Okay, right. So, so, so thanks everyone for attending and thanks especially to, to, to our panelists who I'll introduce you to in a moment. I'm going to go ahead and start with a screen sharing a PowerPoint introduction that allows me to introduce the session, but also introduce the three of them and then we'll open it up to each of them to give a brief presentation before we go to you questions and discussions with the audience and, and we expect this to be a rather dynamic and engaging discussion so so, you know, get your comments and questions ready. So, right. So when we were putting together this session we were having a few discussions one of the first things we thought was, what is the great debate. There's a series that you do runs every year around the great debate so that's where the name comes from. But one thing that we're quite keen on conveying is that we're not going to debate, whether or not there is discrimination in our discipline, and we are not going to debate our obligation as members of this community, nor as organizations, whether or not we have a role to play in addressing that we do we take we have a responsibility, and we're going to take that as read going forward. We also discussed where we sit in the conversation I think we all agreed that this is not meant to be the start of the conversation. This is an ongoing conversation racism and sexism across society, including the geosciences is a conversation happening for a while but we've not engaged with it with the vigor and commitment that we should have. So we view this less as the start of a conversation but as a, as a catching up and engaging with an ongoing conversation and an accelerant to action. Now in light of that, we've all hopefully empowered and encouraged our panelists and you as the audience to be as challenging as provocative as they as, as they can be and in particular, you know, Helen, but representing EGU as president of EGU is symbolically convening the session in order to bring the weight of EGU around a sense that we need to have a very bold conversation we need to push ourselves quite hard. And that's the, you know, we want to empower our participants and we want to empower all of you to think that way. So going through our participants were very, very likely to have three panelists. I'm going to call them panelists, all of us are participants in this including all of you. But our three panelists are absolutely fantastic and they've been quite inspiring scientifically, and in their leadership in this area. So Professor Chris Jackson is a professor of sustainable resources at the University of Manchester, and his research focuses on determining the structural and stratigraphic evolution of sedimentary basins. Gallant is a postdoc in the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge but she's in a period of transition or life. She's transitioning to a new role as a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. And right now she's actually zooming to this meeting from Hawaii so thanks for joining us at deep in the evening. This is research focused on improving lava flow forecasting techniques by integrating field studies, near surface geophysics and community outreach with numerical modeling. And our third panelist is Professor Jane Willenbrink. I've known Jane for a while. Jane is a geologist who solves problems related to geomorphology, ecogeomorphology and environmental justice and in particular she uses cosmetic nucleids and other techniques. So reading the slides as I've clicked through you'll see that all of our panelists are what I would call somewhat reluctant EDI champions, they embarked on their careers, because they love science. And as such they might give us some advice, but I think also they're going to make some you know they're going to share their experiences and they're going to challenge us and they're going to make demands of the rest of us. So that's why we put together some of the supporting people around this that we have, you know, I anticipate them to challenge Helen as president of VGU to challenge Claudia as a funder to challenge me as sort of a symbolic representative of institutions. I'm a head of the department. So, what is our obligation our responsibility to act, and we're not just going to look to them to tell us the way we're going to, we're going to have to engage and interact and respond ourselves. I expect them to challenge all of you in the audience to ask the question about what you're going to do. So throughout the session, you can see that the Q&A is open. That is for questions fire in the questions from that I'm going to try to curate a bit of a discussion with them, but also put in your own thoughts. What should EGU be doing to make a difference. What do you commit to do to make a difference. And from that we might also pick up on the different strands of the conversation. All right, that's more than enough for me. I'm now going to pass it over to the panelists, starting with Chris. Right. Okay, over to you, Chris. Well, yeah, thank you so much for the invitation, EGU to come and talk today. It's a great honor and a privilege but slightly terrifying to talk about something which, like Rich alluded to, I don't really know much about, okay, so, you know, my five minute introduction comes with a generous a warning and that is that I am a not a Jedi, right. So this is a point I think all of the speakers will allude to and Rich has already picked up on is the fact that we are reluctantly being forced into things that we are not particularly trained in and we have no desire to have experience nor do we have a desire to see some of the things we're going to cover in the next hour and a half occur in the future to the future generations of Geoscientists. But it's our job, or at least we've had the willingness in our careers and the ability to engage in this and try to shape a better future. What I can talk about there, although I'm not a psychologist or sociologist and I have no formal training in race and racism and any of the kind of issues related to that. I do have my own personal experiences and I think this is a good time to raise these because these are what shape who I am now and what we're going to talk about, at least from my side maybe in the next hour and a half. So this is me on the left with my brother at the age of I think I was about six months old at that point with this rather superb Afro and I was born in the industrial city of Derby a very white part of the East Midlands in the centre of England. And one thing I think we're going to cover today is this idea of intersectionality. Okay, so although I'm black and maybe I've been invited here because I'm black. I also have this experience of being brought up in a working class family to immigrants and there's a first generation university attendee. So here's my brother, he's a postman, and this is my mum and dad from Jamaica and St Vincent respectively, they were both nurses and they came over in the late 60s to the UK. And honestly, these are my relatives, even though I'm a foot taller than any of them, they are related to me. But, you know, and also, you know, my schooling was at a state school, which in its last assessment. And somebody's got back in its last assessment had rather poor achieving status where it was deemed inadequate and that, you know, so, so just with this slide I want to point out that I care deeply about a number of different things beyond simply race I care about socioeconomic status and privilege, I care about kind of opportunity and access to educational benefits that people have as a function of, you know, a robust socioeconomic positioning so I think being black is just one of those intersectional axes that I'm interested in and what shapes who I am. Who I am now as a black professor in UK higher education and, you know, I haven't got a lot of time but statistics related that are quite dismal. Okay, so less than 1% of the 22,000 or so professors in the UK are black compared compared to the three to three and a half percent or so of the population who are black and well I'll show you some data in a moment. And, you know, the kind of large number of, and the large number of non white shall we say academics who are professors in the UK. And that's probably reflecting the fact that as pre and valid a go pal from Cambridge says that whiteness dominates power structures and that leads us into the situation is captured here. So we have around about 220,000 academic staff we have 33 non you 33% non UK nationals run to send a black, and yet we've got this tiny number and at the bottom here is a rather frightening figure where, and only 25% or 25 black British women are professors in the UK universities out of that about 22,000. So just to finish, why is Geoscientist we need to confront race, or why do we need to acknowledge race why do we need to confront and challenge races and why do we need to care about socio economic circumstances why do we need to consider the things that Liz and Jane are going to talk about in a moment well. You know, think about it right you know Geoscience is this global, this globally important subject that we're doing and you know this book just came out by Joel go looking at Geoscience sustainable development goal if we want to go and work across communities globally, we're going to have to be able to talk to people and not like us and work with people and not against them and make them feel welcome, and willing to take on board any scientific guidance or policies that we, we, we are scientists care about. Thank you very much. Brilliant thank you so much Chris and I'm going to pass it over to list now. All right, so, unlike, unlike Chris, I don't have any statistics for what I'm going to talk about but like, like Chris and like Jane after me. I am an advocate for Jedi issues but absolutely not an expert and I can only bring with me, like Chris my my experiences, and I was actually asked to speak today. I was diagnosed with ADHD at the end of my PhD journey. And I'm going to talk a little bit about my journey and how I got there. So I grew up poor in the United States as you can tell from my accent and when I say like poor in the US I mean in between houses a couple of times poor no health insurance is poor so we're talking like real proper US poor. And so like that that was a big part of me growing up I'd move like 30 times before I got to university, like it was a it was a real mess. I started off my university experience at community college which I think is like below any level in the UK. There is no equivalent in Europe that exists for community colleges. And so I then ended up transferring as a biomedical engineer. I didn't like that so I switched my majors again. I was a graphic designer for a little bit I graduated with a bachelor's in graphic design, worked in industry thought it was quite terrible and it sucked and I hated every second of it so I went back to school for earth science education. And then I decided to switch straight to geology, and then eventually I finally graduated with my PhD. And as you can tell there, there was a lot of different movement in in that situation from one thing to the next, and looking back on it like I don't know how I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD earlier. But when you look at the numbers of women who are diagnosed with ADHD like it's really uncommon for women to be diagnosed younger because the way that the sort of stuff is diagnosed is really geared towards men, white men in particular like younger white men. And so a lot of the issues that I think we're all going to be touching upon are ones of intersectionality right. It's not just the fact that I was a woman that made it difficult to get diagnosed. I'm also a member of the LGBTQ community and so when you look at the way those those individuals are kind of brought up. The risk taking