Dear Psychology Department Executive Committee,

Thank you for providing the opportunity for our voices to be heard, and for supporting
our ability to mobilize collectively. We are living through historic and monumentally life-altering
times. The global pandemic, through its disproportionate impact on communities of color and
poor communities, highlights the stark, undeniable, and fatal consequences of racism,
oppression, and inequity in nearly every facet of life (e.g., health, education, policing,
incarceration, etc.), including in COVID-19 infection rates and complications.1 The unjust and
tragic murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Elijah
McClain, and too many others magnifies centuries of systemic racial injustice towards Black and
Brown communities, especially the most vulnerable who sit at the intersection of marginalized
classifications of class, gender, sexuality, etc. As members of academia, one of the most
esteemed institutions in the world, we feel a particular responsibility to work to dismantle
institutionalized racism and inequity in our research, teaching, mentorship, and service within
the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Psychology.

The work needed to heal from and dismantle systems of oppression is a collective
process that must be reflected in our academic community. Black, Indigenous, and People of
Color (BIPOC)2 are disproportionately underrepresented at every level of the University of
Pittsburgh3. Specifically alarming is that according to data from the Department, 87% of the
Psychology Department faculty are White. These numbers do not reflect the composition of the
society we are committed to representing and serving, nor do they represent the diversity of
thought required to propel scientific research forward, enhance educational scholarship, and
produce pedagogical practices of the highest caliber. In addition to the Department's
commitment to recruitment, this document instantiates the need for consistent efforts toward
structural reform of the existing culture to not only address issues of recruitment, but uproot the
systemic barriers stymying BIPOC and underrepresented minoritized (URM) individuals’
retention, well-being, and success.

The Psychology Department’s graduate students and staff have thus developed the
following recommendations and demands for the University of Pittsburgh’s Psychology
Department to deconstruct and change the existing White supremacist, patriarchal, and
heteronormative culture that disservices the promotion and progress of BIPOC and URM
individuals in the Department4. Some of these efforts will require modifying existing operations
in the Department, and many will require additional financial commitments. We recognize that

1 Health: Addressing racism and disparities in the biomedical sciences; education: racial-disparities; policing and
incarceration: criminal-justice-fact-sheet COVID-19: COVID-19 in Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups

2 We use the term BIPOC created by The BIPOC Project to “to highlight the unique relationship to whiteness that
Indigenous and Black (African Americans) people have, which shapes the experiences of and relationship to white
supremacy for all people of color within a U.S. context” and with the understanding of and sensitivity to the fact that
the term is not universally accepted (e.g. BIPOC: What Does It Mean?).

3 University of Pittsburgh Data

4 Ahmed, S. (2012). On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Duke University Press.

1
the University is under budget constraints due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Thus it may
presently be challenging to implement a number of these recommendations and demands
immediately. However, while we acknowledge the valid limitations regarding financial resources,
we also request acknowledgment that budgets and resource allocation, more generally,
represent our values and priorities as a Department. We firmly believe that how the Department
chooses to spend its operating budget, no matter the size reflects the Department's moral and
ethical position. If the Department is genuinely committed to anti-racism and equity, providing
financial support for the efforts in this document should be considered among the Department's
highest priorities.

Specific recommended and demanded efforts are presented throughout in bold underline.

Sincerely,
A Group of University of Pittsburgh Psychology Department Graduate Students and Staff

2
 Table of Contents
Undergraduate Students ............................................................................................................................. 5
Black Senate demands .............................................................................................................................. 5
Representation in undergraduate research experiences .......................................................................... 5
Evaluate the exclusion criteria in the Psychology Department participant pool ........................................ 5
Transparency and accountability ............................................................................................................... 6
Resources for undergraduate students in Psychology .............................................................................. 6

Graduate and Faculty Teaching/Training .................................................................................................. 7

Training ...................................................................................................................................................... 7
Course Offerings ........................................................................................................................................ 8
Syllabi and course materials ...................................................................................................................... 8
Evaluating instructors' and students' racism, prejudice, and biases ......................................................... 9
Resources to replace Pitt Police .............................................................................................................. 10

Mentorship/Support for Graduate Students and Post-baccalaureate Fellows ................................... 10

Funding .................................................................................................................................................... 10
Resources/mental health ......................................................................................................................... 11
Responding to racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia ............................................................... 11
Support for first-generation college students ........................................................................................... 12
Protection for international/undocumented students, staff, and faculty................................................... 12
Facilities ................................................................................................................................................... 13

Service/Committees ................................................................................................................................... 13
Compensating essential Department services ........................................................................................ 13
Equitable access to volunteer opportunities ............................................................................................ 14
Departmental support for graduate student equity and inclusion efforts ................................................. 14
Disproportionate service burden at the faculty level ................................................................................ 14
Valuing graduate student service ............................................................................................................ 15

Research Practices .................................................................................................................................... 15

Methods ................................................................................................................................................... 15
Treatment of demographic data ............................................................................................................... 15

Recruitment and Retention of BIPOC and URM Students, Staff, and Faculty .................................... 17
Representation Goals .............................................................................................................................. 17

3
 Equitable hiring practices ......................................................................................................................... 17
Community building ................................................................................................................................. 19
Exit interviews .......................................................................................................................................... 19

Colloquium, Brown Bags, Speakers ........................................................................................................ 20

Increasing representation ........................................................................................................................ 20
Compensation .......................................................................................................................................... 20
Department response to racial trauma .................................................................................................... 20

