How to diversify your department’s seminar series

Seminar series are a key part of academic culture. We present practices that are aimed at increasing the diversity of seminar speakers, and thus broadening associated opportunities to more members of the ecology and evolutionary biology research community.

Seminar series are a key part of academic culture. We present practices that are aimed at increasing the diversity of seminar speakers, and thus broadening associated opportunities to more members of the ecology and evolutionary biology research community.
The systematic exclusion of minoritized and historically marginalized communities throughout academia is a continued problem [1][2][3] . The disciplines of ecology and evolutionary biology (EEB) have a particular responsibility to directly contend with the long history of white supremacy, eugenics and colonialism that is embedded in the field [4][5][6] .
Although there is a current wave of dedication to improving equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in academia, we feel that such efforts have not generally percolated through to departmental seminar series. These seminars provide opportunities to both speakers and host departments through disseminating new research, networking and forming new collaborations (Table 1). By increasing the diversity of seminar speakers, we can aim to provide these critical opportunities to all members of the EEB research community. Here, we outline practices that have improved these efforts in our department at the University of California, Los Angeles, and additional ideas that can be adapted by other departments and disciplines (Fig. 1).

Craft a mission statement that includes EDI
We found that our seminar series lacked a clear mission statement, which hindered our efforts to create an effective series. Because seminar organization tends to operate on an ad hoc basis, much institutional knowledge is lost when individuals cycle in and out of positions. A public document that explicitly lists goals and methods for the seminar committee is an essential tool to effect lasting change. These goals should incorporate the inclusion of a diverse group of invited speakers and equitable practices.

Evaluate your progress
Just as it is important to define goals, it is essential to define how to evaluate whether those goals are being met. This requires documenting the invitation process and the experiences of speakers, without the documentation being intrusive or very time-consuming for the invitee. Changes made to the process from year to year should be recorded. A short anonymous survey of invitees on why they did or did not accept an invitation could expose previously overlooked issues that affect speakers from any particular group. This will allow the seminar committee to revise their methods to better meet the goal of a diverse speaker body. Scientists are used to this iterative process of setting goals, defining protocols and evaluating outcomes: the need to diversify seminar speakers requires the same sort of systematic and mindful attitude. Without evaluating our progress towards our goal, we are likely to be guided by the many unconscious biases that we all exhibit as individuals.

Involve students in the process
Based on our experience, directly involving students in the selection and invitation process contributes to diversifying the list of invited seminar speakers. In the USA and elsewhere, there are discrepancies between student and faculty diversity across many science disciplines 7 . When graduate students provide an opinion, the speakers they invite may reflect their diverse perspectives -thereby diversifying the seminar series. Graduate students will have fewer professional contacts than faculty members, which makes them less able to stay within their own circle for nominations. Further, because graduate students are

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as post-doctoral researchers and junior faculty members) can diversify the pool of seminar speakers. We also recommend incorporating speakers from outside of major research universities, such as from the public sector, nonprofit or advocacy groups, and smaller academic institutions. Additionally, inviting Indigenous researchers and/or leaders in traditional ecological knowledge will bring in a much-needed broader perspective 13,14 . We should strive to form relationships with the communities whose land we are using for our research, both out of respect for their agency and stewardship of the land and because they may have expert knowledge that we lack.
Inviting scientists and speakers from beyond the most-recognized research universities exposes students and postdoctoral researchers to alternative career paths, and benefits minoritized groups by making more role models visible. An increasing visibility of diverse speakers in these seminars can empower and improve the inclusion and retention of underrepresented students 15 . Furthermore, diversifying the perspectives and experiences presented at seminars will benefit the host department by expanding professional networks and broadening scientific perspectives 16 .
When inviting diverse speakers to your institution, make sure that you are inviting them to talk about their research and not only their experiences as a marginalized person in the field. Seminar series should provide all speakers with the same opportunities. That said, there can be value in people hearing personal stories. These stories can provide insights and understanding for nonmarginalized people and people with different marginalized identities, and hearing them can also inspire and support students and early-career researchers from marginalized backgrounds. We suggest that the best way to address the starting their careers, they are often eager to develop new professional relationships.
Although incorporating students is important, we also caution others to consider that this extra workload can contribute to the burden of the 'minority tax' [8][9][10] , in which representatives of minoritized groups are asked to do proportionally more EDI-related and general service work than their peers from well-represented groups. For the 2020-2021 academic year, we solicited nominations from our Black graduate students and guaranteed a minimum number of speakers from their nominations. This increased the number of Black speakers for our seminars, but it also added a burden to only the Black graduate students. Thus, we recommend soliciting student involvement while being mindful of adding to the burdens of marginalized populations.
As enthusiastic as graduate students may be in participating in the selection of seminar speakers, effective change cannot be made without the help and support of faculty members. One way that faculty members can show their commitment is to set a minimum number of spots per year for student-selected seminar speakers (ideally proportional to the size of the student body). Creating a system of shared governance is a key step in meeting EDI goals.