associated with ADHD often gets passed off as like something you know associated with that when you're kind of bucking gender stereotypes and gender norms and things like that and so a lot of the the ways that I think I could have been helped by the educational system were overlooked because of issues of intersectionality. And so I'm just going to, I guess, leave it at that but I want to actually give a shout out to the 900 year old man that finally helped me get diagnosed so it was like the last class I took as a PhD student in the US we take classes as part of our degree program, and I randomly was asked by, like when I say this guy is old I mean he's crypt keeper old he got his PhD before plate tectonic theory was actually like fully established like he I'm pretty sure he was on the Titanic but this old like 900 year old man, you know, invited me to his class because you know he heard me give a talk and and he was really engaged by some of the things I said for whatever reason. And then he would read my writing he's like, This is really terrible, compared to the way that you deliver, you know, the words and like engage in the concepts and so I don't know what is wrong between the way you think the way you're right but like, I don't know you need to see about that. And so like one professor, paying attention to different clues about how I thought like that's what got me diagnosed it wasn't, you know, any of the systems it wasn't any of my advisors like it was some Brandon professor that cared. And it was one, it was a professor who you wouldn't generally assume would be the person to kind of push you towards that. And so I am definitely going to probably challenge the way that that you guys engage with your students those of you who are in academia throughout the next hour and a half and and we'll see where it goes from there. I think I've rambled enough three something in the morning, and it's time for Jane who is not too too much further in front of me time wise. That's great thanks list over to you Jane. Thank you everyone for inviting me to be part of this is really an important conversation to have and I feel really fortunate to be able to talk about it. So, I was asked to be on the panel, because I was those, the backstory is that I was harassed as a graduate student and that was back in 1999 early 2000s, and I filed a complaint. And a couple, almost a couple of decades later in 2016. And that led to a long process. And what like I said on the slide sort of a reluctant education into how sexual harassment is handled in academia, and actually the perverse kind of structures around it. My complaint was leaked to Science magazine before the investigation was complete, and not by me. And a story came out and I agreed to be named in that story to give it a little bit more credence. That actually led to a lot of bad things happening. Harassment at AGU, and by a I mean a American geophysically, not AGU educated then on the processes of how professional organizations handle harassment. And a great male, a death threat written on my door, but also lots of good things to. So for example, you have the opportunity to watch a picture a scientist as part of AGU. And I am really grateful to the filmmakers for making such a powerful film and also granting me such a huge audience, and I've had the pleasure of talking to thousands of people since it's come out actually it's been just, just so wonderful and bananas actually how how how it's been received and how we really needed to have this conversation about harassment and science and and discrimination of women and color in science as well. It also led to other good things, revision of National Science Foundation policies around funding and conversations like this one. So, I'm happy to get the, get the debate or the q amp a going so that we can find out what what you are interested as an as an audience and take it away rich.  I've got a couple of questions that that all of your, your, you know, your commentaries have inspired me but I think I might just pick up with the first question in the q amp a, because it builds on some of what the, what a few of you have been saying in the chat. So this is how can I be a better ally I don't I don't know if you've all seen the question coming in from. Sorry coming in from Laura, but it but it's how can I be a better ally, and you know and Chris in your in the chat you already alluded to the fact that simply awareness is a really critical part of it. Chris, and well all of you do you want to elaborate on that a little bit you know it's not just awareness but but is it education is it putting in the time the research. I ask of someone who wants to be a good ally. Yeah, I think it just, I mean I'll just say brief I think it's very difficult isn't it because you know you have probably have like bronze silver and gold standards of ally ship right and the gold standard would be that you kind of go and read these deep and very traumatic books and you know and you donate money and you give time and things but a lot of people don't have the ability or privilege or financial, you know, the allowance to do that so you know, so I think it's kind of I think it's kind of not very easy or very practical to try and judge people on their allies ship I just want people to firstly just be aware. I just want people to be aware of things and allow themselves to be aware attend things and listen. The actions are critical but I think the actions or engaging actions is quite challenging isn't it if because it can bring you into conflict with friends and family. And it is and you know, I was kind of choking up a bit at James like introduction there it's really really hard to talk about these things it's really really hard. And so at least just giving some of support to people is is probably what's needed and then we can start from that basis of being aware to what actions. I think knowing when to engage in knowing when to provide resources, because I was just an international postdoc like I moved to the UK, the week before everything locked down.  My mom is Irish. And so like the pro English sentiment in our household was not very great. She's she's part of that part of Ireland and so it was one of those things where my, my PI did the best that she could and when she knew like she couldn't help me with like insurance questions like she's like but I do know somebody who would just move from the US who also had to deal with some of that so you should talk to this person. And so half the time like listening but then when you know that you're, you're no longer going to be an effective ally knowing having those resources to kind of direct your clients, right like if I ever had, you know, you know, a black student like I will never know it's like to be a black person in the classroom but I can say hey, go check out that black and geoscience hashtag like, you'll find a lot of empowering stories and you might find some other resources that I just can't give you and things like that or, you know, go to find the Latinas if you know want to engage with other Latinas and things like that so I think knowing where those resources are in your, when, when your help kind of erodes at that point is equally as important as being aware like that's part of the awareness. Yeah, those are all such great points I have a couple that have come up, you know, I don't know how many people have have watched picture a scientist but there's a lot of one of the people who is a bystander was in that film, named Adam Lewis and, you know, I get a lot of, like, some of the biggest differences and the takeaways from the film are thinking about Adam and his role and I'm so grateful that he agreed to participate because I think it's such a powerful part of the film because you know he was present for a lot of the stuff that happened when we were in the field when I was a student. You know, some of it he helped me through in the moment, but in the film you don't, you don't see that part, he just mentions that he didn't really understand how hard it was for me. And I think that, you know, it's easy to say like, what a doofus, like, how did he not know that this was inappropriate behavior. But I think that one thing that we should maybe think about is like, there have been times when you have been an atom, you know, there have been times when I have been an atom I've let people down who were around me and wanted me to speak up. And so thinking about that, and how there are opportunities to speak up all the time, you know, all around us. And that's the thing that I think is most inspiring and, and gives me the most hope about academia and STEM culture is that it's, you know, there are institutional structures, but there are also things that we can do every day, you know, the culture is what we do every day, what we say every day the choices we make every day. And those things can turn on a dime. And so I think that, you know, instead of micro aggressions, you know, put micro affections out there in the world and make people feel valued and included. Yeah, I'll just stop. I'll just stop there. I could go on and on. I think we might pick up more of these threads from from the other part of Laura's question which I didn't ask, which is, of course, you know, none of us want to be reduced to our minoritized status. You know, and she asked specifically about when supervising international students she doesn't want to be patronizing and reducing them that I suspect that applies in all of those cases. But you know you can imagine that if, you know, if Adam was more sensitized to the gender issues associated with field field work, he might have been prepared to be a better ally, but I suspect, Jane, you wouldn't want him to be thinking of you as, you know, the woman on the field trip so so so how how, I mean I don't think there's any single right answer that but but what do you think about that in terms of how you would want someone to engage with especially if it's a line manager or someone who is meant to support you. That's a really good question.  It's it's hard to not want to, you know, empathize with them and help them right and so I feel like that that's all that is required in a way, right, just like we're, we're all humans, and that is the level of consideration and respect that we deserve. That's very powerful others. I think just like, just being yourself right like we all all of us on the conversation before we had a practice session. And it was like me at 430 in the morning, which is slightly better than what it is now. And it very much came as myself and it was one of those situations where because I had, you know, like, it's, you know, Chris and Jane who are very well known EDI folks and rich and then like randomly me somehow is one of those things that because of their, the way that they carry themselves publicly like I didn't even. There wasn't even a question that like I could just show up as myself. And so like by being yourself in a position like fully yourself right. I think that you allow for other people to really be their their own true selves in that same role and so I think owning the good the bad and well, hopefully not too much of the bad but like the parts that are messy in academia, still owning those and those spaces where they traditionally have not been allowed like that that just makes it a better space for everyone. Yeah, Chris, did you want to come in as well. Yeah, no, I was just I was just thinking. There are times though when you know that I think the term was stepped back was used in the question right and there are times when I've seen hostility towards people who've inserted themselves into a situation in pursuit of being an ally and so I think that I can understand the jeopardy. I can understand the jeopardy from people who are in the demographic majority why when they see somebody from a historical excluded group why they may be hesitant even if they have the will to help they are nervous to do so because they're worried that by doing that they will make a bad situation worse I do have, I do have sympathy for people asking that question more so than I probably did a year ago, where I just got really cross, because I think you probably know what you could do to be an ally, whether you do it or not is a different thing entirely. I do think there's often a range of things in certain yourself into a scent into a into a scene where there's physical aggression that can be challenging but it's clearly something that might need to be done.  