In collaboration with the LTER Diversity Committee, the LTER Network Office is developing a variety of resources for enhancing diversity at LTER sites and across the Network. The following strategy guides our approach to this important work.
Network Office Diversity Strategy
As the LTER Network Office, we recognize that our differences in background, culture, and lived experience strengthen the work and well-being of the LTER Network. We aim to create a more inclusive LTER Network by providing practical support and helping to increase the visibility of diversity-related activities at the level of the sites, the Network and the LTER Network Office.
We define diversity as:
the many dimensions of diversity and intersections of these dimensions that exist or could exist within the LTER Network. These include but are not limited to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, physical or mental difference, socioeconomic background, career stage, discipline, and intellectual approach.
As the LTER Network Office, we aim to support and strengthen diversity in the following ways:
- Engage a broader pool of participants and collaborators across and beyond the LTER network through partnerships with diversity-promoting organizations and institutions.
- Enable coordinated leadership for diversity work across the LTER network. Examples of enabling activities include:
- Creating virtual and physical spaces to support cross-site communication about diversity policy, issues, experiences, tips, and resources.
- Offering leadership and training opportunities that focus on fostering diversity and inclusiveness.
- Providing information about diversity and inclusivity goals, benefits of diversity, and obstacles to diversity to everyone involved in recruitment and selection of participants for Network Office-led programs or activities.
- Evaluate success of diversity-focused efforts by examining the involvement of underrepresented participants in leadership and decision making, in addition to counting their numbers. We also aim to examine outcomes for these participants and the groups in which they participate.
- Developing a process for confidentially collecting and aggregating inclusivity indicators for LTER Network Office activities. We expect the LNO experience will offer insights into diversity-related success, opportunities, and challenges, and that resources developed at the LNO may be adapted to offer similar capacity at individual LTER sites and eventually across the Network.
- Periodically update the LTER community regarding the LNO’s diversity goals, the efforts we are making to achieve those goals, and evaluations of those efforts.
