Background Motivation
My awakening to the urgent need for equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) came while playing high school basketball in Southern Appalachia. All but a few of my teammates were Black, and our star player was Palestinian. Only a couple other schools in the conference had any players of color, and most of the schools were in rural areas with a living history of mistreating them. One team, the Rebels, had a Confederate flag mural that stretched across the entire length of the gym. These unwelcoming atmospheres were often accompanied by hate speech and overt acts of racism in the stands and on the court. Seeing the turmoil this caused my close friends on the team had a jarring and lasting effect on my worldview. Illustrating this, my Dad recently showed me a journal entry he wrote during my freshman year detailing our conversations about the injustices I was witnessing. I sought to understand: why is there prejudice in this world, and what can be done to combat it? My continuing reflections have led to a personal commitment to greater exposure to and elevation of diverse lived experiences and perspectives to counter discrimination and enhance collaborative efforts.

Instructional Diversity
My undergraduate years at Miami University were more socially homogeneous than my high school experience, and this lack of diversity limited my enjoyment and range of experiences there. Fortunately, I had a more dynamic experience during my Master’s at Texas A&M affiliated campuses in Galveston and Corpus Christi. Both are Hispanic Serving Institutions that gave me the opportunity to foster diversity and inclusion as a teaching assistant and while conducting field research, and I also enjoyed teaching a relatively high proportion of mature students. Moreover, the graduate student community included students from multiple other continents, and close friendships with several of them greatly influenced my ways of thinking. They also inspired a desire to further expand my perspectives, so afterward I embarked on a gap year in Oceania and Southeast Asia to experience diverse cultures, ways of life, and perspectives of locals and tourists. During this time I worked as a guide and ecosystem educator for a snorkeling tour company on the Great Barrier Reef, exposing me to varied ecosystems, audiences, resource management strategies, and Indigenous cultures. After returning to North America, I became a fourth grade tutor and classroom assistant hired specifically to support a high poverty percentage among students. This experience working to foster diversity and equity in student outcomes at the elementary education level gave me insight into challenging backgrounds and the importance of the affective aspect of teaching and learning.

Professional Development
My commitment to EDI in higher education has amplified with greater awareness of related principles and initiatives from pedagogical development programs and topical workshops during my PhD. In addition to studying and practicing strategies learned in these programs I’ve been exposed to a diversity of thought by folks from all over the world and a gamut of academic disciplines. In many of these workshops and on the UBC Forestry Diversity Crew, I have been the only white male. In this position I have noticed the relative dearth of other folks who share these identities and the discouraged comments by those seeking to collaborate with this target demographic that often holds a disproportionate amount of the power needed to affect change. While I cannot provide direct representation to students from underserved groups as a faculty member, I am eager to exhibit important representation as an ally and enthusiastic participant in JEDI efforts to improve their academic experience and career positioning.

Improvements to Curricular Diversity and Inclusion
Pedagogical development and EDI training have prompted me to evaluate how I can use my position to make positive change through altering the structure, content, and assessment of my teaching. Content in the lessons I’ve designed highlights the value of diversity in natural systems, the importance of incorporating diverse worldviews in research and resource management, and contributions to the discipline from diverse groups. For example, I incorporated content and class discussions about Indigenous practices and management perspectives into guest lessons I taught about the conservation and management of salmon, herring, and lobster fisheries, respectively. I also reviewed the existing review paper and presentation topics offered in the Fish Conservation and Management course I TA and added “Indigenous knowledge systems and fisheries” and “women fishers and gender dynamics in fisheries”. These topics are now the most requested and the students have remarked that they wish similar topics were incorporated in other courses throughout their degree.  I also increased the inclusivity of the course by altering our model for evaluating participation in discussions after noticing that non-native English speakers and other students were hesitant to verbalize their thoughts in class, which was negatively impacting their grades. Therefore, I established a Canvas discussion board that students could respond to during or after class to give students a chance to gather their thoughts and contribute to discussion at their own pace and with translation aids if necessary. This has increased participation without exception amongst these students and extended quality discussions beyond the class period, benefiting everyone.

Mentoring
Higher education is largely a coming-of-age process, and I find the mentoring crucial to guiding this growth particularly rewarding. In the classes I’ve taught I’ve advertised my desire and availability to chat about career planning and opportunities in the field. This has sparked productive meetings with several students, the majority of whom have been women and/or students of color. Outside of these courses my enthusiasm for this subject has led me to serve on panels for pathways to graduate school informational sessions at three different institutions. After learning about the leaky pipeline in STEM and the importance of fostering a sense of belonging early in degree programs I became motivated to also seek out more formal mentoring opportunities at UBC. This led to mentoring two international student women to support their success at the beginning of their undergraduate and PhD programs, respectively. Similar to my experience teaching, I view mentoring as mutually beneficial because I’ve learned as much or more from them than I’ve been able to pass on. I am eager to expand on these mentoring efforts and build on the EDI strategies I’ve learned as I continue my teaching practice!