And it's clearly something you could do to assist and act as an ally. And it's and it's, I guess I've said this before but I just want people to do something. Brilliant. And there's a couple of good questions coming through. I see, you know, I see Addison's question about how we move this forward in Europe and I want to come back to that, but while we're on the conversation of ally ship I think, you know I think Daniel's question is very relevant to what we've just been talking about, and that there is a reluctance to report when discriminations take place. When academia do better at supporting now I suspect all of you have thoughts about that but but I know, Jane, this was a real challenge for you. In terms of when you felt free to come forward and talk about this issue and you alluded to that in your opening comments so I'm wondering if you could kick off a response to that. Yeah, I am.  And they're, they're kind of sad when I say, No, it might, it might not be a good idea to report. I mean it's, it's a really. That was something that was incredibly surprising to me that even after I waited until I had tenure, until I had, you know, perceived status as as a tenured professor. There was nothing to gain or lose really through reporting. And still the reporting process was just absolutely brutal, especially with people knowing about it. I mean imagine living your entire life and, and trying to be honest and good and create a reputation that is deserving of respect. To take that and to hand it to people who have no care in the world what happens to you. It's, it's like pretty traumatized traumatizing actually. And the thing that was bizarre to me is that I had no idea it was like that as an academic I had no idea. And so, you know, the trial line procedures are like the process by which we complain about harassment in the United States. And I always kind of thought it was a court of law. And here, it was actually done by people who could be fired, if they don't come down on the right side of the professor and so, you know, the students are looking at this. And now I look at this from a perspective of, alright, the student is going to have to go through this traumatizing reporting period. Then they might be retaliated against in fact they are retaliated against in like 95% of reports of workplace harassment. And then nothing is probably going to happen to the person that they report on.  So what we have to do is to flip it. We have to make it known that things are happening when reports do come in when these when these brave students actually report on something we have to tell them, like this is what happens to people. I don't want to see a flow chart in a bathroom about how to report. I want to see a flow chart on the wall of a bathroom. Here's what happens if you discriminate based on race. I want to see a little arrow to fired on a flow chart when someone, you know, sexually harasses a woman. Those are the flow charts I want I don't want to hear about how people can report because we don't handle them properly when people do report. Honestly, a lot of that reporting structure is to cover the university and not the individuals harmed. Absolutely. That's all I have to add nothing positive human resources is cheerleading for the, for the institution often right it's to kind of, and we've seen that imperial college institution I just left right you know bullying harassment it was all proven it was all reported. The disclosure agreements were signed people had to leave the institution, but not the people who perpetrated those incidents. So it's like why would you, why would you bother. So I just wanted to burst into applause for James point there I want to see transparency and the accountability. Really, I don't want things squirreled away in rooms and people to display quietly I want I want it to be known as a minoritized person that if I report then something what will happen and if something happens I want everybody to know about it because that will encourage more reporting. I think I guess that's where Jamie you were going with your point is I think it, I think it builds confidence in the system such that more reports will come forward and then I suspect it will be floodgates will open it opening right. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I'm also, you know kind of reminded of like the role of leadership in this, you know, and the quotation that I think is so powerful is this one by Grinter and would occur the culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate. And that is so true. And so if you think about you know how did you do as a leader. Well what did you tolerate. What happened under your watch. It's not the good things that you do.  And so that's like, you know, a simple, you know, for me to say, not a leader. It's a simple thing to do, you know, don't tolerate it. And if you if you have to tolerate it because of the policies and procedures that you have set up, change them in advance, don't get caught. Yeah. So I think there's a lot, a lot to build on here at you know, absolutely all of this is true and I couldn't agree more with what all of you said and you know and as Chris said, HR departments exist to protect the organization institution. HR departments are also very good at weaponizing employment law it's often illegal to disclose the outcome of these investigations. And that is highly problematic and I think we all have an obligation to challenge and push it, push the barriers of that. But I also know that there's been some real positive interventions made from esteemed society so you know the National Academy of Science is kicking out memberships and because that's not employment. There is a little bit more latitude so so should we see more leadership from esteemed societies about who is allowed to attend conferences, the awards and fellowships we give and or even retracting those fellowships. Bits of that exists right rich so there's some organizations when you're awarded something you have to sign something saying you've not been bad. And I have seen cases well Dawkins recently got his wrist slapped by the humanists in the US right so there are there are cases of organizations, and what's kind of reassuring about that is, I think I have I really respect organizations and people who recognize that in the past they've perhaps not been as good as they should be and they have changed and their standards and their acceptance or what they're willing to accept has changed and I think there's nothing wrong with in that kind of way saying sorry and actually and updating your policies. And if I could come to list because I think you're probably the earliest career researcher on the panel and I don't want to presume that that makes you in the most vulnerable, you know in this particular area, but seeing that type of action does that with that empower you. What do you need to see him, you know to empower you if you felt you needed to make a complaint. I actually spoke on somebody's behalf and had HR totally mishandle it. And so, for me personally, I think I just, I lack the self preservation instincts to not speak up on that front but I definitely. I would have felt better about it had I seen positive outcomes beforehand and so it's one of those things where I know exactly my date of unemployment based on the end of my, my postdoc.  And one of those things where part of it is job security but part of it's also like knowing your limits of what you're willing to tolerate. And in places that have good track records of supporting people that report or societies that like throw the book at scoundrels like I am going to put my applications in there I'm going to give those people my money before I will go back to like the serial offenders. Okay, we're not going to let oh sorry Chris come on. No I was just going to say it's interesting as well because another thing I've talked to people about is jeopardy for senior people as well so Jane and I both tenured and yourself rich as well. But there's still significant harm that can be visited upon us. You know, tomorrow or in the next 20 years as well so there's still a calculated risk, even when we engage in panels like this you know there was Chris and Jane shouting off their big mouths, you know to this big society and talking you know there's still people listening right, and we're still trying to work out whether or not we think it's worth while doing this because we still have things to lose.  You know there's other people out there who have got a lot more capital than us, who could be out here doing this really, and, you know, changing the structure so that things are better than we are we're just talking about our experiences. So I'm going to push back as a person with the least amount of job security like from the bottom up. You guys have more security than I can even imagine at this point and it's one of those things that the people that need to be changing this. They're not going to be sitting here listening to this right like the people that need to be yell that about just the human scum like they're not, they're not spending their time at the EGU online session about diversity. And so, instead of like worrying about that like I don't know I, I feel like we need to like instead of hemming and worrying about the people that should be doing the work like there's only so much effort that we can put forth and so I think we need to try and bring the people who will do the work. The people younger than me because I'm actually shockingly old for a person with no job security. But it's one of those things where I think like the effort needs to be in the next generation because clearly the folks above y'all. If they could have solved the problem they would have already and they clearly didn't. That's really pessimistic and horrible but it's one of those things like it's always easier to like judge upwards because you know, I don't know exactly what it's like to be a 10 year professor. There's some hells that I have no understanding of but it's one of those things that that security that's so lacking is so like front and focus in my brain so if I imagine if I got that right. Oh it'd be so much easier to do stuff when in reality, it comes with its own set of awful so on that note though I, you know, some of my biggest sort of pushing to make change failures have been not going to leadership first, to be honest. Because you have to in order to show that that you need to do something you have to show that they won't do something right. So I think it's important to always go to leadership. Give them an opportunity, not not just because you know it's sort of, you know you need to give them the opportunity so that you can say that they're not doing anything, but also people change right. I mean there's been a lot of. I mean I've grown over the last five years. So, maybe I should expect that our leaders have changed as well. And that we should afford them that opportunity I mean it might not work out, but some of my biggest failures have been, you know, people saying like, Why didn't you just tell me. Why start a huge student petition, why not just tell me so that I can just do something about it. And that's been something that I, I always keep in mind now because it's something that when it does go well, it's really great. I just, I've just seen, I've just seen Liz's put comment to the chat. About trust, you know, like sometimes it's just such a huge trust deficit in a system and in people, whenever people want to squirrel me away into a corner and have a private in their chat. It's sometimes trying to dampen the fire and sometimes it's, you know, so I know what you're saying, Jay, but I've had terrible experiences in the same way where you've entrusted people, you've entrusted the system and nothing's arisen, and it's simply a way of kicking the can. So I don't know if you've got any ways of, I don't know how to judge that, you know, even though an old man I'm not sure how to make that call when I should be a good citizen, and go with my request to the boss or whether I should just write a petition or kick off on social media you know I'm not sure what you and Liz think about how do you make that call, because you get it wrong right and I get told off. Yeah, I mean, in the example I'm thinking about Margaret line and the leadership, and so that's a pretty good place to start for a leader who will care about she was the one who did all of the work to incorporate code of conduct at AGU for example and so it definitely depends on the leader, but I think I think it is good to start there, and then just give them a few days. Let them stew on it and then and then see if nothing happens in a couple days you know it can't delay anything, but it's, it's good to get that kind of checked off the list, I guess. Always put those requests in writing so that you have a paper trail to.   