Home   »   News
03.14.2022 | SSP News & Releases

C4DISC Webinar Preview | Antiracism Toolkit for Organizations

We are proud to be a founding member of the Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications and co-sponsor of their upcoming webinar, “Antiracism Toolkit for Organizations” on Tuesday, March 22 at 11:00 am ET. Registration is free!


 

This webinar will explore C4DISC’s “Antiracism Toolkit for Organizations,” written by a multiracial group of industry professionals. The toolkit is intended to help individuals at all levels within scholarly publishing organizations implement inclusive policies, procedures, and norms. 

Jocelyn Dawson, Journals and Collections Marketing Manager at Duke University Press will be moderating and is joined by Jamaal Thompson, Vice President of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging, & Culture at Panorama Education, and Erin Landis, Managing Director, Origin Editorial. 

Jocelyn was kind enough to share her thoughts and excitement about this webinar: 

Who do you think is the intended audience and why should they join this event?

The audience for this presentation is anyone interested in implementing organization-wide change around DEI, whether those are staff-led efforts or efforts coming from the top of the organization.

Since the Toolkit for Organizations’ launch, how has the conversation around DE&I efforts evolved? How are you hoping it will progress? 

Since the August 2021 launch of the Antiracism Toolkit for Organizations, the toolkit has had over 4,000 unique users from 69 different countries. These numbers speak to the urgent need that organizations feel to make workplace culture within scholarly publishing more inclusive. Our toolkit emerged from a desire to shift organizations from mission statements and good intentions around antiracism to real, substantial change. We had over 50 volunteers from almost as many organizations and the examples, ideas, and energy that they brought to the toolkit was extremely encouraging. We’re hoping that the relationships that formed across these organizations will continue and that we’ll keep learning from each other. Overall, our goal is to create more welcoming scholarly publishing workplaces that better recruit, retain, support, and promote Black, Indigenous, and people of color. 

Is there a particular topic you’re looking forward to seeing discussed during the webinar?

Jamaal and Erin each bring a wealth of experience in this area and I’m interested to learn what challenges and opportunities they’ve addressed in their own work in DEI.

Jamaal Thompson and Erin Landis were both contributors to this Toolkit. What kind of expertise do they bring to the discussion and what was it like working with them during the creation process?

Jamaal Thompson (VP of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging, & Culture at Panorama Education) brought the perspective of someone who thinks strategically about advancing DEI through the field of education at large–it was incredibly valuable to have the contributions of someone who was thinking beyond the research community. Jamaal contributed to our sections on employee resource and affinity groups as well as our section on mentorship and sponsorship. The leadership and team-building skills of Erin Landis (Managing Director at Origin Editorial) played a key role in helping us to meet an ambitious timeline for the toolkit’s launch. Erin previously developed the DEI Advisory Council for ISMTE while she served as the organization’s president and led DEI efforts for the portfolio of journals of the American Gastroenterological Association. Jamaal and Erin both care tremendously about equity and antiracism and I know attendees of this event will learn a lot from them.

What do you hope attendees will take away from the event?

I hope that attendees will be inspired to use the Antiracism Toolkit for Organizations to start implementing (or kickstart) change at their organizations.

Thanks to Jocelyn for her thoughtful answers to these questions. The webinar is free but please register! We hope to see you there!

SSP is proud to be a founding member of the Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications. Learn more about C4DISC.


News contribution by SSP member, Ande Nichols. Ande is a publisher within the Health & Medical Sciences team at Elsevier.

View Comments

Be the first to write a comment!

Join the Conversation