BE-STEM List of Demands 2020
On October 20th 2020, the leadership of BE-STEM sent the following email enclosing the BE-STEM List of Demands: a series of requests crafted with several Black graduate students and Black postdocs at UCSF in order to improve the experience of current and future Black trainees.
Here's the link to our demands.
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Dear Dean Watkins, Dr Stanford, Prof. Mullins and Prof. Lobo,
I am writing to you today on behalf of our trainee organization Black Excellence in STEM @ UCSF(BE-STEM) as its Co-President. We have formed during the summer with the goal of improving the experience of current Black trainees at UCSF, increasing Black representation in STEM and to mentor the next generation of Black scientists. While we appreciate the several advocacy efforts that have sprung over this summer where systemic racism has been brought to light and continuous efforts made by the Graduate Division, we are contacting you as the unique voices of a subset Black students and postdocs here at UCSF to continue to address equitable change through a list of demands.
We have taken some time to craft our list of demands to improve the Black trainee experience here at UCSF that you can find here. You may notice that some of these demands intersect with several that have already been made. In that case, we elevate the urgency to address them in a timely and decisive fashion. Other demands have specific requirements for increasing equity that we hope that you will address.
We are also sending these demands here to Dr Jeanne Stanford, in her role of Director of Mental Health Services, so that point 6 can be addressed. In addition, to address point 9, we are also requesting a response from the Academic Senate and here we are sending it to Prof. Dyche Mullins, in his role as a chair of the Graduate Council on the Academic Senate, and Prof. Errol Lobo, as chair of the Equal Opportunity Committee in the Academic Senate. We hope Prof. Mullins and Prof. Lobo can adequately respond to this demand, if not, that they work with whoever would be more appropriate to respond to it.
We request a point-by-point response to these demands in the coming weeks and a virtual meeting with all stakeholders to clarify all the points. We also hope that this can be addressed in the upcoming town hall.
Thank you for your attention,
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Nadia Ayad and Chase Webb
Co-Presidents of BE-STEM@UCSF