An effective workshop on How to be an Effective Mentor for Underrepresented STEM Trainees

Despite an increase in programming to promote persons excluded by their ethnicity or race (PEER) scholars, minorities remain underrepresented in many STEM programs. The academic pipeline is largely leaky for underrepresented minority (URM) scholars due to a lack of effective mentorship. Many URM students experience microaggressions and discrimination from their mentors due to a lack of quality mentorship training. In this workshop, we provide a framework for how to be an effective mentor to URM trainees. Mentees, especially URM trainees, can flourish in effective mentoring environments where they feel welcomed and can comfortably develop new ideas without feeling threatened by external factors. Effective mentoring environments provide motivational support, empathy, cultural competency, and successful training.

My Intersecting Quests as a Disabled Independent Scholar

This colloquy, by graduate-student-led collective Project Spectrum, attempts to map out existing discussions around inclusion and equity in music academia, with a specific focus on identifying and analyzing the structures in academia that work against minoritized and historically excluded scholars. Tekla Babyak asks us to re-imagine what is on the other side of the pipeline. In her colloquy contribution, she shares her advocacy experience in fighting for both independent scholars’ and disabled scholars’ seat at the proverbial table. She imagines an academic discipline that would readily accept, acknowledge, and uplift independent scholars—instead of considering them half- or failed scholars for their lack of institutional affiliation. And she imagines an academic discipline that would readily include disabled scholars, not for their exceptionality in achieving scholarship, but for their ability to contribute to a more diverse and inclusive intellectual milieu. She critiques the ableism endemic to the academic pipeline, an ableism that veils the physical and also emotional, mental, and spiritual obstructions in our discipline’s path to so-called success.

Collaboration: Exploring the PGR Superpower for Addressing Inequalities within Academia

Inequalities within academia are rampant. Sexism, racism, classism and discrimination impose huge barriers to those entering academic work or study. These issues are amplified in times of crisis, such as COVID-19. As postgraduate researchers, we can often feel powerless to address these inequalities. We possess little status in academic power structures, and as such it can be difficult to ‘rock the boat’ or diverge from normalised patterns of discrimination within our fields. In this essay, I argue that while we may lack status, we can adapt and diversify our collaborations with others to effectively address inequality. I outline how collaboration can be a vital tool for elevating underrepresented voices within and outside academia and examine how students with funding in particular can play an important role in this. In diversifying our citations, networks and methods of collaboration, we can ensure increasing opportunities are available for underrepresented groups throughout the academic pipeline. As the next generation of scholars, postgraduate researchers can change the game for underrepresented groups, and ensuring we collaborate diversely is our superpower for doing so.

Collaboration: Exploring the Postgraduate Researcher’s superpower for addressing inequalities within academia

Inequalities within academia are rampant. Sexism, racism, classism and discrimination impose huge barriers to those entering academic work or study. These issues are amplified in times of crisis, such as COVID-19. As postgraduate researchers, we can often feel powerless to address these inequalities. We possess little status in academic power structures, and as such it can be difficult to ‘rock the boat’ or diverge from normalised patterns of discrimination within our fields. In this essay, I argue that while we may lack status, postgraduates can adapt and diversify our collaborations with others to effectively address inequality. I outline how collaboration can be a vital tool for elevating underrepresented voices within and outside academia and examine how students with funding in particular can play an important role in this. In diversifying our citations, networks and methods of collaboration, we can ensure increasing opportunities are available for underrepresented groups throughout the academic pipeline. As the next generation of scholars, postgraduate researchers can change the game for underrepresented groups, and ensuring we collaborate diversely is our superpower for doing so.

The Pakaru ‘Pipeline’: Māori and Pasifika Pathways within the Academy

We examine the academic ‘pipeline’ for Māori and Pasifika graduates and illustrate the chronic under-representation of Māori and Pasifika in permanent academic positions in New Zealand universities. We identify areas within higher education where significant opportunities are being lost for the recruitment and retention of Māori and Pasifika. The narratives of Māori and Pasifika post-doctoral researchers, research associates and professional teaching fellows provide further insight into the advantages and disadvantages of these positions. Lastly, we propose a Pacific alternative metaphor ‘Pacific Navigation of Academic Pathways’ based on Pacific navigation, as opposed to the more commonly used term ‘pipeline’, in order to capture the nuances of Pasifika and Māori experiences.

The Pakaru ‘Pipeline’: Māori and Pasifika Pathways within the Academy

We examine the academic ‘pipeline’ for Māori and Pasifika graduates and illustrate the chronic under-representation of Māori and Pasifika in permanent academic positions in New Zealand universities. We identify areas within higher education where significant opportunities are being lost for the recruitment and retention of Māori and Pasifika. The narratives of Māori and Pasifika post-doctoral researchers, research associates and professional teaching fellows provide further insight into the advantages and disadvantages of these positions. Lastly, we propose a Pacific alternative metaphor ‘Pacific Navigation of Academic Pathways’ based on Pacific navigation, as opposed to the more commonly used term ‘pipeline’, in order to capture the nuances of Pasifika and Māori experiences.

The Pakaru ‘Pipeline’: Māori and Pasifika Pathways within the Academy

We examine the academic ‘pipeline’ for Māori and Pasifika graduates and illustrate the chronic under-representation of Māori and Pasifika in permanent academic positions in New Zealand universities. We identify areas within higher education where significant opportunities are being lost for the recruitment and retention of Māori and Pasifika. The narratives of Māori and Pasifika post-doctoral researchers, research associates and professional teaching fellows provide further insight into the advantages and disadvantages of these positions. Lastly, we propose a Pacific alternative metaphor ‘Pacific Navigation of Academic Pathways’ based on Pacific navigation, as opposed to the more commonly used term ‘pipeline’, in order to capture the nuances of Pasifika and Māori experiences.