Physics and Astronomy SEA Change: Improving the Physics and Astronomy Ecosystem

The SeaChange program is an opportunity for institutions, departments, or programs to do a lot of the work that we know needs to be done by using data and taking the time to actually think about, well, who are we? Who do we want to be? Who are we claiming to be and planning to, you know, be better? SeaChange is a systems transformation program and we have to go Our field of physics and astronomy is part of the natural curiosity about the universe, but an opportunity to excel in these fields has not always existed for everyone. It is about building structures and a system to welcome and support any potential physicist to any physics department in the United States. The mission of the SeaChange program is to empower and guide departments in creating environments where all students feel welcomed, valued, and have access to the support they need in order to thrive. It works by universities and or departments opting in by expressing interest in joining in a long-term evaluation process. The major respects are the focus on inclusion, on departmental practices, and focus more on the experience of people in the department at all levels, students, faculty, and staff. So typically you do something amazing and then you get an award. So this seems like it's a little bit backwards but it's actually pretty cool. So you come up with a plan and then you submit that plan and then you get reviewers to look at the plan and provide feedback and then you go you go and you execute the plan and you're all the time getting feedback as you move through the process. So the SeaChange program works by bringing together you join a cohort with folks within my department and other departments, physics and astronomy departments across the country. We came together about once a month over the span of an academic year to talk about ways that we were going to create a self-study and five-year action plan. And what we found is that not a single student who was surveyed said that they felt excluded or out of place based on their race or other demographic or identity characteristics. The students who felt that way identified that as based on preparation. They felt that the course was not geared to or welcoming enough to students who come in with very little high school math and physics preparation. Faculty actually are a little bit surprised once they start consulting with students about like where the students are at and what they think they need and what they want because it really kind of helps you think about your department sort of differently. What I really liked about SeaChange is part of our action plan is developing a lot more formal procedures and documentation. So for us it provides a structure and really a timeline for how do we get this stuff on the books so that this can outlast any one faculty member any one cohort of students every year. To me the greatest impact of participating in the program is seeing where all this hard work is going. The cohort structure and support but the path forward has been incredibly impactful. We have established and we we actually form a committee to write the code of conduct and we increase it with feedback from graduate students, undergrad students, postdoc researchers, faculty, staff. We now have standardized the minimum pay for postdocs. That's huge. From our awardees we've had about 17,000 undergraduate students impacted across all of the awardee departments and over 350 physics and astronomy graduate students among the awardee departments. I think it's incredibly important to make sure that as many people are welcome in physics and astronomy as as ever could be right there should be no restriction on those who who those who truly want to do it. We are producing minds that are the future workforce of America. That's absolutely valuable. What they really want to measure is a change a cultural change in the department. The kinds of things that the faculty and the postdocs and the students and the chairs are are thinking about are keeping in mind because that's gonna that kind of cultural change is is is not a one-time thing. It then it then's going to be it's going to have continuity associated with it. We want to be educating the the next generation and we want that next generation to look more like the world. Departments should continue doing this no matter the external circumstances as long as there are universities there need to be places where people can learn and grow. If we want to retain our democracy we have to do this.