We aim to empower everyone to thrive through a comprehensive range of online resources. From codes of conduct that foster a respectful community to educational tools that guide our DEI initiatives, our virtual resources are designed to support your success and contribute to an inclusive workplace.
Codes of Conduct
Participant Code of Conduct
UCAR is committed to providing a safe, productive, and welcoming environment for all participants in any conference, workshop, field project or project hosted or managed by UCAR, NSF NCAR, and UCP, no matter what role they play or their background. This includes respectful treatment of everyone regardless of gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, age, body size, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, level of experience, political affiliation, veteran status, pregnancy, genetic information, as well as any other characteristic protected under state or federal law.
All participants (and guests) are required to abide by this Code of Conduct. This Code of Conduct applies to all UCAR-related events, including those sponsored by organizations other than UCAR but held in conjunction with UCAR events, in any location throughout the world.
For more details, please refer to the full UCAR Participant Code of Conduct.
Contributor Code of Conduct
For contributors to software projects. This Code of Conduct applies to all spaces managed by the Project whether they be physical, online or face-to-face. This includes project code, code repository, associated web pages, documentation, mailing lists, project websites and wiki pages, issue tracker, meetings, telecons, events, project social media accounts, and any other forums created by the project team which the community uses for communication. In addition, violations of this Code of Conduct outside these spaces may affect a person's ability to participate within them. Representation of a project may be further defined and clarified by project maintainers.
For more details, please refer to the full UCAR Contributor Code of Conduct.
Resources for Intervention and Discussion Facilitation
5 Ds for Bystander Intervention
People often avoid interrupting a situation due to not knowing what ‘to do’ at the moment. As such, participants are introduced to five different strategies that turn people from a bystander to an upstander within the 5 Ds of Bystander Intervention.
Facilitating Productive Discussions
In discussions around diversity and equity, it’s important to understand that everyone sees and experiences the world differently: What is “right” in your experience may not be so in someone else’s.
We ask everyone who participates in our trainings to consider different perspectives, for the purpose of sensitivity, learning, and growth. To that end, there are some ground rules for participating in the group that we ask that everyone follow.
Ground Rules:
- Be willing to acknowledge that sexism and racism exist.
- Acknowledge that we are all systematically taught misinformation about our own group and about members of other groups. This is true for everyone, regardless of our group(s).
- Agree not to blame ourselves or others for the misinformation we have learned, but to accept responsibility for not repeating misinformation after we have learned otherwise.
- Agree to respect others. This includes honoring others’ experiences by being sensitive to them.
- Agree to raise your hand when you want to speak unless otherwise specified.
- Keep in mind that no one should be required or expected to speak for their whole race or gender. They couldn’t if they wanted to!
- Take responsibility for and accept the consequences of your words.
- Be willing to keep an open mind: It is likely that some of your beliefs will be challenged by the group.
- Take risks. Comfort is overrated. Dare to engage yourself.
- Agree to participate in the creation of a “safe”* atmosphere for open discussion.
- Equality pertains to all people with NO exceptions.
- Agree to keep specifics of what is discussed in the group confidential. What is said in group discussions, stays there. What is learned there, leaves there.
- Share the air. If you have a tendency to dominate discussions, take a step back, and let others participate. If you haven’t said much, you’re invited to participate more.
- Hold leaders accountable. All of us are growing and evolving, and nobody gets things right all the time. We all agree to hold each other accountable, even those people who are leading our sessions.
*Note that in No. 10, we put the word “safe” in quotes. This is because people with some identities or personal experiences rarely feel safe in any room, and it’s important to acknowledge that.
Useful Tools for Discussions:
Oops, ouch
Part of having these conversations is messing up. (In diversity work, this is inevitable, no matter how experienced you are.) If you say something that is hurtful or problematic and you realize it, you can say "oops" to acknowledge it and then try again. Alternatively, if someone else said something harmful or problematic then you can say "ouch," which lets everyone know that there's something that needs to be discussed further. The specific words “oops” and “ouch” aren’t necessarily used all that often, but the idea gives people a way to bring these things up. See more below on how to effectively call someone out/in and how to apologize properly.
Everybody's right, but only partially
The goal is not to agree, but to gain deeper understanding. Remember that your experiences of how the world works and how society treats you are not the same as anyone else’s.
Use "both/and," rather than "either/or," thinking
Someone else may be making a good point that you may miss if you’re concentrating on disagreeing with part of it. Agree with the parts you agree with, and disagree with the parts you don’t. Remember that sometimes you might both be right.