Invite people from various careers, stages and systems
EEB in the USA has historically been dominated by white male researchers; recent surveys of faculty members have shown respondents to be around 85% white and more than 50% male 11 . Furthermore, EEB societies of English speakers show a distinct drop-off of diversity in gender and sexual identities amongst tenured faculty members 12  Comment value of these conversations while giving all your speakers the same professional benefits is to allow them to discuss both topics if they wish. If they do, provide them with an extended time slot -or even a separate time slot, if desired. You can provide space for talking about personal experiences as a marginalized person in science while still being sure to showcase their research as you would for any other speaker.

Consider remote presentations
Remote and hybrid seminars -in which an online speaker speaks either to an online audience or to an on-campus audience -can contribute to diversifying seminar series. Remote seminars allow distantly located researchers to participate, thus creating a wider pool of potential speakers (including international researchers). We recently had speakers from Qatar, Panama and Portugal give online seminars in our department. Remote options help to overcome potential barriers, such as the time and energy needed to travel and indirect financial expenses (Table 1). Remote seminars can also increase the availability of seminars to other researchers or the public through recording, potentially increasing the reach and impact of a given seminar. Despite these advantages, departments should not relegate all speakers from marginalized backgrounds to remote participation only. One reason is because online versus in-person seminars provide different networking values to the invited speaker and attendees. We recommend simply allowing speakers to choose and aiming for a similarly diverse representation from online and on-campus speakers across a series.

Compensate speakers
In 2021, our department reinstated an honorarium of US $500 for seminar speakers after students and potential speakers spoke out about the importance of honoraria in increasing equity and inclusion for speakers. Some argue that covering the cost of visiting an institution combined with the exposure of the talk is sufficient compensation, as giving seminar talks helps with career advancement in academia. However, we note that this perspective caters to those with the resources to easily offset the financial and personal costs of giving a seminar talk (Table 1) and creates a barrier for researchers with more-limited resources. To combat this barrier, we recommend offering an honorarium. For speakers who express that they do not require such compensation, we recommend donating the earmarked funds to support other departmental EDI efforts.

Sustain your efforts
There is a useful idea that an individual will never 'arrive' as an ally to marginalized people but rather must always continue to practice allyship. That is, efforts to support marginalized people must be an ongoing and continually evolving process. Reading this and other opinion pieces on how to improve your EDI efforts is only a step in this process. The next steps include implementing these recommendations and measuring the effect of these efforts. As we improve on the current state of academia, other issues that marginalized groups face will surface to the forefront of our collective consciousnesses. We must continue to pay attention to the climate around us to identify what allyship practices need to be retooled or added to our efforts.

Conclusion
We have outlined both implemented and planned practices in our EEB department seminar series at the University of California, Los Angeles to improve the overall diversity of our seminar speakers. Our recommendations come from our specific experiences within a US institution, so we are speaking primarily to the culture of English-speaking and primarily white institutions. Although each department has individual goals and culture around their seminar series, we believe that these guidelines can be applied and adapted for any department. Implementing these guidelines has improved EDI in our seminar series and we hope they will provide a road map for other institutions to do so as well.