Community Engagement........................................................................................................................... 21

Clinical Training and Practice .................................................................................................................. 21

Accountability and Transparency ............................................................................................................ 21

Department oversight board .................................................................................................................... 21
Department budget .................................................................................................................................. 21
Recommendations and demands ............................................................................................................ 22

Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................. 22

4
Undergraduate Students

Black Senate demands

● Undergraduate, Black student leaders at the University of Pittsburgh created an Action
Plan, which we expect the Psychology Department to support fully.
Support includes:
○ Offering to meet with these student leaders in Fall 2020 to discuss concrete
ways the Department can advance their efforts, with particular concern for
undergraduate recruitment. Given our reliance on the community of Pittsburgh
for our research, it is troublesome that we do not invest in the Pittsburgh
community by recruiting and training local students, particularly Black students.
○ Develop systems of accountability to ensure any initiatives by the
Department resulting from this meeting are enacted as the undergraduates
intended. These might include task forces, focus groups, surveys, etc. We
request that Department leaders reach out to us once this meeting takes place to
discuss concrete steps for accountability.

Representation in undergraduate research experiences

● The Psychology Equity, Inclusion, and Community (PEIC)5 Undergraduate
Subcommittee created an Open Labs initiative to introduce first-generation and/or
minoritized psychology majors to psychology research labs at Pitt. Currently, the event is
only open to declared Psychology majors and unable to accommodate all interested
students. Additional financial and administrative support is necessary to increase
the number of events and the number of undergraduate participants the events
can support.
● Further, many undergraduates find research opportunities informally, which
systematically disadvantages students who are unaware of potential research
opportunities. The Department should institute a formal application process which
includes a Department-wide deadline so that faculty are not able to fill their
undergraduate research positions without first considering all interested
students.

Evaluate the exclusion criteria in the Psychology Department

participant pool
● Currently, the available studies in the participant pool disproportionately recruit English
first language speakers and cis-gendered students. This deprives many students of the

5 http://psychology.pitt.edu/equity-and-inclusion

5
 opportunity to participate in research and forces them to complete the essay
requirement, which is often significantly more work than study participation.
○ Studies with exclusions based on language and demographic
characteristics should be required to submit a brief paragraph justifying
exclusion criteria. Additional questions (e.g., when an individual became fluent
in English) may also allow more students to participate in studies where such
criteria are essential.
○ SONA (the registration system used for the Psychology participant pool) requests
students to choose between male and female when they create an account.
Additional gender options, including non-binary, must be added to SONA,
preferably for Fall 2020, but at the latest for Spring 2021.6
○ There should be more alternatives to research participation beyond the
current essay requirement. For example, one alternative should include
attending Psychology Department colloquia, brown bags, dissertation defenses,
or other talks and writing short reflection statements. We believe this is more
commensurate to the work required to participate in a study.

Transparency and accountability

● We would like the Department to administer an anonymous survey to all
Psychology majors asking about their experiences, especially concerning
mentorship and support. Language in the survey should be inclusive and mindful of
student norms to encourage students to report their experiences honestly. Language
should also make it clear there will be no retaliation for their honesty. Results and a
subsequent action plan should be shared across the Department.

Resources for undergraduate students in Psychology

● Undergraduate students need a designated person otherwise unaffiliated with the
Psychology Department, who is trained in helping students process racial and
cultural trauma and can discuss concerns that directly pertain to their
experiences in classes and research labs. This can be the same person as the
proposed position for graduate students in the section on Mentorship/Support for
Graduate Students. This effort can be connected to the University's commitment to
"recruit and train staff as restorative justice meditators" and "establish four (4) new Post-
Master's Fellowships for Black and other people of color clinicians."7

6 For guidance on why this is important see: Frohard‐Dourlent, H., Dobson, S., Clark, B. A., Doull, M., & Saewyc, E.
M. (2017). “I would have preferred more options”: Accounting for non‐binary youth in health research. Nursing inquiry,
24(1), e12150. For guidance on how to implement this see: Bauer, G. R., Braimoh, J., Scheim, A. I., & Dharma, C.
(2017). Transgender-inclusive measures of sex/gender for population surveys: Mixed-methods evaluation and
recommendations. PloS one, 12(5), e0178043.

7 Student Affairs Action Plan | Student Affairs

6
Graduate and Faculty Teaching/Training

Training
● We would like the Department to develop and offer courses/training aimed at
understanding issues of power, inclusion, equity, access, history, and diversity in
the field of Psychology (and specifically in our Department). We firmly believe it is
irresponsible to work in and with historically oppressed communities and not have a
foundational understanding of how issues such as institutionalized racism impact these
communities.8
● The work of developing/running workshops/training needs to be compensated and may
require hiring someone specifically for these tasks.
● The courses should promote baseline knowledge on the topic, as well as explore how
these issues permeate education and research. It is also essential that this training
covers how to effectively facilitate discussions on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality,
ability, religion, and other cultural identities. Faculty who are unable to facilitate
classroom discussions on race, for example, perpetuate harm against BIPOC students,
which negatively impacts both mental health and education, and reinforces biases and
prejudices of White students.9
● These courses/training also need to go beyond merely providing knowledge and must
also provide opportunities to practice skills such as having conversations in the
classroom or with mentees in ways that are anti-racist, anti-discriminatory, and anti-
prejudiced.10
● Some combination of courses/training must be required for staff, faculty, graduate
students, or anyone else who serves as a mentor within the Department.
● Examples of Courses/Training
● Courses/training should be evaluated for their effectiveness in changing the
climate of the Department.11 We know anti-racism training is not always effective12 ,
and there may be several iterations needed to get this right.
● While Department-specific courses/training are in development, several courses can be
mandated in the interim. For example, the Center for Teaching and Learning offers a
course on "Teaching Inclusively;" the Institute for the Development of Human Arts
provides a course on the intersections of mental health and oppression. The University

