 Welcome, everyone to the first of many monthly meetings of this committee on increasing diversity in the US ocean studies community. Next slide, please. Today, we have just a short public session about an hour long to get information from two very relevant and recent National Academy studies. One is on transforming introductory for women of color in tech and the other study is advancing anti racism, diversity, equity, inclusion and stem organization beyond just broadening participation and then we'll have closing remarks and adjourn. But before we get started, I noticed there's there's a few people that may or may not be familiar with the academies or the studies. I want to give you just spend a couple minutes giving a very, very high level overview of what, why we're even here. So, next, thank you. So, the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine were first established by President Lincoln. We are referred to as NASM commonly and we're nonprofit organizations. We are not government and we have the mission to provide evidence based on biased advice on matters of scientific importance to the nation. The academies produces more than 200 reports annually, as well as completes a number of other types of convening activities, calling over six calling on over 6000 volunteers. Each each year to do this work. The work is generally funded by by government. Some studies are legislatively mandated and others are commissioned by an agency. Well, we also do work for nonprofit institutions and industry or basically any organization who is looking for objective independent independent advice on scientific matters. Next slide please. So a quick overview of the project. This particular study is a 24 month consensus study by the word consensus. We mean the end product is a consensus view of the entire committee. The report is authored by the full committee and so, you know, the conclusions and recommendations are the result of many discussions had over quite some time. And informed by information gathering sessions like this one. The sponsors for the project currently are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and the Office of Naval Research. We have a contract with those sponsors to to respond to a very specific statement of task, which I'll show in just a second. To do this work. We have a committee of 15 wonderful volunteer experts and this committee will be meeting four different times and a hybrid format for two day meetings, as well as have month monthly virtual meeting such as this one to both to gather additional information and to have closed discussions and deliberations on kind of where we're going with the report. So, so the meetings are either public or open, which means we're bringing in outside folks. So anytime we bring in outside folks that is public and you can attend and we encourage you to do so, or the closed meetings are reserved for deliberations and development of the committee's conclusions and recommendations. All of this work will culminate in a report that's peer reviewed and released to the public in the summer of 2025. So next slide please. So we have a statement task. It's pretty long. We'll put the link to the project website in the in the chat and you can you can look at it in more detail. But basically this the study is looking at the impediments in the ocean studies workforce with any kind of past social policies that have led to marginalization and identify evidence based approaches for increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of all the historically underrepresented workforce. So within this context, the committee's report will identify the specific strategies to to better this in the future. So we're to do this we're looking at the collection of existing narratives to help clarify the variety of barriers that exist and the loss is caused by these barriers, not only to ocean studies as a whole but to the individuals themselves as well. We're looking to analyze policy strategies and practices and identify what is worked well and metrics used to define that success. We'll be developing a set of goals and a coordinated strategy across ocean studies that relate to each element of diversity equity inclusion, belonging accessibility and justice, and then we'll be identifying the metric to evaluate progress and implementation of those strategies. Next slide please. We have again we have 15 wonderful members we are led by Kiki Jenkins from Arizona State University, and we have many, most of the members actually on the line right now. You can look at their bios online but because we're really short on time I don't want to, I don't want to go through the details there so again we'll put that link in the chat for you. The project timeline and kind of important for you all as we have the four meeting dates here. These meeting one, two and three will have very large information gathering components, which means the public is invited and welcome and encouraged to attend. I only have the date for this first virtual committee meeting but we'll release those dates soon and they will likely at least for the next year have a public component as well. So that kind of all leads to writing instances of the report in early 2025 peer review in the spring and release in the summer. Next slide please. This is my last one I promise. This is really the most important probably stay up to date. We need all of you to contribute to this effort and we want to build this community in every way possible. I've got the project web page here, which is also in the chat has the project description, the committee bios. We've got lists of upcoming events. We've got recordings and information from past events. We've got a list of responses. There's a place to contact us. My email is listed at the bottom. Please reach out if you have anything to share with the committee. There's a button and purple highlighting here. There's a button to provide feedback to the committee in a more formal setting. And then there's also this subscribe button. If you put your email address in here, you'll be added to a listserv that is gets updates of anything