Join the APS-IDEA Network
The application cycle to join the APS-IDEA network is currently closed.
Benefits of joining APS-IDEA
When your organization becomes part of the APS-IDEA network, you are connected to a collaborative and support community that can leverage your institution's diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
APS-IDEA network members may:
- Participate in a broad network of organizations committed to sustainable, lasting cultural change in physics.
- Obtain ideas, support, and access to an online learning community.
- Prepare a realistic 10-year strategic plan for improving DEI.
- Develop sustainable DEI efforts based on teamwork and collaboration that will survive leadership changes.
- Improve the climate for inclusion and belonging in your organization.
- Obtain recognition for your program's efforts and successes.
Through the APS-IDEA network, a team at your organization will have the background, broad representation, and longevity to oversee departmental efforts to advance DEI and ensure successful, lasting change.
Ways to get involved with APS-IDEA
Whether at the team, organizational or individual level, there are many ways for you to engage with APS-IDEA:
- APS-IDEA teams can join the APS-IDEA mailing list, participate in the APS-IDEA online learning community, send representatives to APS-IDEA workshops, and access consultants affiliated with this initiative.
- Partner organizations within APS-IDEA can join the mailing list, share information about their projects at APS-IDEA events, present at APS-IDEA workshops, and participate in and lead discussion in the online learning community.
- Individuals, who must be affiliated with an APS-IDEA team, can join the APS-IDEA mailing list and participate in the online learning community.
Eligibility to join APS-IDEA
During the application cycle, APS-IDEA is open to organizations, individuals or collaborations whose mission is similar to APS-IDEA and who are interested in aligning efforts as partners in a social movement. Physics departments of any size may join the network, as well as labs and collaborations.
Teams both within the United States and internationally are welcome to join.
Learn more about our mission and strategy for change
Initial steps to joining the network
To begin exploring whether your organization is ready to join the APS-IDEA network, we encourage you to:
- Sign up for the APS-IDEA email list.
- Discuss the network with your organization's leadership.
- Convene a team of at least five members, such as a departmental committee, that includes undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs, both physicist and non-physicist staff, faculty and senior scientists to discuss APS-IDEA strategies, guiding principles and DEI efforts.
- Obtain organizational recognition for your team from your institution, including dedicated time and meeting space as well as an organizational leader, such as a department chair, to receive periodic updates.
As part of our goal to foster collaboration, APS-IDEA encourages similarly aligned projects from the same organization to submit a joint team application rather than convening multiple teams from the same organization.
Team discussion resources
APS-IDEA teams are made up of individuals working towards a shared goal of advancing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in their organization. Team members should span the constituencies who will be affected by the proposed changes, taking care to share leadership with faculty, staff, students, postdocs.
As you prepare to join the APS-IDEA network, we recommend that you assess our resources and determine their relevance to your organization. With your team, learn about and discuss DEI efforts and shared leadership models in physics and the broader scientific community.
We recommend bringing in a facilitator outside your department to assist with these discussions. We also recommend that the group prioritize equal time and respect for each member, regardless of age, gender, race or educational attainment.
Suggested readings and resources to guide these discussions include:
- Access Network
- The AIP National Task Force to Elevate African American Representation in Undergraduate Physics & Astronomy (TEAM-UP)
- APS Forum on Diversity and Inclusion
- APS National Mentoring Community
- Communities of transformation and their work scaling STEM reform
- Designing for institutional transformation: Six principles for department-level interventions
- Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3)
- How colleges change: Understanding, leading and enacting change
- Inclusive Graduate Education Network (IGEN)
- The Leading Change Network
- Shared leadership in higher education: Important lessons from research and practice
- STEP UP