It's not because I'm perfect it's not know how I know what to do, but it's basically to put myself exposed myself right as a leader. And therefore to make myself accountable and and and hopefully then it empowers other people to trust me right so so I think your point about the obligation of leaders to somehow some, even if it is only performative to simply show that they're that they're someone you could trust is really really important but what do you what do you look for in that. I think it's one of those things like I mentioned the phrase character development like I don't know about y'all but like me 10 years ago like oh, oh, I would not be my friend 10 years ago 15 years ago I might have smothered myself in my sleep with a pillow like just really and it's just one of those things where I think I look for admission of like, oh, I was wrong like humanity almost right like it's it's one of those things that people can admit when they're wrong like I don't expect anybody else to be perfect because like anybody that knows I'm far far from that sort of creature but I just expect people to like admit when they're wrong and learn right everyone's a little bit defensive if you call them out but if they really. If somebody is giving you the grace of their time to correct you like respect that and then you know learn from it and so the way that people interact with one another, you know somebody calls you out you're like oh yeah I know that was. I understand what you meant from that point I can see how I didn't address it like fair enough and I think you and I had a back and forth once about like being poor people with bad teeth, and I mentioned my like awful experience with the NHS like I'm so sorry to all the British people, but for like mental health issues if you're coming from another country the NHS is not great for me. And you're like oh yeah I can see that you know I've been here for so long and it's one of those things where you're like open and willing to accept that and so for me that exchange is like all right. This dude's on the level and humans I know in the meat space have told me he's on the level so a lot of its reputation, how you treat people that I care about, and also how you interact with other people. One folks are watching. I don't think that we as any of us on this panel are going to let leadership off the hook I think all of us believe in structural issues and I think a lot of these problems would go away if there's a lot more leadership. But I'd like to pivot to one of the questions in the Q amp a that that you know that is a that takes us to do a slightly different direction and that is. What would you say to minority early career researchers this is the question from Swinda, what will we say to minority early career scientists that may or may not have experienced discrimination one way or another, and are worried it might obstruct their future in academia so so we've tried to give a pretty realistic commentary here and talked about the obligations of leadership to do better. What but but you know there's a lot of early career researchers who are making really really difficult choices right now. That's a very good question. I guess I'm never a big fan of trying to advise the people who are the least powerful in a situation to do anything to kind of fix something.  So, you know, give them sort of like, you know, kind of presentation skills training so that they can talk with more authority.  And I think, I think, again, Liz just put down about doom and gloom in the chat. I mean, yeah, I always feel a bit do me and gloomy whenever I try and think about how I think awareness is one thing. I can say that's positive is that I think the question was, I've not experienced it yet. What I can say to that person is be aware that it happens. You're in this session therefore you're interested. Be aware that it's happened and then maybe, maybe try and find practical ways of addressing that like I gave a session last week for urge on self care, you know, and that's really important for me is being aware of how I can look after myself physically mentally to allow me to progress scientifically, because that's what I am the scientist. And so maybe there are some practical things to do like that. I don't know exactly what the subtext or wider context of swinders question is, but I must admit I read it as I've got a choice to make about whether I continue in this career. Can you guys give me some positive news that things are getting better is is this great debate evidence that things are getting better, or is it too soon to see whether or not we can really change the system. Is a young is an earlier career person, it's hard to see any future in academia with the way that the pandemic has like totally cratered out the job market, not going to like as a person on the job market like I'm more comfortable than most people who have postdocs I like magically got one well I had one that I applied for before the pandemic and like money fell out of the sky somewhere just for this one job. And it's one of those things where I this probably isn't great advice but like no, no your limits like what's it worth to you is it like is your career and academia worth uprooting your family and moving to other places like I grew up moving because I came from like transient people so like moving is fine for me but it's not cool for some other people. And so like knowing the things that you require to make you your life livable like don't don't sacrifice those for your future in academia. I know that's not the advice you're probably looking for but like I moved in it sucked over this last year and so I like made a bunch of really rash decisions and now I'm way happier. I know they're making the right decisions at the time but they seem to be working out now. Yeah, I mean, another thing is to think about is that, you know, a lot of things are bad at first maybe that can get better over time I mean right now I sort of surround myself with collaborators who are the most wonderful people in the world.  There are things that you can do and advantages that come out only later in your career later in your career there's there's also a lot of things that are negative about the job to but, but I feel like there are things that you that you can do and that and changes that you can make you know that's that's kind of a cool thing about being on the other side of having a permanent job is that you can be one of the people who helps.  And now I'm in a position where I can help to change them, and that gives me a huge amount of satisfaction, just being there for students and helping to change the policy and so they make sense for people who have had experiences like I have. And do you want to elaborate on your comments in the chat that that you, you've seen some change over 17 years. Yeah, I've been in academia about 17 years and I think that one improvement if it can be called that is that these conversations are happening more publicly you know they are brought up at staff meetings or faculty meetings as they call them in the US. And they are on the great debate EGU they are kind of, you know, AGU had EOS last month or a few months ago which was dedicated to diversity inclusion granted a lot of this was precipitated by the death of George Floyd but you know there's a catalyst there but at least those things are happening now and I'm hoping that we can't put the lid back on the box now that these these discussions are going to keep on happening in more and more forums and in more and more public spaces and also I think, I think, those and Jane are both touched on this like going back to the generation before me even and the current PhD students and having them hear this right having them hear that these things are inappropriate having them hear that some senior people Jane and myself and yourself rich you know we do feel deeply passionate about this and we want it to change so those PhD students will see that and and feel like there is a better future out there despite you know some of mine and Liz is grumping us at least in the answers you know I'd like to think that there is some positivity out there.  Like I had excellent undergrad mentors who made sure I did research. I had you know people who were were at the internship I had like they made sure that I got the skills I needed a woman at NSF like she's like of all the people we had extra funding like you did the most outreach. We need more people like that like that's why you got that fellowship, not like all other footing like so, as much as I grump about y'all y'all olds like you're not even that much older than me because this is my second career but I'm, you know, still uncertain but it's one of those things that as much as I grump about that that cohort like those are the people that made sure I was here. And so I think finding those people like don't don't waste your time on the turds. I'm actually not friends with Liz anymore. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I don't want to be too, I don't want to be too rosy about this, you know, like, I totally alternate between, like, you know, joy in my profession, and like total spite, right and it's just like, you know, when the joy is gone.   