that this committee does going forward. Okay, so I'm sorry that took so long, but please reach out if you do have any questions. So next slide please. So with that, let's move on to our topics today. Gina Thomas is here to provide a briefing on the 2023 study transferring trajectories of women in color and text. Jenna is a senior program officer for the diversity or the division of policy and global affairs at the academies and she's leading the action collaborative that's developed as a result of the study. So I know that committee will have lots of great questions for you about that as well. Gina, the floor is yours. Thanks so much. Thanks so much. Let me just quickly share my screen here. Can you all see my screen? Okay. Great. Thank you. Well, thanks again Kelly for that introduction and thank you all for the opportunity to present the transforming trajectories for women of color and tech report. As Kelly said, I'm Gina Thomas and I'm a senior program officer and also as she mentioned I'm the director for the action collaborative that's ground that is grounded in this report that I'm presenting on. There's a lot to cover and I know I only have a few minutes so I'm going to be whizzing through happy to answer questions after hopefully there's time and then also feel free to email me separately too. So our sponsors were NSF and NIST and we had a multidisciplinary committee that was formed in fall 2019. This is a list of all the study staff and who helps the committee navigate the study process and provided support. And for the statement of task, I'll just share a little background that for women of color in particular, decades of efforts by academic institutions, industry and government to create strategies for improving not only representation but also inclusion, belonging and advancement have just not moved the needle. So in November 2017 the National Academies Committee on Women in Science, Engineering and Medicine organized a workshop on women of color and STEM. And one of the outcomes of that workshop was identification of the need for a consensus study focused on evidence based initiatives and recommendations to increase the representation of women of color and tech. The study committee was formed to examine many of the issues discussed at that November 2017 workshop and the statement of task is pasted here. You can also find it on the study website. I'll note that for the purposes of the study, you can see that the committee statement of task defines tech as computer science, computer and information science and support services, information technology, and computer engineering. However, many of the committee's recommendations are more broadly applicable to the vast number of disciplines in science, technology, engineering and mathematics across a broad range of sectors and contacts we pulled from research from all over. So hopefully these recommendations and what I'm about to share you can find relevance for your report as well. So as a part of our information gathering efforts, the committee hosted a series of four workshops that focus on systems level changes including the identification of practices, strategies and policies for the academic industry and government sectors to change the culture, climate, norms and values in tech fields. The workshops focused on intersectionality in order to ensure that the strategies and models would specifically address the multiple sectors categories of identity that apply to women of color. The committee made efforts to identify evidence and publish research literature with particular attention to identification of sources directly related to the disciplines identified in the statement of task. However, again, because we also recognize that the relevance and applicability of evidence from disciplines in tech defined more broadly. And so the committee drew upon published research as well as presentations from experts in STEM when appropriate to further inform our deliberations and recommendations. The committee also commissioned a literature review and lastly the committee reached out to various government agencies to request information about existing programs and practices that have the potential to increase the representation of women of color in tech. So in the committee's examination of the evidence, some key conclusions emerge and then one, there's a critical need for institutions and organizations to take an intersectional approach. So takes into account how the intersection of race, gender and economic disparities among other factors influences the experience of experiences of women of color. And so that intersectional approach is really important when developing interventions aimed at improving equity, diversity and inclusion in tech. There have been real consequences to not taking this kind of approach in terms of who has historically been benefited. Another overarching theme or conclusion is that many efforts to increase the number of women in tech have focused on women more broadly rather than address the specific context of women of color. The lack of disaggregated data specific to women of color and subgroups of women of color has also impeded efforts to fully understand the causes and consequences of underrepresentation and develop effective strategies for increasing diversity, equity and inclusion in tech at all levels. The reported experiences of women often don't reflect the experiences and representation of women of color, which can vary substantially from that of white women. Recent research described in this report demonstrates the importance of addressing the specific needs and particular challenges of women of color. So within the groups of women of color who are the focus of this report, varied histories, cultures, communities and support systems shape women's lived experiences in their academic and professional careers. Data that includes these contexts will ensure that descriptions of the experiences of women truly reflect the experiences of all women. So there's a lot of recommendations findings conclusions and I'll highlight them at a high level but again just emphasizing for the sake of