8E.g. DiAngelo, R. (2012). Nothing to add: A challenge to white silence in racial discussions. Understanding and
Dismantling Privilege, 2(1), 1-17

9Sue, D. W., Lin, A. I., Torino, G. C., Capodilupo, C. M., & Rivera, D. P. (2009). Racial microaggressions and difficult
dialogues on race in the classroom. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 15(2), 183; Ahmed, S. (2009).
Embodying diversity: Problems and paradoxes for Black feminists. Race Ethnicity and Education, 12(1), 41-52.

10 Ahmed, S. (2007). The language of diversity. Ethnic and racial studies, 30(2), 235-256.

11 E.g. Doing Diversity

12 E.g. White Fragility’ Is Everywhere. But Does Antiracism Training Work?

7
 is also developing training and requires that "all professional staff and student workers
complete annual anti-racism training."13
● Similar to a continuing education credit-based system that is used in the medical
community,14 all faculty should be required to take a continuous course or training
in these areas every 1-3 years. There should be a transparent and readily available
record of the last time faculty participated in courses/training, and failure to do so should
impact faculty evaluations, especially those concerning tenure.
● The current University mandated Teaching Assistant training does not include any
training on equitable teaching practices, including how to navigate racialized,
discriminatory, or prejudiced aggressions15 and other forms of racism. There is more
dedication to these issues in the Psychology teaching course, but many students have
already TA'ed or taught before taking the class. The Department should institute its
own TA training during new graduate student orientation to ensure students are
adequately trained on equitable practices of teaching from the beginning of their
graduate training.

Course Offerings
● We would like additional courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels related
to issues of race in psychology including but not limited to:
○ Black Psychology
○ Psychology of Oppression and Liberation
○ Cultural Trauma and Mental Health
○ Psychology and Multiculturalism
● We would like the Department to suggest that the University offer international
graduate and undergraduate students classes/workshops about race dynamics in
the U.S.

Syllabi and course materials

● Every syllabus in the Department must include representation from
heterogeneous authors across race/ethnicity and gender. As a clear rule, we
recommend no syllabus can include a reading list where over 50 percent of the first
authors are White men.
○ This needs to be enforced by a funded Syllabus Review Task Force. The
Syllabus Review Task Force can be a subcommittee of PEIC pending additional
and adequate funding. Alternatively, the Department could hire someone outside
the Department to perform these duties.

13 Student Affairs Action Plan | Student Affairs

14 E.g., Standards for Commercial Support

We avoid the term “microaggression” as it can minimize the deep harm inflicted on BIPOC and URM. To read
15
more, we recommend the book How to Be an Antiracist by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi.

8
 ○ All instructors will be sent this list of BIPOC-and URM Authored
Psychology Papers and other resources16 each academic year to assist
them in complying with the new syllabus requirements.
● Media (e.g., pictures and videos), class examples, and assessment questions
should reflect heterogeneous groups of people. If given adequate resources and
funding, this is also something the Syllabus Review Committee or an outside contractor
can monitor and promote. To make adoption of this easier on faculty, a centralized folder
for sharing media and papers should be added to Box.
● The University provides an optional diversity statement for syllabi, but we do not feel this
statement is adequate. We would like the Psychology Department to craft its own
statement to be included on all syllabi about our Department's commitment to
equity and how the Department will handle anything that undermines this
commitment. This statement should also point students to relevant resources, such as
the point person they can talk to about racial and cultural trauma.
○ We recommend instructors go over this section when the class is reviewing the
syllabus to ensure that students understand this is a genuine commitment.
● There needs to be adequate support for instructors to ensure all course materials
include alt-text and captions where required. All syllabi and written course
materials need to be accessible for screen readers.17

Evaluating instructors' and students' racism, prejudice, and biases

● OMETs for undergraduate and graduate classes should include questions about
whether the students experienced racialized, discriminatory, or prejudiced
treatment and other questions about displays of biases within the classroom.18
○ Responses to these questions should be included in instructor and faculty
evaluations, especially those concerning tenure.
● We are also mindful that students are often the perpetrators of racialized, discriminatory,
or prejudiced aggression against minoritized instructors.19 The Department needs to
have specific resources in place to support graduate student instructors and
faculty who experience these acts.

16 E.g., 10 African & African American Psychologists You Should Know

17 Designing Course Content for Screen Readers - Center for Teaching and Learning | Wiley Education Services

18Faculty in the Cognitive Program have piloted several OMET-style survey items pertaining to inclusion, belonging,
and discrimination in psychology courses that can serve as a resource in this area.

19Pittman, C. T. (2010). Race and gender oppression in the classroom: The experiences of women faculty of color
with white male students. Teaching Sociology, 38(3), 183-196.

