The Inclusive Lab Leaders is a program to help those in STEM and beyond develop the skills and strategies to effectively communicate with mentors, students, and peers. This program offers a justice-oriented approach to learning how to navigate issues of power and conflict, through a mix of preventive strategies and just-in-time approaches. Racism, sexism, and more are continuing challenges rather than relics of the past, and ILL is designed to give you the introductory tools to become more aware of how they show up in science, and how you can imagine and implement a more just future.
Session 3: Recognizing and navigating power dynamics in research. Friday, April 7th from 9-11am.
Facilitators: Katy Heath and Kate Clancy
This session will address the different types of power and how they can manifest in a research team, from positional power by way of one’s academic rank, to systemic power from one’s identity groups, gender, race, and/or ethnicity. All members of a lab need to recognize the situations where they have coercive power and protect others from it; conversely nearly everyone also experiences low power moments where they need to protect themselves or solicit help.
During this session you will learn to:
- Own the power you do have, and take responsibility for it.
- Practice navigating challenging conversations with people who have power over you.
- Seek solidarity when addressing more intractable power imbalances.