time, please definitely take a look at the report. The committee's commissioned review of the literature is based on findings from multiple projects first and foremost it draws from the literature identified and summarized by a team of researchers led by Dr. Mia Ong, who is on one of the authors and Dr. Mia Ong's team at Turk. The literature review identified both social and structural factors at the K through 12 higher education and workplace levels that hinder or support girls and women of color in tech over the past 15 years. Research demonstrates that both structural and social factors can affect individuals decisions and opportunities to enter, persist and advance in education and careers and CS and tech. So the findings are not exhaustive they're meant to rather give a sense of the general findings about women of color and tech and majority of the findings come from use of qualitative research methods. Based on the committee's commissioned literature review, the committee then identified the following topics for future research and funding that are listed in the table and again can be found in the report. Then the authors developed recommendations that I'll go into now. So the committee used an intersectional lens to challenge common assumptions around the recruitment retention and advancement of women of color in higher education. The report discusses three statements identified by the committee that are frequently used by higher education leaders to describe barriers to the recruitment retention and advancement of women of color, both students and faculty in technology and computing fields in their institutions. The committee drew on data both statistical and empirical to examine assumptions related to challenges that higher education leaders and institutions face in efforts to increase the representation of women of color and higher education computing departments. The authors also reviewed evidence that counters these assumptions listed on the slide and identified promising practices and recommendations for higher education institutions again can be found in the report. And all of this led to a few recommendations that encourage institutions to one promote the collection of empirical qualitative and quantitative data to analyze and use that disaggregated data to document the voices of women of color and tech and the narrative experiences of those who work with women of color in higher education tech fields. Three widen recruitment efforts to identify women of color candidates to join their computer science, computer engineering and other tech departments as students and faculty with increased consideration of those from two year community colleges and minority serving institutions. And another recommendation or part of this recommendation was encouragement to develop retention strategies focused on supporting those students and faculty during transitions to their institutions. The committee's chapter on industry describes findings from existing research related to women of color and tech, what is known about their unique challenges in industry settings and social and environmental factors both inside and outside of tech with the potential to increase their recruitment retention and advancement. Lack of comprehensive research data specifically related to women of color in tech was a significant challenge for the committee. As a result, the authors also drew upon related data on women in STEM professions as well as evidence obtained during the committee's for public information gatherings workshops. So with all of this in mind the recommendations for industry boiled down to one increase transparency and use of disaggregated data to fully understand the employment landscape of women of color in the tech industry. To increasing the number of women of color and leadership positions which will improve equity in tech by building industry leadership that reflects the identities of the customers and communities that industry serves. Not only will diversity and leadership help tech industry companies shape the organizational culture but it will also increase recruitment of women of color and improve the diversity of the tech industries town pool. It's important to note that evidence shows that companies with more diversity in their leadership outperform companies with less diversity in their leadership. Another recommendation was to develop cross sector partnerships to develop a collective approach to strategic planning implemented in collaboration with a neutral well resource central organization. And maybe that sounds familiar because this recommendation basically points directly to an action collaborative which is what I'm directing now. So this recommendation is encouraging the building of strategic partnerships and action collaboratives help to do that. I'm happy to share more about that later. The final recommendation here was to provide flexible work policies such as remote work that may also be a valuable recruitment tool for attracting new employees who are women of color and allowing them the option to remain in geographic regions where they have easier access to family community and other support networks and resources. Additionally, it's encouraged that the caregiving support helps to prevent any limitations to career that could happen if employees take advantage of flexible work policies because it's shown that while it does flexible work policies help benefit men and women women in particular might experience limitations in advancement and career. Well, so for recommendations to government it was noted that while the government has acted to try to mitigate the impact of structural racism and sexism in American society in general as well as in stem fields. In many cases such as effort such efforts have just failed to take that intersectional approach. That's really emphasized in this report. In this chapter, the chapter focus on the role of government and so the authors reviewed efforts by government to address institutional obstacles facing women of color and tech. The report this chapter also calls upon government to be more intentional about taking