Diversity Statements: Preliminary Findings

I chose a tongue-in-cheek title because this post is not intended to be an all-inclusive guide to writing diversity statements. There are many great guides out there, including ones written by professionals, and I do point to some links that were helpful to me at the end of this post. This post, instead, is meant to share some of the surprises I found when looking into how to write such a statement. I hope you find it helpful!

1. Tell your story. If you look at example diversity statements (see links at the bottom), it's easy to get sucked into the idea that you must emulate a specific statement, or at least repeat some of the commonalities. But what if none of it applies to you? What if you've never chaired a committee, led a campaign, etc.? Those comparisons can be enough to dishearten a person, but with diversity statements, as with nearly everything in life, comparing yourself to others has limited value. Your focus should be on telling your story. What is your experience? For example, in my case, I could point to the efforts that I participated in, even if I weren't the nominal lead, and highlight the steps I could take as a graduate student and now as a postdoc. Those included how I searched for field assistants, how I made space for tough but enlightening conversations in an atmosphere of trust, and how I take care to center the contributions of women and people of color to whatever topic area I'm researching.
2. An opportunity to learn and rethink. You should definitely take time to educate yourself about some of the many practical steps that you can take, at your current career level, to contribute to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). In the process, you may well identify steps that you feel impassioned about. Add those to your statement! The statement isn't just about your "accomplishments" but also about your passion, your knowledge, and your plans. Show that you've done your homework and are determined to see change. Another area that I found very helpful was to think about how my research contributes to EDI and social justice more broadly. If you haven't thought about this before, you may find that some of your projects aren't as well suited as other projects. Don't fixate on that. Instead, identify those projects that can have an impact and develop your understanding of why that impact is important. As an illustrative example, I have a planned research project looking at Arctic hydrology. From a research perspective, I was inspired to plan this project because of knowledge gaps and the pronounced climate change effects in the Artic, which make the geomorphic signal easier to interpret. As I viewed these same motivations through a lens of EDI and social justice, I started to appreciate the broader context much better. The knowledge gaps exist, in part, because of the sparse population of Arctic regions, which means the voices of locals can be overlooked at national levels, despite the local effects, and infrastructure investment is often not a priority. Moreover, Indigenous peoples are well represented in these Arctic communities, but underrepresentation of their voices in decision making compounds obstacles to addressing climate change and appreciating the severity of climate change effects. These severe effects don't merely make the environment vulnerable but expose the vulnerability of these communities as well.
3. If you disclose, don't stop there. There are some good reasons that you may choose not to disclose your own identity (race, gender, etc.) in the statement (see link at bottom). However, if you do disclose, don't stop there. If you're a woman, a person of color, or a member of another underrepresented group in the sciences, tell about how that impacted you. Be careful not to generalize only; your experience is not universal. You might start, "As a woman, I appreciate the unique obstacles that women face in science..." but be sure to share your experiences and paint a clear picture of how you're working to reduce those obstacles. And if you're relatively privileged, acknowledging that likewise is not enough in itself; you must demonstrate how you're using your position and opportunities to make science more equitable.
4. Diversity statements are an "emerging" genre. In other words, the diversity statement is still a new component of academic applications (for grants, positions, etc.). As such, there is not a clear consensus on what a diversity statement "should" look like, compared to a CV or research statement. In my opinion, their focus on personal experiences and the breadth of EDI issues (and ways to address them) that exist could mean they never reach the level of regularization that even a research statement has; it certainly seems unlikely they will ever follow a simple template like a CV can! I even found length guidelines lacking, though somewhere around a half page to a bit over a page seems typical, from the few examples I could find. This lack of universal structure can be intimidating, but my suggestion is to approach it like one would an interview question. In general, an interview question doesn't have a template answer (and if there is such an answer, you probably shouldn't use it!). Instead, the details of your answer should be tailored to both you and your audience, with some significant leeway in the exact structure and framing. In other words, look at the "emergent" nature of diversity statements as an opportunity.

A few links I found helpful:

• This page has some insights to help you decide whether to disclose and has a very helpful list of prompts to get you thinking about various aspects of EDI: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/developing-and-writing-a-diversity-statement/
• These are two pages with examples of diversity statements, but when you read them, remember my first point above!
  https://physicalsciences.ucsd.edu/_files/examples-submitted-diversity-statements.pdf
  https://diversity.ucsf.edu/sites/diversity.ucsf.edu/files/Contributions_to_Diversity_Statement_Examples.pdf