No one can tell you where you can and cannot be come on. So, when you're like I want I want that job, and then I can, you know, they're currently telling younger folks that you cannot be here by not giving us jobs. Yeah, but that's not that's not your guys's fault. So like that that that pivots away. It's one of those things that when you're at this career stage, your level of misery oscillates like how bitter you feel about a job rejection. I'm currently on like hospice care for a job I know I didn't get like waiting for the rejection so like I'm at the bottom of the trough there for that like grumpiness so I apologize. But I'd like to think that people like yourself Liz and other people are really vocal in a more junior career stage there are people out there more senior who deeply deeply want people like you in the academy. Right. I mean, actually. No, but it but it be actively out there looking for people in terms of collaborations in terms of jobs with you know I think, and I said again you that question what has changed in 17 years I suspect 17 years ago that might not have been as common. But there are people who are who are out there who value that vision of academia as much as all the fancy papers and the stack of money. So I really want to keep beating that drum to make it. You know, maybe it's just me and Jane rich right, but there are people out there. Now it's one of those things to that I think if I was salty as I am now like 17 years ago. I would have escorted me out before I even got on a panel about you know grumping about things and so I definitely even so I went back to school in 2010. That's when I first learned about what Iraq was. And even in that last 10 years like I've already seen the uptake, like the me to movement has really, I think, started to flourish and people becoming more aware of racial injustices and it's one of those things that as a person who's gone through this sort of like awakening, I guess as a student. It's, it's been very positive but it's also one of those things where I feel like it doesn't happen fast enough but I'm sure everybody feels that way who cares about these issues. So, there's lots of questions piling up in the q&a that I've somewhat neglected and I do want to come back to this EU question I might even ask Helen to comment on this one. But before I do I just, you know, all of you opened up your presentations commenting on some aspect of intersectionality I know, you know, there's an aspect of it of it and what what Liz is talking about in terms of especially the intersection of these characteristics with being a precarious member of the community right that that is profoundly an issue. And I do think it's perverse that we are making some gains to make the Academy more accommodating in terms of minoritized characteristics, just when a whole bunch of external factors are are really undermining the job market anyway. And I think all of us have an obligation to consider all of that in the whole when we think about the next generation and, and I do think leaders have the obligation to think about that, much more broadly than in terms of h into season and why I'm not going to mention that because otherwise Chris will go off on one in terms of metrics and this is, I saw that furrowed brown. Yeah. But, but I think there is, but I parked this conversation around EU and I've run into this myself a lot of us have run into this sort of like, there's different rural views about EDI that this is more of an American issue or, or, you know, so Helen as as EU president and I'll open up to the rest of you but I'm wondering if you could come in and sort of comment upon how, because I agree I think the EU is, I think European institutions are a little bit behind the American institutions in this conversation so how do we get up to speed. Yeah, thanks Rich. I've been listening to the discussion with interest actually and, and I've, I, I actually have had conversations with peace people even in within recent weeks who've actually said to me. No, discrimination is not the same in Europe. You know, Americans make much more noise about it and, but we're different culturally we are different, and it actually makes me really really cross. And, and you asked how can we, how can we change the conversation. I think it comes back to something that all of our panelists have alluded to and in fact you yourself alluded to rich which is making people more aware that this is real, and it is happening. You know, I, and I have to say some of the things that have been said already today really resonated with me because I am more than happy to say and this is an important point that now as a senior researcher in the position that I'm in, I am prepared to say as a junior scientist when I first started working in the field, I experienced harassment, but I was advised not to report it, because it would affect my future career path. And I don't think things have changed that much in Europe, since I was a young researcher, and I mean I'm 55 now and we're talking about when I was 21. So, I think a lot of what we're talking about is changing the conversation in Europe. It's about raising awareness, but it's about organizations such as each EU, and all sorts of other organizations and institutions, taking it seriously, recognizing it, acknowledging that it does happen, and making people feel that they are in a safe space to be able to say this has happened to me, but I do believe that each EU has a really pivotal role to take in this.  Well, I'm sorry. One of the reasons I was keen for us to have this discussion in this space is for me. It is zero tolerance. And I want to make sure that organizations such as each EU are holding this up and saying, this is not okay. This is happening, and it is not okay, and that we won't tolerate it. And I do think that's the role that organizations can play.  And it didn't happen and they but they say, Oh, but we did something about it. Yeah, but what did you do about it and why did you feel the need not to point to it and say, this happened, and this is what we did about it. And that's what we need to do in Europe we need to be less scared to point to it give it a name and say it's not okay. So, so I don't know if you saw in the chat but does anyone want to sort of come in about some specific suggestions, not just around changing the dialogue but changing policy. Yeah, rich I had a point I wanted to raise in response to Helen's but I think a lot of what we've talked about so far have been like what we would consider the big ticket discriminations right so sexual harassment racial discrimination. I think we've not really talked enough about the very very small date, the day things which unless you're actually attuned to the micro aggressions is I think the term Jane is, you probably just passed you by and you don't realize that it's just the constant chipping away at those smaller things which seem like they're just part of the machine, which are actually really the problem it's not the fact I'm afraid of being beaten up by clan members in the street for being black I'm more concerned about the fact that people just assume I'm not a speaker at a conference in black or, you know, you know there's different levels of things which undermine your ability. And, you know, and, and I'll raise it you know because I think each year and age you and a lot of these professional societies don't realize quite how their machinery also serves to undermine historically excluded groups you know and we've had this conversation about the Marie thought medal in the TS division it's been going on I'm not going to bring it up again here. Things like that, which are the tools with which historically excluded groups are being held back from progressive and they look small. And when people get cross it looks petty, but they are just as important because they are happening 100 times a day. So I think a lot of a lot of what we need to think about are also some of the more minor things and it's not just easy it's not just that I'm just saying in general, there's things which, unless you're hyper tuned to it and I think I'm probably to a tune to it. We might miss. There's a power law that describes the frequency magnitude, you know, of harassment and discrimination events. Since we're all geoscientists here. I'd love to see that. I mean put it this way let's keep that analogy going then Jane, the little magnet the small magnitude events which are regular we can the structure right. The larger magnitude and the whole thing comes down you don't even need the big event at that point.  I don't know the last time it was in the meat space. And it's one of those things that like normally it's fine it's fine but like there's then there's just this one straw that just breaks it, or you know somebody uses some disparaging homophobic nonsense words you like all right. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. It comes a huge risk. Oh yeah, we say way this in terms of what you can do, because it's like, I because I think this is a good time to segue it into how you and the structure can also manage it. Is that is that cool with the other speakers. So it's one of those things where you want to make this space for like just say that you're looking at your organization and you're like, All right, we need. We don't have enough like women here based on the number that should be there. You know just say we have a society right there should be 40% women based on the people in the degree path or whatever. Make space for the people that are missing before, before they complain right like not they complain but it's one of those things. If you see that there's a hole in your organization, make space for those people so that they don't have to do the work like it's not Chris's job to make sure every black academic in the UK like has a seat at the table like all those micro aggressions. Dude's got enough work like I don't need to make sure every you know queer person or everybody with ADHD as well taken care of like if those are issues that you see within your organization like do the work yourself to make that seat at the table. I think I was at Imperial that's like we're not going to go to places where homosexuality is like illegal.  You can cut that out of your curriculum before that person has to like out themselves and be like this is going to be a problem for me. Or you know whoever or if you have like a trans person like any member of the LGBTQ community is kind of at risk there. And it's one of those situations where like me make space at the table for the people that are missing. And that's something that I can't wait for the one person that has managed to sneak their way through the pipeline to have the burden of doing it. And like that's something that all of the, the different groups can do right like you don't need to have a person who's gender non conforming or trans to say hey, maybe we should use some pronouns in our, in our emails or we should have pronoun buttons at EGU just so that somebody doesn't like yell at me for you know P and in the, in, you know the bathroom. On the other side of that, you know, I don't know how many times I've heard that something won't be tolerated but unless you have the how worked out how will it not be tolerated. It's kind of just saying something. So I feel like there need to be, you know, policies and procedures laid out for what happens when something happens how will you not tolerate it. And what are the policies that that would result in people, you know, for being banned from it from ever attending a EGU again. I understand this is quite controversial from some discussions or two or three years ago because it's firstly you've got to be able to police that at the venue door almost is like one bit of the conversation I remember hearing and that is one thing, you know, can they register and if they can't register, then they can't just go in a building let's say for AGU or the comprehensive Vienna so maybe then it is easier to kind of police that decision that somebody's not allowed to attend. How long it lasts for, you know, they're banned for two or three years maybe they're not eligible for awards or medals maybe there is some, maybe there are things that can be put in place. I just worry rich that sometimes people lack teeth to do these things. Yeah, they kind of, it's like I think you know, like Jane says it's easy to say, we, you know, we don't tolerate this but the how is the how is, they know how actually what I'm talking about they know how they just just haven't got the bottle to do it actually. And it's one of those things to that I noticed that a lot of the problematic people like if you if you read some of their abstract like, who the hell let this through. And so some of it I think is accountability for the sessions right there was recently I saw on Twitter like an anthropology session where somebody was like dragging indigenous folks