Within a year of the shutdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual meetings transformed from an auxiliary service to an essential work platform for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Universities rapidly accelerated adoption of virtual platforms for remote conferences, classes, and seminars amidst a second crisis testing institutional commitment to the principles of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Here we present thorough guidelines for drawing out hope from the Pandora's box of virtual programming now open to the world. We review milestones from our first year organizing the Diversity and Science Lecture series (DASL) and explore insights into equity, diversity, and inclusion in STEM gleaned from hosted speakers' talk content. Nearly every speaker highlighted the importance of social or interpersonal support to their career progression, and three-fifths of speakers commented on race or ethnicity. Other recurring topics each received attention from a minority of speakers: immigrant identity, gender identity, mental health, sexual minorities, disability, and rural or agricultural background. We conclude with generalizable advice on creating new remote lecture series that benefit executive team members, speakers, and attendees. Our success with DASL demonstrates that community building and knowledge sharing can flourish under a remote lecture framework.
Leveraging a collaborative consortium model of mentee/mentor training to foster career progression of underrepresented postdoctoral researchers and promote institutional diversity and inclusion