to tackle these things, if we need to start to think differently, these issues and so on. So I will now give the turn to Willow for the next question.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 1:18:58
And this will just be a quick question, because I want to make sure we can wrap up before before we're out of time and be respectful of everyone's time. But um, Joe, you are soon to my knowledge are the outgoing Dean, and there will near soon be a new dean for the new dean that's being hired his commitments to DEI being considered in that process? And is that also going to be part of their responsibility and expectation when interviewing candidates?

[B. Joseph Guglielmo, PharmD] 1:19:32
That's a hard thing for a lame duck Dean to answer the question, but here's what I will say. I think the short answer is yes. And why because the campus has adopted that approach. You probably know that. Everything from the composition of the search committee to requirement for diversity statements for all applicants. That all comes from the Office of Diversity and outreach reign of oros group. In fact, that is going to be part and parcel. And I guess, I, again in the role that I'm at this moment time, I can't guarantee that it's going to be that the person who follows me is going to be better than me worse than me or the same as me in committing to that. And I just, I guess I just have faith that rank and file the campus will evaluate what worked well, and what did not work well and make an honest appraisal. And I guess I hope everybody continues to be I'll use the word again, uncomfortable with our progress, because we haven't really, we haven't really done very much at this point. So I'm looking for continued growth.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 1:20:45
Great, well, hopefully that clears up, and there can be a commitment there to be made, you know, I think that perhaps is a space to grow. And, on that note, I think we're gonna move to just wrap things up and talk about some, just actionable things. And the first one, I think, Nevin, you talked a little about that you're doing, but many of you have invited speakers and whatnot. And I think this is just an easy solution, it's not really like a point of discussion, but just more like, can we get a commitment from everyone when they hold symposiums or hold a speaker series, that there's more, that we're considering the diversity of the people we're inviting? And then also, we're not just inviting black, brown, and indigenous people to talk about DEI efforts, but actually their science.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 1:21:49
And if people aren't willing to commit to that, I think that it'd be willing to hear reason why.

[Jason Sello] 1:22:09
Willow was that a question directed to someone.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 1:22:12
It's more like Does everyone agree that they could be doing a better job? And in the future, they will invite more black, brown and indigenous speakers for science talks?

[Jason Sello] 1:22:24
Oh, absolutely. Yes.

[Willow Coyote-Maestas] 1:22:29
Definitely. Yeah. Sorry, if that was unclear. Yeah. And with that, I'll hand it off, then Angelica for the next question.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 1:22:42
Thank you. So now we just want to know about like, future directions, we already Listen, a lot of what a lot of you have been doing and what I do perspectives. So we want to know what is for the future, and which kind of commitment at the different levels, either like lab level or school level, and there are for the next years.

[Jason Sello] 1:23:16
One of the big, I'll just sort of jump in, one of the things I'd like to see more of, is more recruitment of senior faculty from underrepresented groups. You know, to have a junior faculty member coming in and expect them to do DEI work, and at the same time is setting up a world class research program, I think is too big of an ask. I think having people more senior positions who are committed to that work on the faculty, but also network administration, I think would make a tremendous difference. So I haven't seen that happen quite enough since I've been here. A lot of the searches have been sort of junior faculty oriented. So I'd like to see more senior faculty recruiting.

[Michael Keiser] 1:23:59
jump in with a few a few things at the lab level. Obviously, we're committed to doing a regular meeting. But we've already done all kinds of changes, we change the way we do our tech interviews to make sure that we're not making assumptions about cultural backgrounds. We are actively and continuously curating lists of, for instance, HBCUs, and groups that we actively promote our internship application opportunities to when we're putting out postdoctoral things, we instead, we often have to pay a fair amount for this. As it turns out, we put funds behind that in order to make sure that all of our kind of RFPs for new positions are out there. We have a anonymous survey that's actually published within the lab. So anyone can put things in there and I can't control what's going to happen and won't even try. At side of the lab level. One thing that I've seen that as graduate students been really active and are participated in some of those in diversity committees. One of the things that's been going on has been climate surveys. Again, to get a timely feedback. We don't want to hear because we need to hear And so that's something that I for one, I'm going to continually support and participate in, in doing it. And really the thing that matters, too, is not just the feedback, but transparency about what it is. So if we as a graduate program, you know, thinking, for instance, PSPG is one that's been really active that I've been part of, are putting that information about, here's what we're doing, here's how we're doing. Here's who gets interviewed, here's who gets in, when you break it down, initially by your room and BIPOC. But I agree, I think we need to be more granular, then guess what, you draw this trend line where scientists write that line looks bad. It's shameful for all of us. And it's public, and it's transparent. That's what the transparency, transparency and accountability taskforce has been working on in the first year, you know, in this and we got to do more of that. Because the end of the day, unless we are getting uncomfortable, not just because we're choosing to be uncomfortable, but because we have committed ourselves to things that make us publicly look bad. That sort of thing doesn't change either. And so those are just a couple concrete things, I'm not gonna try to be comprehensive, there's a lot more here too. And those are just ones that come to mind.