beliefs, like oh you know we don't let creation isn't in like who let who let that abstract through. Who let that abstract through and I think honestly like, not only do you kind of throw the hammer at certain things like the people that let like that didn't address that at the door like I'm not going to let this into my session this is trash. You have to address those people to it's not just the offenders it's the people that allow for them to that give them a voice in the space. So just to just to quickly jump in but I don't want to take up too much of the airspace because I actually want to listen to our speakers because from the perspective of VG you, I want to know what they think we can do better. And that's what I want to be able to take away, but I just wanted to comment on this, this observation about letting abstracts through. Today, we are getting much more rigid and much tighter about the things that are sneaking through, but you're absolutely right Liz there is, there are levels, you know, we are reliant on conveners going. No, that's not right, but even if they do sneak through, we do have mechanisms in place that mean we do ask conveners to change the titles of sessions. We do reject some abstracts that we think are inappropriate. But there is also, I think Chris kind of alluded to this, we also have to strike a balance about making sure that we, you know, we don't silence some people who, you know, bring the other part of the of the discussion. So it's, we do have those balances and checks and balances in place. And I think it's about making sure that they're implemented as well as they can be. Right, did anyone else want to come in on on any of those particular issues or have other comments about EGU. I mean, I've got some questions piling up in the q&a that I can circle back to. Right. Oh yeah, go ahead Jane sorry. Oh I think one of the things that that AGU has done that is really pretty amazing has been to, you know, pay for students legal fees, or some legal consultation, which is a big commitment on their part. I think that we could do more professional organization wise in terms of the passing the trash situation, whereby people harassed at one institution are fired or essentially fired and then just move on to another one. One individual who's moved four times now, every time gets a promotion, a raise and more power. And now is leading a research organization. And so, you know what what can professional organizations do about that you know could could we have some sort of list of people who have been accused.  Can you check a list, right, can you just do a background check that people agree to when they apply for the job. Is that something that we can do I mean this is something that has been bothering me for a long time you know we look at the Catholic Church, and how they move priests from place to place, continuing their abuse, and frankly we do the same thing. I think it's one of those things where not only do we need those in place, you have to make sure people actually do them so there was a guy who was at Idaho State University who groped a woman after she had like had a very traumatic experience. And this was known like this was written about and he got sent to the University of South Florida like and nobody did the background check. So even though you had like, I don't, his name is Herb Maschner there's a whole story about it.  It's fine. I'm fine with it, but it's one of those things where it's a situation where you have to have those in place but we also need people to enforce it like the fact that nobody did the background check like how many postdocs is that how many scientists like you know how many jobs is that that you could have gotten for the millions of dollars you threw at this guy like how many scientists aren't going to get to be academics because you hedged your bets on the scoundrel. Yeah. Maybe pull back and consider the geo sciences as a whole. There is a Helen replied to this talking about how legally problematic especially across borders it is to compile lists but if anything Helen, I think it means it's all the more important to have clear policies such there is a clear and transparent decision and of course, maybe that only captures a small number of people, but if it's on the public record that someone has been banned from EU for three years. That is indisputable fact that's actionable. So I think that you know there's elements of moving that. You know there are a lot of comments in the chat about drinking culture conferences beer culture and in geo sciences. We all know about the issues around field work. It's a discipline that was thought you know basically founded on basically colonialism and toxic masculinity if you go all the way back. Are we talking about a problem in academia or does the geo sciences have a particularly acute problem that will need particularly acute interventions. I think I'll just comment briefly on that we cover this in this paper which is coming out in Nature Geosciences by Dow yet also we got all this data around representation of ethnic and racial minority groups in the UK. And so that was the conclusion we came to in that paper is that there is a set of things which are society wide and academia wide, which are barriers to historically excluded groups but then there are things which are very specific or amplified in the context and you picked upon two of the ones that we covered there rich which are the colonial past and masculinity and the and the kind of culture and some of the obsessions around things like macho things like field work. And so I think there are some specific things that we need to tackle in geo sciences and they're being written about and they're well known and again it's a case of just getting on with fixing some of these issues. Anyone else want to come in on that one. That's such a tough one I mean some of the reasons that geo, the geo sciences are are great. Also make it some of the reasons why it is hard to fix, you know, I mean I think that the field work aspect field work by nature is just, you know you find mosquito in your corn flakes while you're camping, and you flick it out. You find a mosquito in your corn flakes when you're at a restaurant, and you send it back right there are different standards for how we behave in different situations and I personally love the different standard where we behave differently in the field. But somehow we still have to treat people with respect and professionally, even though we are in sort of a more informal environment where you talk about going to the bathroom. And, you know, and so I think that we do have a bit more of a challenge in that respect but I also think that it's one of the, the things that makes the geo sciences really amazing and wonderful to study is, is that kind of experience and camaraderie that frankly like, you know, a chemist doesn't have that right so. So maybe building on that theme I see that we only have 10 minutes left so I think I best come back to the three of you for some just sort of concluding reflections and such. So basically, to forewarn you I'm going to babble for a few moments so you can get your thoughts together but I'll go in reverse order so Jane then less than Chris. But you know, literally any sort of reflections on what we've spoken about or maybe things that you think that we've not spoken about that you want to sort of finish, but if I can ask. Maybe pick up a little bit of the theme that Jane had which is, okay we've been quite forthright about some of the challenges we face. But they're, but there are positive actions that that people are taking those positive actions that the next generation of researchers can do and hopefully a more supportive environment so if we could probably not. Let's not look through the world through rosy glasses when we know that there's big challenges but if we can maybe end with a bit of optimism especially for the next generation of attendees that are in the audience so over to you Jane. Yeah I mean. I'm still in this profession because I think it's because I still love it right. And I think that. I wanted to keep in mind why you got into the field when you did, and that there's a lot of good sort of easier aspects, once you are a bit more senior, you're less at the mercy of people that, you know, have been doing bad things and you can be part of a culture and to me that's, that's really one of the reasons why I have stuck with it. I will also say that you know, there's so much focus on having students have a lot of persistence and resilience skills. And I think that we need to really build up different skills through the, the period of being a graduate student and then, and then the postdoctoral training I think there are other things that we have not flexed in terms of skill, creating like working in teams, for example, that are things that I think we can, we can focus on in the future. Thanks very much Jane, and Liz. So I think one of the things that is a real kind of pitfall for a lot of people working towards a better future is burnout right like, you can only read so many stories about harassment or, you know, doom scroll through Twitter and see so many like microaggressions. It's one of those things where I think my advice would be to vary the way that you kind of expend your energy, you can like burn it down one day but the next day like if all. So I try and vary so sometimes it's about changing the system, and then other times it's about building up other people who will also, who are part of the system that you know I think should exist in the in academia.  I tried a million different jobs. And like, I had like four or five different majors, and this is the one for me like the worst day in academia is still better than the best days a graph of designer for me hands down. And I just try and do at least one thing a day that makes this job better for other people. Sometimes it's big sometimes it's small but I think everybody's got to do their part. It's not just the people here. And that's something you could bring to people who may not be like part of the conversation at this moment like you can empower them to make those small changes so that it's a little bit less burdensome for the days where you need to make the big ones. And that's very, that's very powerful list. Thanks very much. And Chris. Yeah, this is a difficult question to answer. And I guess it's probably worth for an early career researcher bearing in mind why they got into the subject in the first place. Geosciences is very, very important as I touched upon in the last comment in my presentation at the start, you know, it's globally significant. It can save lives and livelihoods it can empower people, you know, we have an incredible job to do an important job to do. Similarly, the early career researchers right on this call or not you know they've chosen it because of some aspect of that right they're curious about the world and they want to use that curiosity to make the world a better place for people. And so keeping yourself tied to that initial stimulation for getting into it is really important now that doesn't really address your question of why they should be positive because again that's something that they're bringing to their by going through the academic ranks. I think what I would do to answer that specific question is just go back to what I said earlier on there is an increasing body of people I believe who are passionate about things outside of science quote unquote right and that is, or academia in terms of just raising money and writing papers there are people who are equally as passionate and view the value for science of being inclusive. Okay, so I don't like it when people separate off like well there's science and then there's this thing about G Jedi right over here I see them as the same thing because otherwise we run the risk of excluding hugely