In the Lab

Contributed by AnnaBeth Thomas

Conventional STEM doctoral training practices replicate unsustainable practices. Research culture has been identified as one of many factors contributing to negative mental health and wellness outcomes for graduate students in the US and other countries. Fortunately, many resources exist to reimagine the way we do research and train others to do research in ways that are more inspiring.

Interventions to Disrupt White Supremacy Culture in the Lab

In the following sections, we briefly describe some ways white supremacy culture manifests in teaching and research lab environments and provide interventions to disrupt harmful practices.

Objectivity reigns supreme?

In big Science, objectivity is posited as central to the proper execution of the scientific method; it is canon that experiments, analyses, and results are devoid of as little bias as possible. Specifically,Scientific Objectivity is the value that successful performance of the scientific method (including the person performing it) should be devoid of biases influenced by perspectives, values, and personal interests.

This emphasis on objectivity has resulted in a general culture of rigidity and apathy that does not value emotion and can feel as if scientists are being asked to leave their humanity at the lab door. Consequently, those who do show emotion - or are perceived as too emotional - may face the associated stigma of appearing weaker or less competent than their counterparts. Valuable perspectives and possibilities are lost as a result of folks leaving STEM due to feeling psychologically unsafe and unsupported by the culture.

The reign of objectivity is also used to devalue qualitative methods of research in favor of quantitative methods.

Interventions in the teaching lab:

• Incorporate affective learning objectives and activities into the curriculum that challenge students to consider how they feel while conducting the experiments, answering follow-up questions, and/or finishing associated assignments. 
  • Try to choose examples or activities associated with topics that interest students; research shows this helps improve student motivation
    • Emotional regulation and understanding emotions is fundamental to motivating students to engage with concepts
• Normalize talking about challenges, failures, and difficulties (lab counterculture p. 8)
  • Ultimately try to frame these as learning experiences.
• Normalize healthy displays of emotion during lab exercises and/ in reaction to related materials.
  • Encourage mental health support. 
    • Know the campus support resources and how students can connect with them.
  • Use activities that help in the development of interpersonal skills such as healthy communication, constructive feedback, and active listening.

Interventions in the research lab:

In addition to those listed above:

• Provide opportunities for lab members to get to know each other as people outside of their roles as researchers (lab counterculture p. 8).
• Incorporate emotional checkpoints into regular working routines.
• Normalize showing emotions and encourage practicing healthy coping mechanisms:
  • Do not tolerate harmful emotional outbursts.  
  • Do not encourage alcohol culture.
  • Encourage mental health support. 
  • Encourage development of interpersonal skills such as healthy communication, constructive feedback, active listening.

First and Foremost? Sense of Urgency/Productivity Culture

Productivity culture in STEM is characterized by a strong emphasis on output, which is principally measured by quantitative metrics like number of publications, citation count, and number of grants/amount of funding. This then creates a sense of competition because additional quantitative success metrics like awards or prizes are often granted to those who have more publications, funding, and presentations. This contributes to the Sense of Urgency that already exists for students, who must achieve their graduation requirements in a limited amount of time. Students are often tasked with unrealistic expectations about the number of publications they need to graduate, which also reinforces the idea that the more they publish, the more successful they will be post-graduation.

Consequently, over-working without appropriate overtime compensation is a considered norm; students are then taught to believe that the publication and associated success is extra compensation.  For faculty, their Sense of Urgency is felt within the need to meet their professional development and career benchmarks like tenure or full-professorship. However, the metrics associated with achieving these benchmarks are centered around the aforementioned quantitative metrics, which excludes less easily measured metrics like efforts invested into improving mentorship, community engagement or labor around departmental and institutional service.

• The Matthew Effect - a positive feedback loop in which folks from privileged groups are more likely to have gained awards/grants and thus receive more favorable evaluations than folks from marginalized groups. 

Interventions in the teaching lab:

• Center student learning and growth over productivity and standardized scores.
• Offer extended hours or alternative times to finish lab if necessary.
• Encourage healthy working hours. 
• Help students set realistic goals. 

Interventions in the research lab:

• Be transparent about graduation expectations. 
  • Help students set realistic goals.
• Choose alternative success metrics that center growth rather than high density outcomes.
  • Revisit publications as a success metric, and if necessary, couple publication requirements to submissions rather than manuscript acceptance.
• Encourage healthy working hours. 
• Prioritize mental health and wellness.
• Support scholarship and community-building activities that align with people's values even if they do not yield identifiable publications. 

When More is Not Better: Quantity vs Quality

The emphasis placed on fast output also drives an emphasis on quantity of results over quality, which reinforces the entire productivity culture-sense of urgency cycle, often at the expense of relationships, collaboration, and people's wellness and mental health.

• Amount of publications >> quality
• Amount of hours working >> quality
• More chapters = more success 
• More research publications = more success
• Higher funding = higher status 

Interventions in the teaching lab:

• Celebrate process over outcomes (lab counterculture p. 8)
  • Apply process-oriented grading techniques. 
• Encourage pro-social actions amongst students (lab counterculture p. 8)
  • Reward efforts of students to help others, contribute to discussions and classroom environment rather than numerical grades alone.

Interventions in the research lab:

• Reward process and effort over outcomes (lab counterculture p. 8)
  • Celebrate manuscript and proposal submissions as much as acceptances. Establish regular rituals to acknowledge work along the way rather than just crossing the finish line.
• Encourage pro-social actions amongst colleagues (lab counterculture p. 8)
  • Social /professional status is elevated through service/community orientation/involvement rather than publication/funding status. 

To learn more about how to counteract the tenets of white supremacy in lab culture:

• Lab Counterculture by Jessica Hammer, Alexandra To, and Erica Principe Cruz

Building equity through intentionality

Additional Resources

• Higher Education Administration for Social Justice and Equity: Critical Perspectives for Leadership by Adrianna Kezar and Julie Posselt (2020)