[Tejal Desai] 1:26:01
For me, the moment I say one thing that's sort of a tangible thing that's been helpful for is that we put together a Excel spreadsheet of all the assistant professors, women of color in our field, and we have that publicly available so that if people are looking for speakers, pre tenure, it is accessible. And you can't say you don't know who those people are. And we did, we've actually made this not just for speakers, but for potential awardees across every year. So all of these different sort of career type awards. So there are people and then we've not we've matched up mentors to nominate those people. That, that sort of thing that is ongoing. But actually, it's really important to see the actual names and not just say, I'm going to do it.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 1:27:15
I actually have an extra question in common is like what all of you have mentioned, like we need more funding or funding is like, there are something already going on to assure that these diversity and equity efforts are starting is like something new already in place that we are not seeing or is like something that we need to build.

[Michael Keiser] 1:28:00
At the lab level, we often use discretionary funds that are not earmarked for other purposes. Those are rare and hard to get happily into even from federal sources. It's hard to get direct funds unless there's a specific mechanism you're asking for. But as far as funders go, I think I heard it earlier mentioned I forget who mentioned it. The Chan Zuckerberg initiative has actually begun to put out a specific RF phase to support things like this, that is a first step. And that's one example of a funder that's taking some responsibility here and making it possible, in addition to specific federal RF phase. So let's see where the money comes from. I would defer to, for instance, a leader of a graduate program when the director of the graduate program to understand what the current setup is for training grants, that's a major funding source. That's where all the all the graduate students are funded in the first couple of years. And I don't know how that's changing. I know there's been changes to those rules, I would have to ask if parts of those are potentially earmarkable in that way, for specific funds.

[Tejal Desai] 1:28:59
Alright, I'll just say as PI of a training grant, there's a lot of requirements, but little resources that have been earmarked towards those requirements and even less that are earmarked into things that you would, new initiatives that you would like to pursue. So, you know, I think that brings us back to institutional support, or graduate division support, to help bring in additional people as well as resources to work with us.

[Jason Sello] 1:29:39
I think inadequately tapped source of funding is actually the federal government, you know, for the diversity supplements on when the NIH grants, that's a great mechanism to actually increase diversity within the research labs. So there'll be something I think that could be exploited. And perhaps there could be some way to incentivize that at the school level. So just another sort of thought along those lines.

[Nevan Krogan] 1:30:11
And maybe related to that at D 43 granting mechanism, this is something we just put in last week. And this is a grant that's affiliated with an underrepresented, or underdeveloped country. So this is where you get trainees coming from different parts of the world to UCSF, that would not get exposed to this world class science that we have here. So D 43. mechanisms are another, I think, a great way to get funding in here to address some of these issues that we've been talking about.

[Michael Keiser] 1:30:44
And additionally, locally, the University also has something called UDAR, which is a development office development is where philanthropy and other sources come in. There are individual people there that it might be worth talking with about, especially when there are potential donors, alumni and others, or simply people locally in this environment who are interested in philanthropy, to make those connections, and actually bring some money in specifically earmarked not for a building or another program, but specifically to address these issues. So actually working with UDAR and saying, here's a list of where money could help means that every conversation they have every day with potential donors to university, they can have that on their radar too, and it really concrete manner.

[Angelica Sandoval-Perez] 1:31:31
Okay, so thank you, everybody. I think we are running out of time. So thank you for your time for being here for being open to the discussion and answering the questions. So thank you very much for all your comments.