Hey all

So I've been reviewing some of the pdf files up on the wiki and here are some of my initial suggestions/impressions for the zone meeting packages:

- From the beyond bias pdf-

I like how they stress the reason why we need to address the problem of women in physics. I think we can take a lot of the intro and conclusion sections and make it apply to all physics minorities (not just women). - "The United States (I would extend this to the world..) can no longer afford the underperformance of our
academic institutions in attracting the best and brightest minds to the science and engineering enterprise. Nor can it afford to devalue the contributions of some members of that workforce through gender inequities and discrimination. It is essential that our academic institutions promote the
educational and professional success of all people without regard for sex, race, or ethnicity."

-ASAteaching-

I didn't like this one so much. It goes over different exercises on race that a sociology prof. used. The two that were used were a Indian Mascot and an mock trial on reparations for African Americans. This article wasn't very useful in my opinion because I don't think these exercises are what we are looking for. Maybe a good starting activity would be to zones break off into groups and define what race and/or sex actually are. Whether it is actually a thing that defines a person or is socially constructed. They could also define racism, discrimination, stereotyping, prejudice

-facing racism-

This one was by far the most useful of the three (and longest!) Things we can maybe bring out in our zone packages
-race affects everyone! "More
and more people see that racism is not just an
issue for “blacks” and “whites.” It affects all of
us"

- Specifically for American chapters, the bit on page 6 highlighting the history of race in America might be useful to include before case study discussion

-For break out discussions in the zone meeting I like case studies: 1, 3, 12 (these relate to work and school)

- I really think the activity on page 19 is neat and gets people up and moving! (although some of the points might make people very uncomfortable) but it might not work with college students. Thoughts?

-The data on page 23 and 24 might be good to put up on slides after people think about and discuss stereotypes.

- page 27 talks about interesting points that could be raised. What are people's views on affirmative action? the media and race? pop culture and race? do people of different race or under represented groups feel defeated before they start to make a change? Is that why there are so few in the sciences?

- page 31 there is a "community report card." It might be interesting to see what zones rate physics as a community or their departments (that would work for some of these categories but not all). Maybe the zones could send in a report when they send in their future faces of physics contest application

-We should include brainstorming about outreach and what chapter can do when they leave the zone meeting. Page 37 has some ideas

-There are some tips for the leader of the zone meeting on page 45 that might be very useful.

That's it for now! I hope that is helpful!





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yikes! The formatting on the wiki isn't so great. I hope you all can read this!