Inclusion in FIRST

[Kimmeh]

Whew. This is a subject that is quite important to me so it’s taken some restraint to let the conversation grow on its own and not reply to every other post. That said, the posts here are fantastic.

Originally Posted by Ivan Helmrich

I think the biggest mistake to make is to think that this topic will take care of itself. It won't. If you want an inclusive team, inclusive behaviors need to be modeled and reinforced. If you aren't where you want to be, have a team conversation and make a it clear about where you want to go.

If I could pick one thing for people to take away from this thread, this would be it.



Other topics I've had brought up via PM:

Lodging. Many teams segregate students by gender. How do you handle out LGBTQ students?

Another person brought up how to deal with negative statements said by members of the team and specifically brought up joking about rape. We’ll also extend this to include everything from slurs and stereotypes to jokes and off-hand comments. Does your team do anything about comments like these? (I can see this being less of an issue that some of the other things we've addressed. It’s still worth bringing up.)

Originally Posted by jds200

[snip], being a white guy who only speaks English, while our team speaks Mandarin, Spanish, and English at least?

I work for an Italian company. Of my nine person team, we have one two Italians, one Indian, five Asians (I believe they’re all Chinese), and myself. Collectively, they speak at least five different languages. I’m a white, middle class, female college student who only speaks English. I feel out of place at times. Or like I should pick up a language…