9
Resources to replace Pitt Police
● Currently, instructors are encouraged to call the Pitt Police for everything from being
locked out of a classroom to a student medical emergency. Anecdotal experience
suggests Pitt Police are rarely helpful in these scenarios. Furthermore, the policy of
using Pitt Police as the universal designated resource, especially for non-emergencies
like lockouts, does not prioritize the needs of BIPOC and URM students and may
unintentionally make students feel unsafe.20 Therefore, we would like all instructors in
Psychology to be given a list of resources they can use and people they can call
besides the Pitt Police.
○ This list of resources can be accommodated by using separate groups with
appropriate access and expertise to handle lockout (e.g., building and grounds),
medical emergencies, including suicidality (e.g., a medical/therapeutic response
team), behavior concerns (e.g., advice line or consultation personnel).

Mentorship/Support for Graduate Students and

Post-baccalaureate Fellows

Funding
● Students' Departmental funds should roll over if they are not all used in a single
year. Not rolling over these funds penalizes low-income and/or first-generation students
who may be less aware of conferences to attend in their first year and who may have
less ability to fund conferences or societal memberships on their own. This perpetuates
inequities as these students are at a disadvantage for professional development and
networking opportunities necessary to further their training and careers.
○ We are aware that the Department budget does not roll over. Still, we would like
designated funds to be specifically allocated each year for students who did not
use their allotted funds in the previous year.
● A centralized document should exist listing all funding resources and
opportunities at the University beyond just those available from the Department
(e.g., GSO travel funds, Arts & Sciences Travel Grants, GPSG Travel Grants). There
should be a point person in the Department who updates this list and can direct students
in the event of questions or concerns.
● BIPOC graduate students should be guaranteed at least one year of GSR support.
This should be provided by the Department and be used to fund progress on students'
independent research. Discretion of which year to use GSR funds provided by the
Department should be left to the graduate student (i.e., PIs cannot tell students when to
use this funding).

20 How campus police can deal with racism

10
 ● Grant a full-year funding extension accessible to every graduate student enrolled
during the COVID pandemic, and not solely on a case-by-case basis. Case-by-case
determinations suffer from biased decisions, disproportionate access to opportunities,
and a lack of transparency. They can also create a climate of competition among
students for resources. This additional funding is necessary because students' inability
to progress as a result of the pandemic altered completion timelines, courses,
milestones, research, collaborations, conference and networking opportunities, and
more. Further, senior students face an even more precarious job market.

Resources/mental health
● Students have raised concerns that the ombudsmen are often affiliated with the
Department in some way (e.g., former faculty), and therefore students do not feel they
are genuinely impartial. We request an ombudsperson specifically dedicated to the
Psychology Department who is otherwise unaffiliated with the Department. This
person needs to be trained in processing racial and cultural traumas. This person should
also be available as a resource to undergraduates, staff, fellows, post-bacs, and
postdocs.
● Fellows and post-bacs (especially those in positions related to diversity goals) should
be provided an external faculty mentor who is not directly affiliated with their
research/lab but rather promotes their identities as scholars and ensures they are
comfortable in their lab environment.
● The Department can also leverage its clinical psychology expertise to implement
additional supports for students. These can include:
○ Department mental health awareness days
○ Faculty in the Department speaking about their own mental health journeys
○ Self-care/rest days that provide space to promote wellness and well-being
○ Opportunities, such as support groups, for students to speak about and name
mental health issues as they pertain to academic experiences (e.g., imposter
syndrome).
Any such actions will help normalize speaking about and attending to mental health
issues, especially as they relate to social and political crises.
● The Department should create a list of caretaking resources related to childcare,
elderly care, and health care. Given the specific needs of those serving as caretakers
during COVID-19, the Department should also consider creating a babysitting service
available for free to Psychology faculty, staff, and students for the duration of the
COVID-19 pandemic.

Responding to racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia

● The Department needs to create a clear protocol about racist, sexist, homophobic,
and xenophobic behaviors that are not tolerated. This protocol needs to include
concrete actions that will be taken in response to discriminatory acts.

11
 ● A task force should be instantiated in response to a discriminatory incident. We
additionally ask for accountability and transparency by the Department in disciplinary
procedures and actions that are instituted. In response to Title IX issues, we adhere to
protocols surrounding confidentiality, but how procedural processes are mandated need
to be carried out collectively and transparently.
● Resources for self-care in the event of racist, sexist, homophobic, and
xenophobic behaviors shall be centralized, advertised, and easily accessible to all
students. Pitt has some initiatives already that should be included in these resources. 21

Support for first-generation college students

• We would like the Department to create a mentorship program that pairs willing
faculty who identify as first-generation scholars and/or Americans with interested
first-generation graduate students.
• We would like the Department to institute programming dedicated to raising
awareness of the first-generation experience. For example, wearing a ribbon in
solidarity with first-generation scholars and integrating more discussion around being a
first-generation scholar to normalize potentially common struggles among first-
generation students as they relate to class, SES, race, and gender that are often
invisible in the academy.22

Protection for international/undocumented students, staff, and

faculty
• We would like the Department to denounce all xenophobic policies that target
international scholars, especially mandates related to ICE Student Exchange and
Visitor Program (SEVP) rules. The Department should do everything it can to protect
individuals who are in the United States on F1, J1, and M1 visas, especially those who
may face deportation for legal, cultural, or social changes in regulations (e.g., COVID
and online learning for international students taking online classes;23 DACA rulings for
DREAMERS24). We would also like the Department to implement the following supports
for members of the Department when there are legal, cultural, or social changes that
threaten their status in the Department. These include:
○ Access to a dedicated, 24-hour immigration hotline

21 E.g. Racial Trauma & Self-Care Resources, Virtual Workshops, Group Therapy

22Davis, J. (2012). The first-generation student experience: Implications for campus practice, and strategies for
improving persistence and success. Stylus Publishing, LLC.