Intent ≠ impact
When you say something harmful, it still hurts whether or not you meant it to. As an analogy — if you tread on someone’s foot and they tell you it hurt, you apologize and step off. You don’t spend time explaining that you didn’t mean to step on them, and so therefore, they shouldn’t be hurt.
Be aware of intersectionality
People have intersecting identities and the experiences of white, straight, able-bodied women are not necessarily the same as the experiences of women of color, lesbians/bisexual women, and women with disabilities. Despite this, when people talk about “women,” they almost always mean straight, white, able-bodied women.
Disagree with content, not tone
Some of the topics we will be talking about are emotional issues for people who live these experiences every day. While some people in the room are able to talk about these things in a detached way, others are not, and should not be expected to. White people, in particular, have been taught that anger and making a point loudly are unacceptable ways to communicate. They often say things like “no one will listen to you if you’re shouting at them,” or “I’m not going to talk to you while you’re addressing me like that,” or “I know you’re angry, but…” We need to understand that people who have been marginalized do not have the luxury of emotionally distancing themselves from conversations about their rights and experiences. It’s not an academic discussion for them. Disagreement with their points is fine, but be sure to disagree with the content of what people are saying, not the way in which they’re saying it.
How to effectively call someone out/in
Part of talking about equity and diversity topics is messing up. When someone does, we need to have a way to talk to them about it effectively. Often we talk about “calling out” someone who has said something offensive or had an “oops” moment. It can be preferable to talk about “calling in,” which assumes that everyone wants to do the right thing, just needs a bit of help getting there. Always remember that calling someone in is a brave thing to do because it’s risky. People often don’t react well to being called in (see below, under “how to apologize”), and so it puts the person doing it at risk of personal attack. This blog post is a great primer. We can also mitigate some of the bad feelings by ensuring that we call in people’s words, rather than their intent. See this video for an example.
How to apologize properly
Getting called out/in can be uncomfortable. It can be embarrassing and feel like a personal attack. The first reaction most people have is to defend themselves. Don’t do this. Remember that being called in is a gift from a very brave person, who was willing to put their own safety and comfort on the line to help you realize that you made a mistake. The following two posts are superb explanations of how you can react in a good way to being called in: I was wrong and I am sorry and How to apologize.
Educational Resources
Book Kits for More Inclusive Science
Inspire a more inclusive and equitable scientific community, through knowledge dissemination, shared learning experiences, and meaningful discussions with peers. Miss reading an entire book? Try NSF NCAR Library’s book club kits in a bag. Low on time? Try the one-hour book club or browse the selected materials in the resource lists for independent learning.
For more information, please visit the NSF NCAR Library Book Club Kits for More Inclusive Science page.
Reading List for UNEION 101
Below is a list of some texts and resources that we utilize for our flagship UNEION 101 training.
Unit 1: Power and Identity
Unit 2: Gender and Inequality
Unit 3: Race and Racism
Unit 4: Bystander Intervention
List of Guiding DEI Texts
Below is a list of texts that guide our DEI work throughout the organization:
- DEI Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right, Lily Zheng
- Reconstructing DEI: A Practitioner’s Workbook, Lily Zheng
- Canary Code: A Guide to Neurodiversity, Dignity, and Intersectional Belonging, Ludmilla Praslove
- Strategic Diversity Leadership: Activating Change & Transformation in Higher Education, Damon Williams
- Unlocking the Magic of Facilitation: 11 Key Concepts You Didn't Know You Didn't Know, Sam Killerman and Meg Bolger
- Remote Not Distant: Design a Company Culture That Will Help You Thrive in a Hybrid Workplace, Gustavo Razzetti
- NSF NCAR and UCAR Case for Diversity
Resources for Practical Implementation
Inclusive Scientific Meetings: An Implementation Guide
Science meetings are an important place to focus DEI efforts because they are the backbone of science and key to the development of a successful scientific career. As such, this guide was developed to be a companion document to the organization 500 Women Scientists’ Inclusive Scientific Meetings Guide in order to provide more concrete examples of how to put their suggestions into practice.
This document was developed with those who are new to DEI in mind, with the goal of making the implementation of the original guide’s suggestions easier for meeting organizers.
This guide is not meant to be a replacement of the original 500 Women Scientists’ Inclusive Scientific Meetings guide, rather it is meant as a complement to it.