talented people who will make bigger contributions to science in the future, so they're not separate things, right. So I encourage those early career researchers to try and I don't know if write those two horses as an American phrase but try to kind of handle those two things the science and the things they like doing but also the other stuff you know just being a good human being just treating people with respect, like think about how you make the work environment a better place and through that you befriend people you meet, I think Jane said this, you meet amazing people, Liz said she was too poor for horses, plural growing up. We don't have horses in the UK. So yes I think that's what I would say is you know bring that bit of yourself with you and then be aware that there's a grain body of people who care about other things and want to make academia and science is an awesome place. Brilliant. Thanks so much Chris. And, you know, I'm going to wrap up and pass over to Helen in a moment. Apologies to those of you whose questions I wasn't able to bring in I think we got a lot of what you were asking and commenting on and definitely keep the conversation going. One question that that I wanted to have time for I didn't wasn't able to come back to it was circling back to a comment that Chris made in the beginning about how to be a good ally and of course as as you've heard there's so many different dimensions to discrimination, all of us need to be allies to someone. And of course Chris said you know there's a bronze silver and gold standard and you know not all of us have the capacity to be you know to put all of the time and investment and goal. And I think we have to ask all of ourselves. What is the bare minimum for bronze, the bare minimum right, what is the bare minimum to avoid the types of issues that list was was mentioned about being misgendered what is the bare minimum that we are required to understand to basically be not even activist allies but to simply create a welcoming environment in our discipline. And I'll give that with all of you to ponder, and I'll pass it over to Helen to sort of wrap up. Great. Thank you rich and thank you everybody I actually found this this discussion this afternoon really well and this morning and middle of the night for less. It was really enlightening because one of the things that I wrote down in my notes well actually when we started this session was that I, I want to advocate advocate for for everybody in the geosciences particularly those people who feel that you know they're underrepresented in some way or they feel that in some way they're being discriminated against because I've been on the wrong end of that myself. I know how that feels. But one of the things that I think we need to do is if we do need to encourage people to advocate for those for others, and we need to be kind to each other. I think Jane put it very well when she said, we should be seeking rather to have micro aggressions to have micro kindness is if I remember your statement correctly Jane and I like that idea I think that that is that is something I'd like to get put on a front of a T shirt actually. But I think one of the most important things is we need to have confidence in our leadership, we need to have confidence in the fact that they're taking this seriously that you know they are recognizing that this is, this is an issue, and it is an issue that we can't deal with, you know, as I think Chris said by, you know, quietly having a little conversation in a room and, and I agree with rich that, you know, too often you know HR policy is weaponized against the people it's supposed to support. Again, I've seen too many examples of this. And I think each of you is in a unique position and in fact all scientific societies are in a unique position in that they can advocate for their members, we can make all of our members aware that you know that we're there we're listening and we want to know about the problems, but I want to go back to something that I think Rich put in the chat a little while ago, which was about. We need to understand what we can do better, and we can need to understand what EG you can do to really make a difference, because I, I want people to tell me what I have some ideas, but they're only from my perspective and they're only based on my very limited experience. But I want to know what others in the community think we should be doing what we can do. And I know rich when we were preparing for this, this session, we talked about having a blog or something similar that summarized what we discussed in this session that was almost a letter from the panelists. Dear EG you this is what we think you should be doing. And then I would seek to write a response, because I think what I want to do is start a proper conversation, rather than just say going. Okay, it's easy you this week, we're going to have a great debate on discrimination in the jazz sciences, we all go away and go yeah that was pretty great. Until next year and we go, oh yeah, maybe we should revisit that topic in a different shape. No, let's carry on the conversation. So again, I'd like to know how we can carry on that conversation. And what we can do to make a difference because as I've already said, one of the reasons I wanted to become president of EG you is because I want to do something about diversity, equality and inclusivity in the jazz sciences. So just listening to our three fantastic panelists today, highlights why this matters so much. And lastly, I would say, if you haven't watched pictures scientists while it's available. Do it even reduced my husband to tears and that is saying something. So I would like to just thank all of our panelists and also rich. Thank you for some fantastic moderation. And thank you all very very much for being part of this, this fantastic discussion this afternoon. Thank you.


Haleen asked the question, I have a problem with a document in Word where there is this blue box in the top of all pages. And I don't know how to remove it as I can't market. I can open a new document, which is blank, but if I copy paste there, this current document into a new one, the blue box is still there. Anyone could help. And I saw it, so she shared an image out on the forum too, just an empty Word doc. It looks like the blue box is up in the header, but it's not. And my next, it almost looks like there's a template, but it's a Word doc, not a template. So I mean, my first thought is it's the header, it's not. Second thought, can you select all and grab it? There's something like no. The third thing is that it almost looks like it's a blue box that was put in a template and you're accessing the doc template, but it's not, it's a straight Word doc. So I'm not sure what that could be. So is it actually a straight Word doc because somebody can take a template and just rename it to docX? I mean, that's not a big deal. I open it up as a doc. Number two, did she do a reveal codes? Because you can go in and do a reveal codes and find out what is actually sitting up there in the document itself. And of course, that's a totally user-friendly thing to go and do. It is, it is. Yes, it is. It was a thing that was confusing me. Sarcasm people, sorry. When she talks to me when she doesn't see it, but when she copies from something else over, right? Which is why I think it's a template scenario, Mike, that you just described, yeah. The normal dot dot? Normal dot dot? No, no, because if she's got a new document, it's not there. So it's the current document. So when she's copying and pasting, I would say go to the home tab, go to the, go to in the, in your editing pane, go select and open up the selection pane. So you can start to see what do you have on the page. If it's an object or anything along those lines, it might then come up for you to be able to select with a selection pane. Because if there's something there, you've got the eye that you can turn it on and off in your selection pane. So that's how you can select anything across the different screens. So have a look at that for an object first. Is it an object? Because it could be sitting as a background or it could be, you know, there's a lot of other components where when you're copying a page, if it's not something you can select, then it's, you know, it can be things like the water, a water marking or something along those lines that sit in the kind of the back end that you can't touch. So you need to be able to reveal. If it's on the one, it could be hidden, but when she copies and pastes, it reveals it to let you know it's there. Right? Yeah. Well, that's why if you, I was, sorry, to interrupt this, I'd say copy and paste it as an unformatted text, whether it appears or not. If you remove all formatting, does it go away? Yeah. Also, is she the only one that's having it? Yeah. Because when she's saving it, depending where she's saving it, is something to be applied. Is an eyesight-related issue. Do you see blue boxes on other things? Yeah, I think that is the person next to you getting the same thing. Because when they're saving, depending on where they're saving, is some policy trying to put a watermark or do some sort of confidential, something, you know, of that nature? So you've got a couple of different scenarios you need to check out. But I bet you it's hidden on this, the one she's copying from, but when she pastes, it's showing because it's supposed to, right? To let you know it's there. Yeah. Yeah. Or just, you're taking glasses on and off and it definitely is a, you know, a vision thing, but yeah, it's usually an object, so it's revealing objects. I would also say, and if it's an object or you've put something in, even if it is, so you can put in different sort of table parts, you know, when you go on, so maybe it's a text box or something. And it looks white on one, like it's there and you can't see it. So it's got like white on this. But when you move it into the new document, maybe the new document is based on the office template and colors and formatting. So it's defaulting automatically to the new color. That are set on the standard template to your template. So what doesn't look like there's anything there and you bring it over and it does here. It could just be because it's defaulting over to the new looks and colors. So therefore it reveals it. So yeah. You could also change the background color of your document to the same color blue and then it'll just disappear. I don't know what, we wouldn't notice it. I'm just providing options. That's all I'm just trying to. Yes, it did. So helpful. That's not the one she wants. I'm just going to fix your, how to fix your problems by Christian Buckley. And he blogs, he blogs these all the time. Doesn't he? I like to, as one of my favorite sayings is, I don't know the answer to your problem, but I admire that problem. Good on you. That is an interesting one though. I'd like to know the answer, which one it actually is. Yeah, I've applied. I've seen that sort of stuff. I've had that sort of stuff before, even. But it's usually, it's usually a couple of. You just have to go, right. Just go try things, poke around. Yep. Sometimes I wonder about you, Christian. We all wonder about you. You should talk to my wife, Mike. The non-paid non-attorney spokesperson, yes.


They had people in a nature festival, music festival. Yeah. You had hundreds who saw the pictures, they were just horrible. We just killed people, women. Yes.  Yeah, okay. Again, I'm not here to allege anything or to make any statements. However, lately I've seen out of a sudden information popping up that it was actually Israeli helicopters that shot everybody left and right after this music festival and they could not distinguish between Palestinians between Israelis and therefore ended up allegedly shooting their own people. So again, I'm just questioning, could that be a possibility?