23While this specific policy was rescinded (see Trump administration drops directive on international students and
online courses; Graduate Committee at Pitt Applauds Reversal of International Student Rule), similar policies may be
enacted at any moment and we want to ensure the Department is prepared.

24 A compilation of statements from presidents and higher ed associations on the Supreme Court's DACA decision

12
 ○ Paid leave for graduate students and staff specifically for dealing with
immigration issues, such as visa renewal
○ Access to expanded legal and tax help beyond what the University
provides:
■ Graduate students, staff, and faculty should be able to request
reimbursement for SEVIS fees and other expenses regarding visas/legal
processing of citizenship (e.g., travel expenses to the country of origin
embassy, paperwork, and renewal fees).
■ The Department should assist with embassy contacts and navigating
challenges such as limitations to traveling out of the country for
professional reasons, determents in students' training, etc.
■ There should be a designated person with qualified training (e.g., legal,
counseling) to maintain confidential relationships with students of
international/undocumented status in the Department.

Facilities
● The Department Should provide gender-neutral bathrooms and or eliminate
existing gendered bathrooms in all psychology affiliated buildings.25

Service/Committees

Compensating essential Department services

● Currently, the Department relies heavily on graduate student volunteers for efforts and
programming that are often performed by employees with full compensation and benefits
in other universities and departments.26 Specifically, the Department relies heavily on the
efforts of the Professional Development Committee, the Community for Advanced
Methodological Learning (CAMeL), and the Psychology Equity, Inclusion, and
Community (PEIC) Committee. Given how instrumental these committees are to the
Department, there should be additional funds in each committee's budget to
compensate graduate students and staff for their work.
○ Recommendations include fellowships and/or service awards that seek to
support the educational experiences of said students monetarily and to further
incentivize these positions long-term.

25Sanders, J., & Stryker, S. (2016). Stalled: Gender-neutral public bathrooms. South Atlantic Quarterly, 115(4), 779-
788; Weinhardt, L. S., Stevens, P., Xie, H., Wesp, L. M., John, S. A., Apchemengich, I., ... & Lambrou, N. H. (2017).
Transgender and gender nonconforming youths' public facilities use and psychological well-being: A mixed-method
study. Transgender health, 2(1), 140-150.

26 E.g. Additional Compensation Guidelines for Faculty Affairs

13
Equitable access to volunteer opportunities
● Certain service opportunities elevate specific students' voices and perspectives (e.g.,
faculty hiring committees, graduate student program representatives). We would like
there to be a formal, transparent process for how students can access these
opportunities. For example, programs within the Department could institute a brief but
formal and equitable application process open to all students for these positions.

Departmental support for graduate student equity and inclusion

efforts
● Graduate student efforts surrounding equity and inclusion are often supported by the
Department but then left to graduate students to implement and maintain. The
Department should demonstrate its commitment to equity and inclusion by
offering to take on the administrative burden of some of these initiatives. This will
ensure that the initiatives outlive the graduate student volunteers who develop and run
them. Further, reducing the current administrative burden will allow the PEIC committee
to expand its efforts. For example:
○ The PEIC graduate award27 provides funding for students to attend conferences,
training, or other events that foster their sense of community in academia or
enhance their professional development in areas of equity and inclusion. This
award could be managed by the staff who already manage the pre-approval and
reimbursement of graduate student travel funds.
○ The PEIC committee overall and all of the subcommittees and affinity groups 28
would benefit from additional and more structured administrative support related
to Department-wide correspondence, scheduling, publicizing meetings and
events, ordering food, and general pre-approval and reimbursement of funds.

Disproportionate service burden at the faculty level

● Students have informally observed that service in our Department disproportionately falls
on women faculty. Furthermore, as we increase our recruitment efforts for more BIPOC
and URM faculty, it is increasingly crucial to institute preventative measures to ensure
that BIPOC and URM faculty do not end up with a disproportionate service burden, as is
often the case at universities around the country.29
○ Therefore, we would like the Department to institute a plan for tracking
service at the faculty level and create formal guidelines to ensure that there

27 http://psychology.pitt.edu/equity-and-inclusion/fellowships-awards

28 http://psychology.pitt.edu/equity-and-inclusion

E.g. Relying on Women, Not Rewarding Them; Academia Isn't a Safe Haven for Conversations About Race and
29
Racism; Shelton, S. A., Flynn, J. E., & Grosland, T. J. (Eds.). (2018). Feminism and intersectionality in academia:
Women’s narratives and experiences in higher education. Springer.

14
 are no disparities in the amount of service performed by specific
demographic subgroups (e.g., women and faculty of color).

Valuing graduate student service

● Service is undervalued in our Department compared to research and teaching.
○ One way to combat this is to make a formal service requirement at the
graduate student level, similar to the teaching requirement, to ensure that
service does not fall disproportionately on the same students. At a minimum,
faculty need to be prohibited from explicitly telling their students not to do
service.

