Part 2: The Importance of Ally Visibility

Visibility as an ally is extremely important for recruiting and retaining minority students. There are many ways to show that you are advocating for trainees from marginalized  populations.

Tips for being visible in your role as an ally

1. Post an inclusion and diversity statement on your lab website, social media, and/or the wall in your lab.
2. Ask trainees to share their pronouns if they are inclined. Model the behavior of sharing pronouns as a mentor. A simple and powerful change you can make is adding your pronouns to email tag-lines or share them during zoom calls.
3. When teaching, try to use diverse examples. For example, highlight research conducted by members of minority groups and give appropriate acknowledgement. More importantly, acknowledge minority researchers that were overlooked. An example could be Joselyn Bell and her discovery of Pulsars.
4. Be transparent about funding and do not assume students have additional sources of money (e.g., savings or family support).
5. Explicitly and personally tell mentees that they belong in the spaces they are newly encountering. Emphasize the collaborative nature of science, instead of the lone wolf stereotype. These things help inspire confidence and counteract imposter syndrome. That is especially important when you are the only person/one of the only people from a historically marginalized group.
6. You can also consider doing subtle things that might not even be noticed by most people: wear a pride pin, or post an allyship sticker in your workspace/on your laptop.
7. Consciously make sure you are pronouncing your mentee’s name accurately – names from cultures you are unfamiliar with can be more challenging to pronounce. As you establish norms in the beginning of your mentor-mentee relationship, ask your mentee what name they’d like to be called and how to pronounce it (if you are unsure). It’s very disheartening to be called the wrong name repeatedly!
8. Share trainings or guides with your team or community (e.g. perform and share trainings like The Safe Zone project)
9. Have grace when you mess up. Everyone messes up! Pick yourself back up, acknowledge the mistake, and move ahead knowing even more. Try not to over-apologize.

All content in the Guide to LGBTQIA+ Allyship for Mentors is shared under Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0. The whole guide is available for download as a PDF from the Save & Share menu.