Our Guidelines

Lab and Professional Guidelines

  1. Collaborate and be supportive of others!
  2. Show up for your group members and ask for help; we are all committed to supporting one another in learning skills, completing field and lab work, understanding our findings, and communicating/sharing results
  3. Respecting shared space; understand that this means we all must collectively upkeep our communal spaces
  4. Each of us is responsible for creating an environment where others feel invited to share their needs: We recognize that voicing one’s needs can be more or less difficult based on lived experiences and power differentials. We will actively work to foster an environment in which all members feel comfortable sharing their needs with one another. This may be checking in with your colleagues and destigmatizing failure – mistakes are where the most growth and learning happens.
  5. Respect people, their work, and their time; don’t privilege certain people or their ideas; recognize that everyone’s ideas and time are valuable 
  6. Practice inclusive authorship; which means recognizing all types of contributions (including labor) to scientific publications and taking an “opt-out” approach to authorship.
  7. We embrace mistakes and failures; don’t hide your mistakes, but share them and learn from them! We all can learn from each others’ mistakes. 

Community Guidelines

  • Listen actively
  • Speak from your own experience, using “I” statements 
  • Respectfully challenge; call in and don’t call out
  • Participate to the fullest of your ability; we recognize that we are all collectively trying our best to participate given our physical, emotional, social, and spiritual state 
  • We are conscious of our body language
  • We step up and step back; be conscious of the space you are taking up!
  • We communicate directly, honestly, compassionately; seek to meaningfully engage people in communication. We understand the power of words. We do not shame or belittle others. We seek to meaningfully and inclusively engage in mediation to resolve conflicts. We seek conflict engagement processes that are as inclusive as possible.
  • We work collaboratively; be supportive and helpful to the best of your ability; be reciprocal and know that you can call on your group members! 
  • We practice a culture of consent. We do not make unsolicited comments on people’s bodies, race, gender, or other identities. We do not engage in physical contact with or direct sexual attention towards another person without their consent. We respect people’s verbal and non-verbal cues to disengage and will respond accordingly. 
  • We seek to end oppressive ideologies: racism, anti-Blackness, patriarchy, misogyny, transphobia, ableism, ageism, elderism, and other forms of bigotry and prejudice. We are aware that negative stereotypes create real harm in people’s lives. We do not repeat negative stereotypes in our words, or allow them to influence our judgement, or otherwise give them power. We actively oppose negative stereotypes by naming them aloud when they appear, by remembering the multiplicity and intersectionality of identity, and by seeking to build meaningful relationships with all people. 
  • We hold an expansive view of gender. If we are not certain of someone’s pronouns, we use gender-neutral ones, and when someone has told us their gender pronouns, we strive to use them. If we are comfortable doing so, we state our own pronouns at the beginning of interactions with new people, but are not required to do so. We will refrain from asking another person’s pronouns (especially in a group setting) and refer to them by their name directly, unless otherwise noted. We affirm that it is vitally necessary to transform our habits around gender in order to create a safer, more inclusive space. We realize that it takes practice to transform cultural habits around gender, and will help each other (correcting pronouns, recognizing gender preferences/presentation, etc.) when mistakes are made. But at the same time, we do not entertain the usual excuses around misgendering (e.g., pronouns are difficult to use, it feels weird, I’m not used to it).
  • Be compassionate with yourself and others, especially when mistakes are made.
  • Understand the difference between intention and impact: When actions are performed or things are said, even with the best of intentions, we recognize that the impact of said actions or words may sometimes be experienced differently than intended. Acknowledging the impact of actions and/or statements independent of intent is central to this process.   
  • We work to be pro-active members of our lab community. We feel the work of anti-racist, anti-classist, anti-elitist behavior should be the collective work of our community. This means engaging in bystander intervention when necessary and/or appropriate.