Research Practices

Methods
● We would like an evaluation of the exclusionary methods used in our Department.
For example, many BIPOC are excluded from EEG research due to differences in
natural hair. This affects representation in research, so the Department must mandate
the use of methods that do not discriminate.30
○ Further, those using discriminatory methods like EEG should be trained on the
inequities created by their use.
● We would like to increase our Department's training in and commitment to
qualitative research and other non-quantitative methods. Our Department lacks
sufficient training, expertise, and respect for qualitative methods, ethnographic research,
and/or community-based participatory research. This is problematic because qualitative
research can provide in-depth insights into real-world problems that otherwise might
become obscured using quantitative methods. Additionally, given that research pools
with underrepresented populations are often small, other methods such as interviewing
and focus-groups may be necessary to ensure that underrepresented communities are
increasingly represented in research.31

Treatment of demographic data

Psychology research struggles broadly when it comes to its treatment of demographic
characteristics. For example, race/ethnicity is often used as a control variable where all non-
White participants are often grouped into a single variable. Furthermore, even when race is not

30Etienne, A., Laroia, T., Weigle, H., Afelin, A., Kelly, S. K., Krishnan, A., & Grover, P. Novel Electrodes for Reliable
EEG Recordings on Coarse and Curly Hair; New electrodes can better capture brain waves of people with natural
hair

31 The importance of qualitative research and the problem of mass data gathering

15
a control variable, psychology often obscures racism (rather than race) as a risk factor, when in
reality, race is a socially and politically defined construct that has no biological basis.32 Other
concerns with demographic variables include reducing complex constructs like gender to binary
categories and ignoring intersectionality altogether.
● The Department should provide outside experts to train graduate students,
faculty, and research staff on how to recruit participants, create measures, collect
and analyze data, and write about constructs such as race/ethnicity, 33 gender,34
sexual orientation,35 culture,36 and intersectionality.37 We would like everyone
engaged in research in our Department to be equipped with the knowledge and tools
regarding best practices.
○ We would like to see our Department as a leader and model in this space, so we
do not contribute to questionable and harmful inferences about minoritized
populations.38
○ The Department should also offer opportunities for debriefing this training and
provide opportunities to discuss readings and materials to reflect on the ways our
research and practice can uphold equity across these constructs.
● In addition to training from outside experts, current undergraduate and graduate
methods courses should be required to integrate information on the most
equitable approaches to collecting and analyzing demographic data.

32 Section 1: Racism, not Race, Causes Health Disparities — Institute for Healing & Justice in Medicine

33Brown, K. S., Kijakazi, K., Runes, C., & Turner, M. A. (2019). Confronting structural racism in research and policy
analysis. Urban Institute, Washington DC Retrieved from: Confronting Structural Racism in Research and Policy
Analysis

34 Frohard‐Dourlent, H., Dobson, S., Clark, B. A., Doull, M., & Saewyc, E. M. (2017). “I would have preferred more
options”: Accounting for non‐binary youth in health research. Nursing inquiry, 24(1), e12150; Bauer, G. R., Braimoh,
J., Scheim, A. I., & Dharma, C. (2017). Transgender-inclusive measures of sex/gender for population surveys: Mixed-
methods evaluation and recommendations. PloS one, 12(5), e0178043.

35Boroughs, M. S., Andres Bedoya, C., O'Cleirigh, C., & Safren, S. A. (2015). Toward Defining, Measuring, and
Evaluating LGBT Cultural Competence for Psychologists. Clinical psychology: a publication of the Division of Clinical
Psychology of the American Psychological Association, 22(2), 151–171.

36 APAGS multicultural training database

37Bowleg, L. (2008). When Black+ lesbian+ woman≠ Black lesbian woman: The methodological challenges of
qualitative and quantitative intersectionality research. Sex roles, 59(5-6), 312-325.

38A 2020 publication in Psychological Science was recently retracted. This article received backlash from academics
on Twitter for using shoddy methodology, especially in regard to an IQ measure, and for its problematic and racist
implications. The retraction statement can be found here: Retraction of Clark et al. (2020) and Editorial by Editor-in-
Chief Patricia Bauer. A Twitter thread discussion on the retraction can be found here: Association for Psychological
Science on Twitter: "Retraction of Clark et al. (Psychological Science, 2020) and Editorial by Editor-in-Chief Patricia
Bauer, "A Call for Greater Sensitivity in the Wake of a Publication Controversy"

16
Recruitment and Retention of BIPOC and URM
Students, Staff, and Faculty
We appreciate our Department's recent prioritization of recruiting URM and BIPOC faculty. In
addition to focusing efforts on recruitment, which we complement with additional goals below.
As previously mentioned in the introduction, we would like to ensure the Department's
commitment to retention matches the recent commitments to recruitment. We outline those
demands in the following subsections.

Representation Goals
● We ask that at least 80% of all new faculty hires for at least the next ten years (and
extending until the demographics of the Department resemble the demographics of the
country; beginning from the time the current hiring freeze due to COVID-19 is lifted) be
BIPOC and/or URM.
○ While universities are celebrating increasing faculty diversity, a closer look
reveals the bleak reality that many BIPOC and URM faculty are in less-secure
positions, such as adjunct professorships, relative to tenure-track positions.39 We
would like to ensure that BIPOC and URM are equitably afforded
opportunities in both tenure-track and adjunct positions in the Department.
● If a non-URM White person is hired, the Department should justify (1) what the
Department did to expand their recruitment more broadly, and (2) why the person
appointed was the ideal candidate.
● We would also like to ensure that BIPOC/URM representation extends to gender
identification and sexual orientation.

