WormBoard Report: August 2020

Report from WormBoard to the C. elegans community - August 2020

There has been an outpouring of support and ideas to improve diversity, equity and inclusion in our world-wide worm community. Please keep the ideas, conversations, comments, and criticism coming. You are welcome to send me an email Jane.Hubbard@med.nyu.edu with thoughts and suggestions you wish to communicate to the board. Please put “wormboard” in the subject line.

The Worm Community Sign-Up Sheet is still open! WormBoard will reach out to more of you in the near future. Lab heads are encouraged to join the Lab Heads Google Group Mailing list to receive these messages by email (instructions at the end of this page). All community messages will also be posted on WormBase and sent out to the mailing list that receives the Blog. We will also post the link to social media.

As promised here in our message of July 18, 2020 to the community, we report on the first 3 initiatives, and we provide updates on the others.

Immediate: Now – End of August 2020

Initiative #1: C. elegans community-wide climate survey

The survey was opened mid-July and closed on August 11th. The survey committee is still analyzing results and will post a comprehensive report in early October, including community access to results and free-form comments. You can download a brief summary of preliminary findings in PDF format.

Initiative #2: Worm Mentoring Match

Please see the Initial Plan For The Mentor Match Program page for additional details. The program will roll out in November 2020.

Initiative #3. Communicate resources that facilitate undergraduate (UG) research experiences

Undergraduate research opportunities are listed on this Google Doc.

This is a starting point, and information will be eventually added to the diversity portal. We ask community members to continue to add to this list.

Near-term: September to December 2020

Initiative #4. WormBoard membership will be diversified and expanded

This is the agenda item of WormBoard’s late October 2020 meeting. An international subcommittee is working and will report to the community by the end of the year. Comments from the community are welcome. We maintain an up-to-date Charter, election cycle and lists of current and past members on the WormBase Wiki.

Longer-term: now through December 2021

Initiative #5: Make regional, topic, and international worm meeting (IWM) participation more inclusive, including new travel award initiative.

Initiative #6: Create a comprehensive and user-friendly C. elegans Community WormBase Website Portal to facilitate these and future initiatives

The many terrific comments and suggestions from the climate survey on both points above will be conveyed to meeting organizers and will guide plans for the portal and additional efforts to facilitate communication within the community.

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Subscribing to the LabHeads Mailing List

The Lab Heads Mailing list is hosted on Google Groups. A Google address is not required. You can sign up:

• with a Google email address OR

• with an address of your choosing OR

• by sending an email to email Jane Hubbard and ask to be put on the LabHeads google group list. Please include “LabHeads” in the subject line and include your institution and lab website link and preferred email address. New and current LabHeads members may also send a message to Jane Jane.Hubbard@med.nyu.edu if you wish to change the email address to which the LabHeads google group sends messages.