Inclusion in FIRST

[jds2001]

Originally Posted by CLandrum3081

ULTRA KILLER COMBO!

2/3 for my whole life, 3/3 since coming out. Do I get bonus points for being 2E?

Well, congrats! I for one am a LGBT mentor, however I'm male so I don't count for the trifecta . My team really doesn't know about my orientation (well, I guess they do now if they're following me around on CD!), not because I keep it a secret, but rather it's wholly irrelevant to whether or not I can help them build a great robot. Equally, a student's sexual orientation (or race, sex, gender identity, or any other label that you can think of) is wholly irrelevant to them building an awesome robot.

In all seriousness, our team is one of the most diverse around I think. I mentor a "second chance" high school where kids that for whatever reason couldn't survive in the normal NYC school system. I'd say 50% of our students are Chinese immigrants, some are Latin American, and actually the middle-class white student is the minority in our team. We foster diversity in every aspect of our team, and I think we do fairly good at it. Could we do better? Very likely, saying that there's no room for improvement would be arrogant. The captain of our team is female (and was profiled by CBS News), and she did an awesome job hands on with the robot. Our entire CAD design team is Chinese females. Is communication an issue (with me, the lead mentor, being a white guy who only speaks English, while our team speaks Mandarin, Spanish, and English at least? ) with the team? Sometimes. However, I've made an effort to recruit bilingual mentors, understanding my own limitations in this realm - by making an active effort, we can foster inclusion and diversity in FIRST. But as many in this thread have said, the effort has to begin with the mentors.

One by one, we can improve the world!