Equitable hiring practices40

● Pittsburgh is famous for the Rooney Rule41 that mandates minimal levels of diversity in
applicant pools. We request that the Department implements rules around staff and
faculty hiring and graduate student applications to ensure that the application
review process cannot begin until the applicant pool reflects the predetermined
diversity criteria. If adequate representation cannot be achieved within applicant pools,
this signals that we are failing at equitable recruitment practices and need to increase
our investment in recruitment.
○ All hiring committees should strive for a diverse faculty and graduate
student demographic composition while also distributing participation in

39 Study finds gains in faculty diversity, but not on the tenure track

Sensoy, Ö., & DiAngelo, R. (2017). “We are all for diversity, but...”: How faculty hiring committees reproduce
40
whiteness and practical suggestions for how they can change. Harvard Educational Review, 87(4), 557-580.

41 Mayor William Peduto Adopts "Rooney Rule" For City Hiring

17
 hiring committees equitably to avoid disproportionately burdening URM
and BIPOC students and faculty.
○ We also ask that all hiring committees include a compensated position for
a community member. We believe that this will help ensure all new faculty feel
a sense of commitment to the Pittsburgh community where they will be
conducting their research.
● All job postings for faculty and staff should be explicitly reviewed for racial bias or
other discriminatory language or coded language that may deter or disadvantage
URM and BIPOC scholars.
○ This needs to be enforced by a funded Hiring Review Task Force. Similarly
to the proposed Syllabus Review task force, this group can be a subcommittee of
PEIC pending additional and adequate funding (these could also be consolidated
into one group). Alternatively, the Department could hire someone outside the
Department to perform these duties.
○ We also recommend adding a statement of our Department's mission as it
relates to equity and inclusion and the impact we are hoping to make in our
research, practice, teaching, service, and community.
○ The Department should also have a procedure for job postings that seek
platforms that promote obtaining diverse scholarship (e.g., Black societies
for scholarship and research, POC-related academic communities).
● The hiring process should be transparent about what is prioritized, and future
hiring committees are encouraged to consider a more comprehensive set of
qualifications. For example, more weight should be given to academic and non-
academic service that contributes to the applicants' identity as a researcher, especially
when that work is in service of promoting equity, inclusion, and community-building.
● There are currently several hiring and recruitment practices within the Department that
rely on pre-existing relationships where the actual application process is nothing more
than a formality. We believe these practices disadvantage underrepresented applicants
who may be less likely to have these pre-existing relationships.42 Thus, we ask that all
formal applicants for positions be seriously considered alongside informal
applicants.
● These efforts can all be connected to the broader University-wide commitment to
"developing and implementing an inclusive professional staff and student worker
recruitment, interview, and hiring process, and adding diversity, equity, inclusion, and
social justice job responsibilities and evaluation criteria to all staff positions."43

42Coleman, J. S. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94, S95-
S120.; Lareau, A. (2015). Cultural knowledge and social inequality. American Sociological Review, 80(1), 1-27.

43 Student Affairs Action Plan | Student Affairs

18
Community building
● The Department needs to increase its investment in ensuring new graduate
students, post-bacs, postdocs, staff, and faculty feel welcome and appreciated in
the Department.
○ We suggest the new faculty mentorship program include at least two faculty
mentors for each new faculty (preferably one with and one without tenure) to help
further with their transition in both academic and private spheres.
○ We also suggest Departmental retreats for post-bacs, students, staff, postdocs,
and or faculty specifically centered on community building to improve the overall
climate in our Department. Each year the retreat can have a theme as it relates
to equity and inclusion, or pedagogical practices, etc. Feedback on these retreats
and whether they are serving their purpose will also be critical.
○ Post-bacs (e.g., HMB fellows) and summer interns should have additional
faculty mentors (outside of their PI) to support their social and cultural
identities as scholars in the Department.
○ The Department should instantiate the need for and support (e.g., via
funding and administrative support as previously mentioned under
Service/Committees) the emergence of more affinity groups, caucuses, and
community spaces like the existing PSOC and LGBTQIA+ groups.44 For
example, we are specifically interested in creating an affinity group for those who
were first-generation college students. The Department should also ensure each
group's specific needs are met (e.g., to form a community space for parents, we
would need resources to provide childcare).
○ Post-bacs, RAs, staff, and postdocs who work in the LRDC and whose PI's
are in the Psychology Department should be included on all Psychology
listservs/email announcements.

Exit interviews
● All faculty, staff, and graduate students, and a subsample of undergraduate
students should participate in exit interviews conducted by someone otherwise
unaffiliated with the Department. Feedback from these interviews should be
anonymized, consolidated, and stored in a central location where anyone can look them
up at any time. These interviews should serve as a starting point for developing action
steps to improve our recruitment and retention of BIPOC and URM students, staff, and
faculty.

44http://psychology.pitt.edu/equity-and-inclusion/community-groups; Shookhoff, A. (2006). Affinity groups:

Commonality in diversity (Doctoral dissertation); Tauriac, J. J., Kim, G. S., Lambe Sariñana, S., Tawa, J., & Kahn, V.
D. (2013). Utilizing affinity groups to enhance intergroup dialogue workshops for racially and ethnically diverse
students. The Journal for Specialists in Group Work, 38(3), 241-260.

