In Spring 2021, the Departmental Committee on Diversity and Inclusion (DCDI) in the Department of Neurobiology invited you to participate in the inaugural DCDI In-reach pulse survey called nerveimPulse. Members of the DCDI In-reach subcommittee designed the nerveimPulse survey in partnership with the HMS Office for Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Partnership with the overarching goal of having a robust mechanism for regular self-assessment of DCDI progress and to provide a climate survey specifically tailored to our Department. Questions were designed to gather rich information about the demographic composition of our department, as well as attitudes and opinions on various DEI-related topics. Our overarching goal was to develop a way for recurring self-assessment of DCDI progress and to longitudinally assess the impact of DCDI activities as they relate to the demographic diversity in the Department, as well as attitudes and sentiments of members of our community on issues of support, inclusivity, and belonging. Our objective is to see a positive trend in feelings of belonging, and to be able to develop interventional approaches that will re-prioritize efforts in a particular space.

Over 190 members of the Department responded to the survey (Figure 1), with a response rate of ~48%, based on the approximate number of people who received the survey via our listserv. We contrasted responses from the perspective of the individual lab/core/unit as well the Department in order to capture where to focus DCDI efforts. The respondents represent staff, research assistants, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty. In this Summary, we provide a few key findings and action items. Given the large dataset, we invite you to peruse the data tables yourselves and let us know if you have suggestions for further actionable findings.

As discussed on our FAQ page, maintaining anonymity was a primary priority during our survey design. Given the small population of underrepresented minorities in the Department, we found that identity could be deduced when reporting Department role and demographic data. To shield the privacy of respondents, we created aggregated responses to some questions by creating a single category that captures all responses from individuals who identify as members of underrepresented groups.

We acknowledge that this loses some granularity in responses of particular populations, and is a consequence of the lack of diversity in the Department. Nevertheless, to protect the privacy of individuals, we created a series of grouped categories defined as follows:

● Underrepresented in Medicine (UiM) includes respondents who identify as “Black”, “Hispanic or Latino”, “Native American/Alaskan Native”, or “Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander”. Respondents who identified as having more than one race/ethnicity were included in the UiM category if one or more of the selections they made were from a UiM group.

● Additionally, we have created a series of “Aggregate” categories across multiple question contexts. These groups were created for demographic/identity groups that did not meet the indicated ‘privacy cutoffs’:

○ Questions pertaining to Department Role: Aggregate contains respondents who number less than 10, including: "Non-tenure Track Faculty Member", "Undergraduate Student", "I prefer not to say", "Other", no answer, or those who chose multiple positions.

○ Questions pertaining to Gender Identity: Aggregate contains respondents who number less than 10, including: "Another Identity", "I prefer not to say", "Trans Man", "Unsure", or "Multiple".

○ Questions pertaining to Minoritized Group: Aggregate contains respondents who number less than 10, including: "I prefer not to answer", "Yes, but don't wish to specify", or "Yes, I do for other reasons".

○ Questions pertaining to Race/ethnicity: “Aggregate” contains respondents who number less than 10, including: "Multiple, "Middle Eastern/North African".

○ Questions pertaining to Work Environment: Aggregate contains respondents who number less than 10, including: "Cambridge Campus", "I prefer not to say", multiple selections, "Other", or "Other Quad Departments".

The nerveimPulse working group settled on the items below as key observations that emerged from the analysis. These observations are based on a descriptive analysis of the respondent dataset rather than inferential analysis, as the sample size and representation of different groups did not lend itself to thorough statistical analysis. The black line indicated in the figures represent a delineation of “neutral” responses, with “neutral” respondent answers nested around the center line, to help visualize the overall percentage in the positive and negative direction for each question.

1. Of the population who responded to the survey, Black, Hispanic or Latino, Native American/Alaskan Native, and Middle Eastern/North African individuals are poorly represented in the Department across all positions (data not shown to preserve anonymity).

2. Overall, the majority of perceptions on belonging and inclusivity are positive, both across the department and across labs/offices. These perceptions are slightly shifted towards more positive for labs/offices (Figure 2b, Figure 4). However, when responses are broken down by racial / ethnic background, we observe that members of underrepresented groups report a lower sense of inclusion and belonging in the lab and in the Department (Figure 16).

