If you are a faculty member who is interested in maintaining an inclusive and LGBTQ+ friendly research environment, you can signify this by joining the Rainbow EMS Network. Your listing as an Rainbow EMS Network member will indicate to undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and research staff in the LGBTQ+ community and their allies that they are free to bring their whole selves to work for you. By sharing your commitment via the Rainbow EMS Network, we aim to encourage and tap into the pool of LGBTQ+ research trainees and help diversify the Penn State research workforce.
By joining the Rainbow EMS Network, your name will be listed among other trained and committed faculty. The benefit of joining the Rainbow EMS Network is that LGBTQ+ and ally applicants to your research group will know, through your membership, that you are committed to maintaining a friendly and inclusive atmosphere towards LGBTQ+ people in your group when they are evaluating which research groups to apply to. LGBTQ+ applicants to Rainbow EMS Network member research groups are under no obligation to disclose their LGBTQ+ status (gender, sexual orientation, etc.), and are free to be ‘out’ to the extent that they choose and feel safe. You may never know that someone chose your research group because of the Rainbow EMS Network. Those who consult the list of Rainbow EMS Network faculty will apply to work in your group via all the usual routes that you currently use to find and evaluate research personnel.
How to participate and responsiblities
- Complete two training workshops offered by Penn State’s Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity: “Safer People Safer Places – LGBTQ+ Foundations Workshop” (if you have already done this, that’s great and you don’t need to take it again, but you certainly can if you'd like a refresher); and “Transgender and Gender Inclusion 101 Workshop.” (See note below on how to sign up)
- Have at least one other member of your lab group complete the two trainings (this ideally should be an employee or postdoc who is physically in the lab space frequently, especially if you are not, but could also be an advanced graduate student).
- Make your whole group aware of your membership and your expectation of maintaining an inclusive and LGBTQ+ friendly environment; remind the group regularly, such as at the start of each semester.
- Encourage others in your group to also complete the training (it is not required that everyone be trained, and we don’t want to force people into the training, but the more the better).
- Contact the Associate Dean for Educational Equity to confirm that you and at least one other person in your group have completed the trainings so that you can be listed on the Rainbow EMS Network website.
The workshops are available through Penn State’s Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity “Safer People Safer Places” program. Information about the trainings and the schedule is available on the Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity website faculty/staff workshops page. These workshops are open to for faculty, staff, post-docs and graduate students. (Undergraduates who are interested in training can register for the Center’s student ally workshops.)
Faculty who join the Rainbow EMS Network must have completed both trainings and the Penn State Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity will provide certification of participation.
Recognizing that faculty members have many responsibilities and may not be with the research group all day, it is also required that one other member of the group (of any rank) must also complete the trainings to provide a daily presence who may be better placed to recognize any microaggressions or biased behavior that might arise in the faculty members absence. Training of the rest of a group should be encouraged by Rainbow EMS Network faculty but is not mandatory for Rainbow EMS Network membership.
Rainbow EMS Network faculty members must remind their group at least once a semester (e.g., at a group meeting) that they have made a commitment to foster an inclusive scientific community by joining the Rainbow EMS Network and to make their expectations clear in this regard. Please note that in order to avoid inadvertently ‘outing’ someone who selected your group because of its Rainbow EMS Network listing, we recommend that this reminder does not coincide with the arrival of any new group members.
You do not have to have any open research positions to join or maintain your listing on the Rainbow EMS Network; it is understood that openings come and go through natural turnover processes.
As with all interpersonal disputes between group members, Rainbow EMS Network faculty members should be prepared to mediate any potential conflicts. Group members should be cognizant of Penn State’s policies on reporting wrongdoing and report any acts of bias or discrimination as appropriate.