an intersectional approach to efforts aimed at supporting greater equity diversity and inclusion in tech. And it also calls for additional action by government institutions to promote transparency and accountability among tech companies institutions of higher education and in the government itself, including in government funded labs. So there are many examples of past legislative examples and efforts aimed at addressing the under representation of women of and minorities in stem fields. In the vast majority of cases such legislative efforts did not emphasize the concept of intersectionality or account for the ways that women of color experience heightened forms of bias discrimination and harassment. In general, the committee observed that information about federal agencies direct or indirect support women of color and tech is widely dispersed and inconsistently distributed on various agency websites which made gaining a complete understanding and an accurate record of these investments challenging. There was one exception which was NSF and I can share more about that later, but it NSF basically provides this online tool, their annual budget request to Congress provides a compilation of the agency's efforts each year to support broadening participation. And this is just a really valuable resource for anyone trying to understand how NSF's investments in equity diversity and inclusion at relate to some fields. So the recommendations for government boiled down to one government efforts aimed at addressing the under representation of particular groups and tech to intentionally account for intersectionality. The second one was agency should submit to Congress and overview of their programs that support the recruitment retention and advancement of women of color and tech with their annual budget request. And then the third one was that agencies holding grantees agency should hold grantees accountable by incentivizing action at academic institutions through a range of actions and modifications to existing processes. So this could happen, for example, through how review panels review proposed panels, or plans to promote DEI or could happen through supporting programs that incentivize institutional efforts like AAA, AAA SSC change initiative. And through periodic equity audits to the government recommendations that the committee proposed also included increased a need for increased transparency and accountability. And being able to collect again desegregated data and requiring companies to publicly release the EE01 demographic data that they're already required to provide to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission annually. Another element or recommendation was, again, the value of strategic partnerships between organizations that have a great deal of influence with government and scientific and engineering professional societies. So speaking of societies, chapter six talks about professional societies and alternative pathways. I'll focus first on the alternative pathways. So alternative pathways to tech include employer offer training certification courses offered by two and four year colleges and other organizations training programs offered by community based nonprofit organizations and so much more. In 2015, 51% of undergraduate credentials were awarded at the sub bachelorette level, compared to 48% in 2003. So these pathways could broaden opportunities for women and others who choose to pursue technology careers without the requisite college degrees that most traditional associates and bachelor degree programs offer tribal college universities provide a job training and technical and vocational education to prepare native students for the workforce. However, only 12 out of the 35 TCUs have computing programs and a lot of that is due to this big lack of instructors. So community and then also it's important to keep in mind that community based technology training programs provide instruction and supportive environments for tech minded women to gain entry level information technology for mostly low wage jobs, like $11 to $15 per hour. And these programs tend toward providing practical hands on training as opposed to teaching theoretical concepts. And so with all of this in mind, the committee came up with a few recommendations that in response to the insufficient number of workforce ready individuals who can enter computing and technical occupations to meet the demand. So these efforts can provide women of color and untapped resource with alternative entry points into tech occupations and so the recommendations address the roles of academia, community organizations, industry, federal agencies, and professional societies in changing these numbers through education of K through 12 students and retraining programs for adults. The recommendations can be summarized as one industry and funding agencies in changing these numbers through education of K through 12 students and retraining programs for adults. The recommendations can be summarized as one industry and funding agencies investing in the expansion of certification and training programs and reentry programs. To knowing that tribal colleges and universities are an important entry point into tech and computing fields. For Native female students, the committee recommended that funding agencies invest in scholarships to Native female students and in order and also provide incentives to acquire the credentials needed to teach at a tribal college or university and leveraging that as a common desire of women of color to give back to their community. Another recommendation was that higher education institutions should establish clear pathways that incorporate certification and training programs and reentry programs offered by other institutions, for instance, community colleges. And this would include incentivizing tech and commuting related departments at their institutions to help tech related certification and digital badges. So acknowledging that professional society support the development of standards and a position to design and promote change, including through publications, policy statements, etc. The