I think one of the main takeaways is write a really strong press release. A lot of the time, you won't have the contacts, you won't know the journalists you're approaching, you're sending them something completely fresh, and they've never heard of Myloma. So you have to send them something that tells them everything they could possibly want to know about Myloma. So that really starts with a strong headline, something if they see it as their email subject, they just feel compelled to click on it. So what we find is we always use a very strong case study, a patient case study, and we kind of try to tell their story in the headline, so if they've had a delayed diagnosis or sort of anything that just makes them think, oh wow, that is shocking, and just makes them want to click. So the reason we have really detailed and press releases, and we call them the complete package is because journalists in the UK anyway are pushed for time, they don't have time to research something, they may have never heard about this particular cancer, so we want to put as much information in there as possible, and in simple terms so that if they wanted to use it, they wouldn't have to do interviews, they don't have to do additional research, they can just copy paste it, put it in their newspaper on their website or run a new story based on that. So a strong headline is the key thing. We always say in the UK a very short but information-packed introduction, that's about 24 words, keep it simple, have all the information in there, and then because people's attention span isn't what we hope it will be, put all your key information in the first three paragraphs, all your takeaways, we know that journalists do that when they write articles, so treat your press release as if it were an article and you were writing it for the audience, this journalist's audience, and one thing we would say is make sure that you don't use jargon, and it will probably be this journalist's first time hearing about myeloma, they may just switch off when they hear about a cancer they've never heard of, but if you explain it simply, you're encouraging them to just think, oh I can write about that, I understand it, and one thing we would say is stick to just three statistics if you can, people just can't take it, numbers, at least in the British press we find that there's hardly ever any statistics in there, and one thing I would say is use strong quotes, patient quotes, but also it's a good opportunity to share quotes from your chief exec or anyone at your charity, and if you use a quote from your chief exec or anyone at your patient organization, make sure you've got a call to action in there or a strong message, if you're sending this because the government isn't doing enough, say we want the government to do more, something like this is great for journalists, it's a good like soundbite, and they're more likely to keep it in. There's so many more things you could do, but one simple thing that a lot of people forget is pictures, whether it's on a website or in a newspaper or even for TV, they will actually use pictures and you'd be surprised how many times people call you at six and say the picture is blurry, it's too small, it's the wrong shape, so just send a few of the patient, anyone quoted in the press release should really be photographed and you should send it to them. And one thing we always do at Myeloma UK, we find that works is press releases can't be that long, so there's a lot of information you want to share with people like the key symptoms of Myeloma, what your organization does, key statistics, so that's the opportunity at the bottom to do a fact file and to just do lots of bullet points, anything you want them to know, the journalist may or may not use it, but at least you've done your job, you've shared everything that anyone would possibly want to know about Myeloma. And one thing I would recommend is always double checking if you're mentioning an event, a thing who, what, where and when, it's so easy to say something's happening and you forget to say where or when, and my personal tip as something I do all the time is when in doubt, always bring it back to the impact on patients. It's so easy, especially when you're talking about a big campaign or survey or a study you've done, you have so many statistics in your mind. And of course, for us, they're all super important. But for journalists, really they're thinking what's the key thing, what's going to be my headline. So just if you, if there's too much information and you're not sure what to include, think does it impact a patient directly? Is it relevant? And if it's not, maybe just take it out and ignore it. So building relationship with the press is a long process. And I don't know about other countries, but in the UK, it's made harder by the fact that a lot of people are made redundant, people move on, it's a tough industry. And we find that sometimes we've got a good contact. And then a month later, they're gone. So there's different ways you can do this. And I think instead of just focusing on maybe, Oh, I want to be in this one newspaper and this is the one person I need to speak to. What I would say is if you can, so we subscribe to a media database. And that means you get access in theory to every journalist working in the UK. And you can figure out who works in health, who works in radio, TV, and we create lists. And then we send.  And because most people don't. And then sometimes we wouldn't hear back from them, they wouldn't even open them open our press releases. But you know, eventually, when something came up about cancer, or blood cancer, they might just remember, Oh, I got this email, or many emails from that woman at that charity. But more generally, if you kind of email everyone, and someone's bound to get back to you and just say, Oh, that's an interesting story. And then that could be a small local paper. But then, you know, that story in the local paper might be picked up by a national paper, and then you work your way up. When it comes to communications, it's important to have some things in mind. The first one is media usually reaches us with a very tight deadlines. So either you respond fast or the opportunity is gone to respond fast, but also to respond with consistency. It's important to prepare the key messages you would like to share with media. For example, your main goals, the main results of your projects, things you want to highlight from your event. So your spokespeople have a clear idea of what they should say when they are asked about the project. To select your spokespeople is important also to evaluate their public speaking skills, depending also a kind of interview they are going to respond. For example, it's not the same to respond to a local newspaper interview, or a national television interview. So depending on that, you select the best exposed people for your organization. MP can support members in the communications area by helping them with a press release template, helping them preparing the key messages for the event they are going to prepare. Also dissemination and communication through the MP newsletter, the MP website, and also helping them to organize and support webinars and recording of those webinars and even filming interviews.


Welcome to our video on challenges students face when participating in EMI courses.  But before we go over those challenges, let's define what I mean by participation. Here I mean any way that your students speak in class. It can be during large or small group discussions, group projects, or even presentations. Okay, so now let's think of specifics. Pause the video and write down at least three reasons that students might not participate in your EMI class. When you get a three, restart the video and you can compare your list with mine. Welcome back. Let's compare your list with mine about participation challenges for students. I identified seven challenges. One of the biggest reasons that students don't speak up in class is course design. When we design our EMI course, we have to create it so that students, we give them an opportunity to participate. We have already discussed the importance of having a class atmosphere that encourages students to be engaged in the course, but there are other things to consider as well. For example, many courses include a grade for participation, but the way the grade is determined is not clear. That means students don't really know how the instructor decides if their participation is an A level or B level or C level, etc. Other courses don't include any opportunities for students to participate in class at all. There are no discussions, no group projects, no presentations, nothing. That would be a problem. Students that don't have any participation built in are often more boring and less engaging for students. Students participate more when they are engaged, meaning course design with participation in mind is crucial. Another challenge is how well students understand EMI course materials. Students with lower English proficiency levels and who cannot fully understand the content will obviously struggle to participate. As students gain more English and as they learn more content, instructors can expect more participation from them, and students can be encouraged to participate in whatever ways they can. A third challenge is student nervousness or low self-confidence in speaking English. Students who feel nervous about their pronunciation, vocabulary, or rate of speaking will be less likely to speak in front of a larger group, but they are often more willing to speak in smaller groups. As students have more practice speaking and as their speaking improves, they will gain confidence, which leads to more speaking again. It can be a positive cycle. A fourth challenge is student fears of negative feedback. Students can worry that their instructor will be overly critical of them, will grade them down, or will think poorly of them. Students can also worry that their classmates will be critical of them. This can make them not want to speak in front of the class. As an EMI instructor, it is therefore crucial that you provide a supportive atmosphere in your class. A fifth challenge is cultural considerations. In some cultures, participation and public speaking is expected and is widely practiced in schools. This is the case in the U.S. In other cultures, there is less public speaking in school or society in general, or students may be expected to wait their turn before speaking. Cultural considerations can also include students worrying that if they talk too much in class, their classmates will get frustrated with them. If you are in a culture where students have not practiced speaking in class much, you will have to spend extra time at the beginning of your course with stating your expectations to students and with supporting them as they learn how to participate. A sixth challenge is gender equality in class participation. In many cultures, female students speak in class less often than do male students. Instructors therefore need to pay attention to who they are calling on to answer questions and on who is volunteering so that they can ensure that both male and female students are answering questions equally. And a seventh challenge is differences in participation expectations. Faculty and students can have different expectations for how much students should participate. Students might not want to speak in class, preferring to just listen and be more passive, or they might have had unsuccessful attempts at group projects in the past. However, students will learn more if they are active in class, so getting them to participate is crucial. Explaining the importance of participation to students and giving them many opportunities to practice will help convince students to speak up. Research shows that students are more likely to participate in class when they believe that speaking up helps them with their own learning. We have looked at seven challenges to student participation, and of course, students' own personalities play a role in how much they talk in class. But you can keep all of these in mind as you plan your course.


The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry says the 2021 first quarter, 0.4% gross domestic product increase, though a pleasant surprise, is not reflective of the manufacturing sector current realities. Director-General of the FCC, Muda Yusuf, said this in reaction to the National Bureau of Statistics' GDP first quarter 2021 report on Sunday at Lagos. According to the report, the nation's GDP rose from 0.11% in the fourth quarter, so of 2020 to 0.51% in the first quarter of 2021. This translates to a 0.40% increase. Yusuf set the recovery of the manufacturing sector from a negative territory growth to a positive territory growth that was a pleasant surprise. And don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.