EDI

VISTA’s Commitment to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Vision: Science to Applications (VISTA) is committed to providing an equitable, diverse, and inclusive research environment where faculty, trainees, and staff from all backgrounds (including people of any race, colour, place of origin, religion, immigrant status, Aboriginal status, ethnic origin, ability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and age) have equal access to, and benefit from, our program, free of any systematic barriers. We, as a research community, are committed to embracing and celebrating the diversity of all individuals in order to provide a space where everyone feels valued, respected, and supported.

VISTA continues to take active measures to ensure that EDI practices are recognized and implemented in the hiring of all faculty, staff, and trainees with the goal of attaining equitable representation of the four designated groups (FDGs), including women, persons with disabilities, Indigenous Peoples, and members of visible minorities.

VISTA’s ongoing initiatives:

  • Development of a formal VISTA Equity, Diversity and Inclusion committee.
  • Provision of an EDI Seminar series for faculty and students.
  • Midterm re-evaluation of EDI Action Plan (in progress)
  • Mandatory unconscious bias (i.e., Affirmative Action) training and EDI workshops for all VISTA hiring committees and sub-committee leads.
  • Creation and implementation of a VISTA climate survey intended to assess and address experiences of VISTA community members relating to EDI (in progress).
  • Provision of (voluntary) self-identification surveys and collection of self-identification data for all VISTA funding programs and job postings with the goal of attaining equitable representation of the FDGs.
  • Working toward the centralization of data collection as it pertains to self-identification surveys to better maintain the confidential collection and storage of this data.
  • Transparency in the collection and reporting of EDI statistics within VISTA.

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