committee came up with a few different recommendations that leverage the power that professional societies yield. And so with this in mind, they recommended that professional societies create programs and initiatives directed at developing additional pathways that advance women of color in tech. And so for next steps, after following the report, the publication of the report, a dissemination and outreach committee was formed and the members are listed here. And from that dissemination outreach committee, several different actions came about different activities came about, including the launch of the Action Collaborative, which I mentioned earlier. And so these are all of the different things that have happened since the 2022 publication. And so I'm happy to share more about the Action Collaborative if there's interest, but I'll end things here just sticking to the scope of the presentation being about the report. You can find the report online and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me. But that's it. I'm happy to answer anything that might come up. Well, thank you so much for that overview. That was extremely informative. I just want to add that we are, we had another speaker joining us, but she's in the line of some storms. And I don't know that she has power. So we're not going to worry about the time right now. I'll chime in if she is able to join. I know we, I know the committee is going to have some questions and I personally would love to hear some more about the Action Collaborative, but I'll give them the floor first. And so guys, just raise your hand if you, if you have a, raise your virtual hand or I'll look for your actual hand. Wendy. Yes, hi. Thank you for sharing that. That was really amazing knowledge to gain. My question is as a, so I'm Alaska native Heida, I would love to work at a tribal college. The problem is they pay 30 to 40% less than regular academia. So even if they get those degrees, was there anything in there about addressing that pay differential. differential. Yeah, that's a really good point and I think one element here is it goes back to the partnerships side and what it looks like to be able to engage government and other local organizations to help create, you know, better support for faculty and staff in these areas and acknowledge and so creating these incentives structures. But yeah, just creating incentive structures, whether it is through pay and other forms that help to sort of push and support that additional need for instructors. So I think you bring up a great point. I think that we're seeing it also in trying to work with tribal colleges through the action collaborative is also just trying to build these partnerships that can, where we can bring in higher resources is through other organizations to better support this group. Thank you so much. Thank you. So I would like to hear more about the action collaborative really basic questions of how did it come into being. I know that the committee had to recommend it but what's the timing what's the supports that you needed to have in place and then what's the plan for the longevity of the committee is it pre planned will exist a collaborative will exist for a certain number of years. And then is there a transition plan to something that's integrated to community so love to hear about that. Yeah, great questions. Um, so, so the history behind the action collaborative how it came to be the action collaborative was one of the activities that came from that dissemination and outreach committee that I mentioned on the very last slide. And the, and it also stems from that report recommendation of the need for partnerships and building the strategic partnerships to share practices learn from each other, and ultimately hold each other accountable. And so that's how the action collaborative was, you know, there is more fire to make it happen but I'll note that there are three other action collaboratives in the national academies. One of which is the maybe people have heard of the addressing and preventing sexual harassment in higher education action collaborative. And so I bring that up because that was a model that has been working for the last now that action collaborative the sexual harassment action collaborative for the fifth year or they are on their fifth year. And so having looked at that model and seeing the success of what they're doing. It was really it was a lot more straightforward to be able to transfer those lessons learned and that model over to this topic but also focused on this particular report. I'll note that action collaboratives are based on consensus study reports, or it's very encouraged that they be just because the recommendations are fine and findings help to spearhead the action, and it's an opportunity for the member institutions to reflect on their own institution how they're doing as it relates to the recommendations and findings of the report, and also think about with other institutions about how they might implement those the reports, recommendations and findings. And so your question for how long it goes it's typically four year contract so for your membership but then once we hit four years, the membership will have an opportunity to reflect and think should we continue on should be renew for another four years and we'll go from there. That's the same process as the sexual harassment action collaborative just went through of they hit their four year mark and, as I'm sure it's not a surprise to all of you. There's so much more to do when it comes to addressing and preventing sexual harassment and so the member institutions very much felt like there was still a need for the action collaborative and renewed again for another four years so that's typically how the membership works. And, but did I miss any questions also happy to share more details but that's kind of history of how we got here, what's needed to get here and what that looks like going forward. Thank you, Tina. That's something that this committee is also interested in, in different different mechanisms for turning this report into action. It's a very great model. I'm