Climate and Diversity Town Hall

[Johnston-Halperin, Ezekiel]

Dear Physics Community,

I am writing on behalf of the Climate and Diversity Committee (C&D) to follow up on the Chair’s email of January 24th. First, I would like to let you know that C&D will be hosting a Town Hall on February 20th, 3:30 - 5:00 pm, in the Smith Seminar Room where the Chair, representatives from OSU’s Title IX and ASC’s HR offices, and C&D will be present to answer questions and promote discussion about both the specific incidents referenced and general Department and University policy. Second, I would like to take this opportunity to clarify the role of C&D in our department and our procedures for dealing with allegations such as the ones discussed in the Chair’s email.

Climate and Diversity is comprised of members from every constituent group in the department (faculty, staff, postdocs, graduate students, undergraduate students), all of whom have chosen to serve our community. Our focus is on identifying structural opportunities for our department to improve and connecting individuals with existing resources when structures are already in place.  When individuals are aware of actions that rise to the level of criminal, or potentially criminal, activity we strongly encourage them to directly contact law enforcement. If they chose to also contact C&D we work to help them connect with those resources as well as independently report to both university and law enforcement in accordance with our obligations as mandatory reporters. No part of this mission/charge encompasses “making the department look good,” we are instead focused on helping the department to be good.

We encourage any members of our community with questions or concerns to contact our committee. We believe that an open dialogue is an essential tool for creating and maintaining a healthy climate in our department and would be happy to engage via direct email/contact, the numerous surveys we have in circulation, the Town Halls that we are holding, or any other venue that presents itself (email addresses and additional information can be found at: https://physics.osu.edu/climate-and-diversity-committee).

As C&D was created after the events alleged in the recent email, we were not in a position to take any direct actions in those cases. However, the Title IX investigations referenced there do serve as a useful example of how our committee operates. In Autumn 2018, at the direct request of a graduate student who attended one of our Town Halls, we requested the Chair release the publicly available conclusions of the specific, completed Title IX investigation into grading in our graduate core classes. The Chair concurred and circulated an email detailing the department response, followed up with a Town Hall attended by the Department Chair, the Vice-Chair for Graduate Studies, and the Chair of Climate and Diversity. This Town Hall lasted for more than 3 hours, covering a broad range of topics, and resulted in additional improvements in our department operations ranging from further improvements in grading to more structured interactions between the graduate student body and their representatives on a number of important department committees. While we are under no illusions that these steps have “solved” all of the climate-related challenges in our department, we do believe that they have led to concrete steps that have improved the lives of many in our community.

If there are other events that warrant a community-wide discussion C&D would welcome a discussion about how to effectively meet that need, consistent with the constraints imposed by the right to privacy of individuals involved in specific incidents, as dictated by law and university policy.

Best wishes,
Zeke Johnston-Halperin
Chair, Climate and Diversity Committee

On behalf of,
Jay Gupta (faculty)
Chris Hill (faculty)
Jeanie Lau (faculty)
Robert Perry (faculty)
Jillian Fair (staff)
Shelley Palmer (staff)
Ethel Perez Hoyos (PhD student)
Rebekah Smith (PhD student)
Liz Fuller (UG student)
Lucas Smith (UG student)



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