19
Colloquium, Brown Bags, Speakers

Increasing representation
● We would like there to be a concerted effort to have more BIPOC and URM give
colloquia and brown bags. We would like this effort to extend across all research
areas (i.e., not only BIPOC scholars presenting research on race (though this is also
appreciated), but psychological research across all areas presented by BIPOC and URM
scholars).
○ We also encourage the Department to bring in more junior scholars and graduate
students to give brown bags and colloquia.
○ We would like opportunities for invited BIPOC and URM speakers to
interface with BIPOC and URM graduate students separately from other
professional development programming.

Compensation
● Everyone invited to give a talk in the Psychology Department at the University of
Pittsburgh needs to be compensated. Rates for compensation should be transparent
(e.g., there can be a list of standard rates saved on Box) and consistent across type of
talk (e.g., we understand a colloquium speaker who also meets with students and
performs other duties will be compensated more than a brown bag speaker who only
gives one one-hour talk, but all speakers should be paid the same amount for the
same labor).

Department response to racial trauma

● We would like the Department to respond consistently, publicly, and swiftly to
issues of racial violence, injustice, and rhetoric that promote White supremacy or
oppression of BIPOC and URM individuals
○ We would like the Department to respond within 24 hours of a significant event.
○ We would like the response to come from multiple levels of power (individually)
within the Department, including Department chair, area chairs, PIs to individual
labs, and clinic supervisors. We would also like the response to be consistent
across program areas as messaging as of racial violence, injustice, and rhetoric
that promote oppression are often ignored and not addressed.
○ We would like the response to provide tangible resources for students, staff,
fellows, and faculty's safety/health/etc. and action items that clarify the
Department's next steps where appropriate.
○ We would like the response to be clear in its condemnation of White supremacy
and acts/language of oppression (e.g., political or otherwise). We recommend the
statement not be protected by layers of non-specific language and neutrality.

20
Community Engagement
Efforts related to community engagement fall in every single one of the aforementioned
categories, from recruitment and retention to research practices. Therefore, we would like the
Department to prioritize our relationship with the greater Pittsburgh community. The
Outreach subcommittee has started some work in this area, but these efforts require much more
Departmental support. Prioritizing this relationship can begin with a large-scale evaluation of
our current position and reputation in the Pittsburgh community (e.g., interviews with
research participants about their experiences and with former staff and faculty about moving to
and living in Pittsburgh, etc.). The ultimate goal of this evaluation will be to identify precise areas
for action and improvement so that our relationship with the Pittsburgh community adequately
reflects and appreciates how much we rely on this community in every facet of our Department.

Clinical Training and Practice

A list of demands for clinical science programs is in progress. This effort is being led by
graduate students at the University of Pittsburgh and includes participation from students across
several universities. As with our recommendations and demands enclosed, once these Clinical
Program demands are released, we expect the Department to fully comply with all the
demands. We also expect Psychology Department leadership to offer to meet with
Clinical Psychology graduate students to discuss these demands.

Accountability and Transparency

Department oversight board

● We recommend the creation of an oversight board consisting of scholars from
other organizations/institutions, Pitt alumni, and community members. This idea is
modeled after the LRDC's board of visitors. This board can help provide important
perspectives and keep the Department accountable for its equity and inclusion goals.
○ Board members can serve two-year terms and be provided with compensation,
including but not limited to travel and lodging.

Department budget
● Graduate students would like to see the Psychology Department budget. The
Department's budget should be circulated annually so graduate students have a clear
and concrete sense of where investments are/are not being made.

21
Recommendations and demands
● We would like Department leaders to create a timeline for every action item
included in this document before the end of 2020 (e.g., this can consist of planning
phases, implementation phases, etc.). Once the timeline is complete, we would like
Department leaders to share the timeline with the entire Department and hold a meeting
open to the entire Department to solicit feedback.
● Finally, we view this document as one stepping stone and want to ensure these
recommendations and demands remain salient even after students graduate and
executive leadership changes; therefore, we request that the Executive Committee
holds an annual meeting with leaders of the PEIC Committee (this can include the
main leaders and subcommittee leaders) to review the timeline and progress of
every item in this letter in addition to the Department's overall progress toward
anti-racism, equity, and inclusion. This ensures flexibility where adjustments need to
be made to action items or timeline and also ensures indefinite accountability.

Conclusion
We recognize that the recommendations and demands listed above are extensive and
involve a large-scale restructuring of how the Department functions. When it comes to
ameliorating systemic injustice in and beyond academia, these efforts require systemic
change.45 We have seen in recent months the speed in which the University can mobilize and
change the course of education when it considers that change critical to the well-being of
students. We have also seen administrative officials grant the organized demands of other
groups such as Pitt's medical students.46 We now expect the Department to avoid the
temptation to say there is not enough money, that it does not have the authority, or that this is
not how a department is typically run. We ask the Department to instead recognize that each
recommendation and demand reflects an underlying need that will contribute further to the
mitigation of systemic inequities in higher education, especially as they pertain to BIPOC and
URM communities. Where there is not enough money, there is a need to fight for more money,
reassess current expenditures, and or find solutions that cost less. Where the Department lacks
authority, it must advocate. And where the Department worries that changes will require shifts in
academic and Departmental norms, please consider that we will not reach the levels of equity
and inclusion we know the Department is striving to achieve without radical change.

45Ahmed, S. (2007). ‘You end up doing the document rather than doing the doing’: Diversity, race equality and the
politics of documentation. Ethnic and racial studies, 30(4), 590-609.

46 Med school dean agrees to wide-ranging demands from Black students

22