The dates for the Safer People Safer Places workshops are now open for the spring semester. The Safer People Safer Places network strives to create a safer and more inclusive campus for sexual and gender diversity.
The Foundations Workshop dates will be Friday, January 31st, 10am-12pm, Tuesday, February 25th, 11am-1pm, and Wednesday March 5th, 9-11am. The first two will be held via Zoom and the one in March will take place in the HUB.
If you have not completed this training, please consider doing so to help foster a supportive and inclusive community within the college. It can be very meaningful and assuring for prospective students, faculty, and staff to know the importance of such trainings here and the value we place in them.
Once you complete the initial Foundations workshop, there is a Transgender and Gender Inclusion 101 Workshop that you can also participate in. These are also held via Zoom twice this semester and once in the HUB. The dates will be Wednesday, February 19th, 11am-1pm, Friday, March 21st, 12-2pm, and Tuesday, April 15th, 9-11am.
Please see this link for more info and to register for one or both workshops. Any staff, faculty, postdoc, or graduate student is welcome to attend.
Any research group/lab that completes the four easy steps below may join the EMS Rainbow Network, which fosters a fully inclusive environment and identifies those groups that have received advanced training in LGBTQ issues. In addition to fostering retention, participation contributes to recruitment by allowing prospective research team members (undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral, and technical) in the LGBTQ+ and Ally community to readily identify participating research groups where faculty members have received training in LGBTQ+ issues and are committed to fostering a fully inclusive environment.
For your research group/lab to participate: The Lead Researcher should complete the two training workshops offered by Penn State’s Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity: “Safer People Safer Places – LGBTQ+ Foundations Workshop” and “Transgender and Gender Inclusion 101 Workshop” (if you have already done this, that’s great and you don’t need to take it again).
1. At least one other member of your lab group should also complete the two trainings (this ideally should be another faculty member, staff member, postdoc or graduate student who is physically in the research group space frequently, especially if you are not).
2. Make your whole group aware of your membership and your expectation of maintaining an inclusive and LGBTQ+ friendly environment; remind the group regularly, such as at the start of each semester and as new people come in.
3. Encourage others in your group to also complete the training (it is not required that everyone be trained, and we don’t want to force people into the training, but the more the better).
4. The Lead Researcher should email edequity@ems.psu.edu when you and at least one other person from the group have completed the training so that you can be listed on the Rainbow EMS Network website. Please provide the name and email of those who have completed the trainings, a brief description of your research group, including website, and which department(s) and/or EMS institute(s) your group is affiliated with.