sure we'll have more questions about that as time goes on as well. Are there, are there any other questions about act collaborative or any other parts of the report that Tina discussed. And, you know, we are taking questions from anyone. You don't have to be on the committee to ask if you have questions. I'm just taking advantage of the law. Yeah, Nikki's going in. She just posted a question and this is where I was going to was digging in more around the action collaborative and maybe we can start with Nikki. She said, what is the most challenging aspect of this collaborative and then part of me. I want to dig more into how you built the membership. It seems like maybe they're, they're paying some formal dues. We can get more into that. I'm also interested in that. Sure. Okay, so the most challenging aspect of this collaborative. I'll speak to in this collaborative being the one that I'm directing now. I'm sure the others have their own challenges. But I would say for our topic as I'm sure you all can imagine when it comes to diversity, equity, inclusion, and especially women of color. It can be the biggest challenge we're facing right now is the use of language and what that looks like, especially when our members represent states from all over the country. And so what does it look like to really be able to describe the work that we're doing and being it be cognizant of the challenges, the limitations that institutions from the all over the country who represent our membership might be facing. And so we want to be able to provide support and be able to come alongside those institutions while also recognizing that we've got goals of our own that we're trying to push through. So there's this balance of like how do we push the needle forward in our area while also coming alongside and supporting the realities that people are facing at their institutions. And so then for Kiki what you were asking about how we bring about this membership and what happened to get to the membership we have now. We very much did we have 34 member institutions representing higher education national laboratories in government right now and we're working on engaging industry with these different institutions what we're trying to do or what we're working for in particular is diversity across well one cross sector involvement engagement, but also diversity within those institutions so we've reached out with our higher education reach we were really focused on on trying to bring in minority institutions and under resource institutions. And so just institutions that are not just our one and well funded and resource and the reason why again just for this topic. It seemed very essential to have a representation from HBC us and HSI is and you know TCU is that's one that we're really trying to engage and bring into the conversation so part of this discussion and thinking about who is a member on the staff side, there was very much thought about. Who do we really want to have at the table to continue thinking through this topic and who's essential to be a part of the conversation. There are institutions that we can learn from in light of the fact that you know their HBC us who are creating incredible environments for you women of color so how can we learn from those promising practices and what we're doing but then also the environment and experiences of other institutions look very different so how do we work with that. And so that was part of where our targeted reach came about and I and so we're just kind of building out from there thinking about the gaps that we have in our membership as we continue reaching out to other institutions. And also there was this element of when one institution joins. Sometimes they're peer institutions here and they say hey sign me up to we want to be a part of it and which is a cool effect that I also saw with the sexual harassment action collaborative these action collaboratives help bring about, you know this level of accountability and help it you know encouraging institutions to move together towards change. Thank you for that answer. Ken. Yeah, I'll follow up directly on the action collaborative since it's really cool that you're able to do that. Any efforts to get data or evaluate the impact you're having as a collaborative or, you know how the individual members are changing I know some of the that is, you know, it's difficult. It's often difficult, particularly talking about a whole institution. But any thoughts about that have you built in capacity to get data on how you're doing or how the institutions are doing. Yeah, that's a great question so I'll preface my answer with just saying that we just launched this action collaborative in December. And so it's fresh and it's new, but in that we have actually been thinking about what it looks like to integrate evaluation and evaluation plan from the beginning knowing that we're just kicking off our four years. And that does look like, you know, looking towards formative and summative type goals and also what it looks like to achieve certain, you know, get information that can help us improve during our four years but then also help us think about impact at the beginning compared to at the end of the four years. So we're trying to integrate that into our four years now and we're in the process now we've created an evaluation plan and we're in the process and hopefully in the next few months we'll be able to figure out how to properly implement it in with our next steps and the activities we have coming up. And I think that, you know, it's never easy to get money but evaluation doing it well requires funding and I don't know if you guys can get extra funding or outside people to partner with who would do an evaluation but just a thought that to do it well it often requires additional resources. Absolutely yeah we totally agree and actually the National Academies does have an evaluation team. It's through our Kelly might know more about it but I'm about to butcher the actual office but they're specialized it's senior program officers who are working in building out evaluation plans for projects and who are