3. Respondents across different Department roles report agreement in feelings of belonging and inclusion, but agree less with the department actually being racially diverse (Figure 3, Figure 5 and Figure 6). Additionally, White/Asian respondents tend to perceive the Department as racially diverse, whereas UiM respondents do not report this perception (Figure 18).

4. Research Assistants (RAs)/Technicians report particularly low levels of inclusion in the Department compared to their home lab, and higher prevalence of encounters that made them feel their contributions are not valued (Figure 4 and Figure 8). Across all roles, RAs and Technicians also report having the fewest discussions about diversity and inclusion, both at the department and lab levels (Figure 5).

5. Gender identity, sexual orientation and race/ethnicity are major factors in sentiments of belonging and inclusion (Figure 9-20 and Tables). In addition, individuals who belong to a minority demographic are more likely to have experienced interactions that led them to question the value of their contributions (some examples can be found in Figures 14 and 20).

6. In Figure 27, we noted that 44% of respondents believe that “providing space to share experiences” is an urgent priority for DCDI.

7. In the Free Response section, we noted a repeated mention of financial concerns, and need for more community events. Out of an abundance of care with respect to protecting identity of respondents, we will not publish the responses, and instead generated a word cloud to indicate trends in free responses (Figures 28 and 29).

We note below a few findings enabled by nerveimPulse:

1. Of those who responded, RAs in the Department report lower levels of inclusion and belonging at the Department level.

2. It was encouraging to see that discussions around DEI occurred around Department laboratories, and not just at the Departmental level.

3. Reports of inclusion and belonging differ when considering Department v. laboratory culture, and the racial/ethnic background of respondents.

4. Respondents specifically ranked “Providing space to share experiences” as a higher priority than “community events designed to create/improve casual interactions with mentors/peers”.

Based on our key findings, DCDI has begun implementing the following actions:

● DCDI will create dedicated programming for RAs and technicians. The goal of this programming will be to build a community of RAs/technicians within the Department to provide professional development opportunities, as well as more structure to seek advice/help to maximize their experience during this critical career stage.

● It was encouraging to see that discussions centered around DEI are happening in the Department and within individual lab/core/units. Importantly, we want to encourage members of the Department to continue these critical conversations beyond this moment in time. To this end, DCDI is currently in the process of developing ‘Empowerment Packages’, a series of journal club materials to encourage dedicated meetings centered around topics of DEI.

● Events such as Friday Pizza Talks and Beer Hours are critical to fostering interactions that can help develop scientific collaborations and ideas as well as create a sense of community and inclusion. However, we observed a trend in our dataset indicating that the level of attendance of Departmental events differs when comparing racial/ethnic background and gender identity of those who responded (Figure 23). The lower turnout of certain populations of the Department could stem from various reasons. In order to encourage attendance and better understand the lack of engagement we will perform additional outreach within the community . For example, asking various groups within our community to host Beer Hours or to select Neuroscience Seminar Series speakers. We already asked the Women in Neuroscience group and Underrepresented Scholars in Neuroscience group to host events, and will include more groups moving forward.

● We will also continue to offer outreach events regarding resources for Title IX reporting and Ombuds mediation to help educate and build trust within the community to utilize these resources. We will have a postdoctoral fellow-centered event discussing Title IX in January 2022.

● A major goal of the survey was to identify areas where we could have the most impact. In analyzing our survey, we have found that the most pressing need is for more community events that foster sharing of experiences. With support from our DCDI in-Reach subcommittee, we will be sure continue programs such a Listening Labs and other departmental programming.

● Performing a pulse survey is a major undertaking that requires a critical eye to survey questions and design, and given the wealth of data, in future years, we propose requesting support from an external vendor with DEI survey expertise to help us understand the nuances and intricacies of the dataset.

nerveimPulse 2021 provided a critical assessment of where we stand as a Department, and revealed specific insights towards our next steps and priorities. We thank the community for taking the time to pilot the survey, helping construct questions, encouraging others to take the survey, and for responding to the survey. DCDI will hold ourselves to the work suggested by these findings and we will deploy nerveimPulse in future years with the same goals and the hope of increased participation across our department. As described in our mission statement, DCDI is committed to ensuring sustained efforts towards a more inclusive department and we will continue to assess our activities through your response to nerveimPulse.