Tyson Research Center is made up of people who care deeply and aspire to a culture of inclusivity, equity, respect, and belonging.

This webpage is intended to be a living document where we articulate our organizational values, our commitment to social justice, and our ongoing work to make Tyson a better place for all. We are hopeful that the voices of our entire community of researchers, educators, students, and colleagues will be present in this work.

We believe human diversity should be embraced and celebrated as a strength within our community.

Tyson sits at the intersection of academia, research, and education in environmental disciplines and sustainability. These are historically exclusive spaces, and a closer look reveals that this exclusivity upholds white supremacist norms and widens the professional and economic gaps between marginalized people and white-centered American society. Though we may think our work is grounded in the so-called “greater good”, we are culpable in perpetuating systemic exclusion and marginalization. We at Tyson are called to recognize and understand the roots of systemic exclusion and marginalization and to take tangible actions to dismantle barriers to access, equity, and a sense of belonging.

We take responsibility for how our community treats anyone with an oppressed or systemically minoritized identity. We will not allow acts of aggression, whether subtle or overt, aimed towards people due to racial/cultural/ethnic identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy status, nation of origin, ability status, neurodiversity, religious or non-religious belief system, age, socioeconomic status, etc. As such acts are grounded in ignorance, we are committed to continuing education within our community on the history of bigoted misinformation and on understanding the intersectionality of marginalized and minoritized identities.

OUR VISION:
Tyson is a constantly evolving, radically inclusive environmental field station where people feel they belong and can thrive.

Where we are

In recent years we have been engaged in a journey to elevate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at Tyson, including attention to the intersectionality of personal identity.

+ See our current steps

We work to recruit for greater human diversity, attain recruits by offering equitable opportunities, and maintain a culturally sensitive and inclusive environment that supports the presence of minoritized students in our education programs.
We do not accept volunteer help or unpaid labor for research led by Tyson-affiliated Principal Investigators. We strive to provide equitable access to research opportunities by paying fair wages for research assistance.
We honor the self-identities (names and pronouns) of our folx and celebrate the LGBTQIA+ diversity of our community during June (Pride Month).
We celebrate and recognize Juneteenth during every summer field season to honor the abolition of slavery in the United States.
We provide scholarships for low-income undergraduate students (Pell grant eligible) in our summer fellowship program.
We have designated endowed funds to support undergraduate fellows from historically Black colleges/universities (HBCU) and/or community colleges.
We have reframed Tyson education programs to include discussion of DEAI, white supremacist culture and anti-racism, environmental racism, parachute science, and bystander intervention topics for undergraduate and high school participants.
We invite St. Louis area BIPOC environmental justice professionals to participate in career panels during Tyson education programs.
We invite environmental professionals from groups historically minoritized in STEM (women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+) to participate in career panels during our education programs.
We invite speakers from groups historically minoritized in STEM (women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+) to present their research in the Tyson Summer Seminar Series.
We dedicate one session of the Tyson seminar series to environmental justice with a presentation by St. Louis area BIPOC environmental activists on local work and volunteer opportunities. Honoraria are offered to presenters.
We share DEI resources and discuss how to create inclusive environments with the mentors who lead research teams during our summer fellowship programming. In addition to several Tyson staff members, these mentors include faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and technicians from a variety of departments across WashU.
We sponsor and provide financial resources for ESA SEEDS STL, the St. Louis area chapter of the Strategies for Ecology, Education, Diversity, and Sustainability (SEEDS) program of the Ecological Society of America (ESA).
Many of our staff have taken part in “Understanding and Analyzing Systemic Racism” training provided by Crossroads Antiracism Organizing and Training.
We continually curate and share anti-racism educational resources internally and have created a lending library for our staff.

Where we are going

We aspire to challenge white supremacist norms embedded within our systems. Bigger steps are obviously necessary and we are adding specific anti-racism and DEAI (diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion) goals to Tyson’s strategic plan. We are committed to establishing and communicating norms and values of anti-racism through our administrative policies, physical spaces, education programs, and communication methods. Some of our concrete next steps are below.

+ During the 2022-23 academic year

We will provide support for the WashU Annual Pow Wow organized by the Buder Scholars at the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies.
We will work with leadership at the Buder Center to develop an appropriate land acknowledgement for Tyson Research Center.
We will set aside time and resources for all of our staff to participate in anti-racism bystander intervention training.
We will establish two DEAI advisory boards to provide critical feedback on our efforts to dismantle systemic racism and improve accessibility within our operations. Board members will be offered honoraria for their work with us.
- An external advisory board made up of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ colleagues from peer institutions/organizations
- A student advisory board made up of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ fellows who have participated in our undergraduate and/or high school programs
We will consult with WashU’s Disability Resources on how to improve the accessibility of our facilities, web presence, and programming.
We will expand Tyson mentor professional development sessions to include discussion of white supremacy culture, transition to anti-racist norms and values, accessibility, and bystander intervention.
We will offer and advertise the Tyson Living Learning Center as a free meeting space for anti-racist community organizing and educational events.

+ Going forward

Each academic year we will offer paid research fellowships for BIPOC students (undergraduate or graduate) to work with a Tyson and/or WashU research mentor on projects based at Tyson. We will provide at least one fellowship each year with current funds and will work to build an endowment to support these fellowships, growing the number of fellowships over time.
We will collaborate within WashU on efforts to build an endowment to support undergraduate BIPOC students with unmet financial needs, seeking to decrease financial stress and barriers to degree completion for BIPOC students in environmental disciplines.
We will collaborate within WashU to build an endowment for post-graduate BIPOC students through graduate student grants and postdoctoral fellowships to support their research at Tyson.
We will collaborate within WashU to build an endowment to support the recruitment and hiring of BIPOC staff scientists at Tyson.
We will prioritize and collaborate on research with St. Louis area BIPOC scientists and community organizers working on environmental justice initiatives in order to explicitly incorporate environmental justice into environmental research.
We will pursue partnerships with associations/societies dedicated to the representation and development of BIPOC professionals in environmental disciplines.
We will continue to allocate time and resources for staff to engage in ongoing anti-racism training.

How we will hold ourselves accountable

We expect that some of this work may be difficult and some of it will require additional financial resources. We are fully committed to moving forward and will be measuring our progress in the following ways:

Tyson staff will be evaluated annually based on growth and support of mission in this area.
We will hold quarterly half-day staff meetings dedicated to reporting on and discussing our progress and opportunities as identified and prioritized by our DEAI advisory boards.
We will make public the summary reports from our DEAI advisory boards, as well as progress on our steps to move forward with suggested action items.
Description of our anti-racism progress within the Tyson annual report will be approved by our DEAI advisory boards prior to publication.

Do you want to help?

We will need assistance from our community to make our vision a reality. If you feel called to support the transformation of Tyson into an anti-racist environmental field station and a more equitable and inclusive community, please contact us.

You may have ideas related to our action items above or other steps we should consider. We welcome your creative advice, personal perspective, honest critique, and valuable time. (Anonymous comments are welcome.)