experts in this area so they're the ones who actually helped to develop the original, helped me think through the original evaluation plan in light of the action collaborative activities, but they're also going to be on hand depending on how a few things play out in the next few months because I totally agree with you we're looking through opportunities and different avenues of trying to have a really nice fleshed out evaluation plan so stay tuned. Hopefully in the next few months we'll have a better idea. Thanks and good luck. Thanks. Thank you. And thanks for that great question. Yeah, and I actually was just talking to the evaluation team two weeks ago. Yeah, and they attended our first meeting and and I'm hoping they'll join one of our future meetings and help us out a little bit there too. Yeah, this is all fascinating. So, unfortunately, Dr. Susan Fisk has still does not have power as you know, good and bad right we end up having plenty of time for discussion and we'll have the opportunity to schedule for at a later date. So, just a quick update there are there so we do have a few more minutes if anyone has any other questions for Gina. I'm just going to keep taking the opportunity but if anyone else has a question I definitely proceed the floor to them. So there are a couple of things I want to dig into more. Gina, because I'm still trying to understand the funding model for this and whether or not the member organizations are funding it themselves because you also mentioned reaching out specifically to under resource institutions. So, are you, how are they right being brought in and this for this to not be a burden on them. And then I'm also curious about the timing because your study wrapped up what was it two years ago year and a half. And so there seems like there's a fair bit of law lag between the end of the study and when you were able to ramp up your action collaborative. You lost anything in that for that time in terms of momentum or engagement of the study. And if you could do it again, would there be a way to dovetail them better. Yeah, great questions. So first with the membership dues I'll say we completely recognize that if we're trying to bring in under resource institutions we have to be thoughtful and consider it. They're under resources. And so with that in mind, so membership dues is a sliding scale. We ask institutions what they can, what they feel comfortable providing and then we do kind of a cross check on our and looking at their peer institutions what they're paying looking at the resources the staffing model, etc. at their institutions and we work with that institution to pay for them to pay whatever they're comfortable with. And so with that in mind knowing that, especially under resource institutions are paying less that does make our ultimate sort of what we're bringing in membership dues wise and membership dues go to being able to spend all of these activities, the work and staff time. So what we're doing is we're finding other ways to be able to offset that, and by bringing in sponsors or other institutions organizations or funders who are willing to help kind of balance out and provide more of a cushion for under resource institutions to engage when it comes to time for the under resource, or for all the institutions knowing that everyone is very busy, and we don't want to take too much of their time and resources in that way in the time capacity. The staff are very much willing and trying to engage with all the institutions based on what their time bandwidth is like and so there's a lot of working with the institutions to figure out their needs and how we in the action collaborative can come alongside is sort of the short year to have membership dues time resources, things like that are accounted for for your question about the end of the study verse and you know it ending in 2022 and then us launching this action collaborative end of last year. There is about, I'd say about a year and a half time between the end of the study and the launch. But there are a few other things that happen prior to the launch that I think were essential to the launch of the action collaborative happening. So one was again we had that dissemination and outreach committee that also put took on a few other activities, including we put together expert meeting series and also sort of different workshops or meetings to try to bring in different institutions from across not just to across the country not just to share the report but also to try to gauge interest in an action collaborative and start building the relationship so a lot of the activities that were happening between the publication and the launch of the action collaborative, the activities help to build up support or understanding of needs and also build relationships begin the building of the relationships that were then needed to be able to say okay, are you all willing to now formally commit to this action collaborative. So I would say that that time was kind of important to be able to build that relationship and build have create that runway to them be able to get to the launch. And perhaps there might be a way to make it go a lot faster if you if you know a certain things are happy you know it overlaps with the consensus study and building out relationships and. But I think in our case, it happened actually a lot faster than people imagined it would. And no one actually expected it to a full action collaborative 34 institutions to come by the end of last year. So, it actually was a lot faster than anticipated. Amy. So, I'm Amy Bauer from Woods Hole Ocean graphic institution and I'm a member of the ocean studies board at the National Academies but I'm not a member of this study committee. And I wanted to go thank you for your presentation about your report I wanted to go back to one point you know I didn't quite catch the conclusion about the value of flexible work arrangements are flexible hours I thought what I heard you say and I'm not. And I just want to be clear about the evidence you found was that sometimes. And you saying that it women's career advancement can sometimes be harmed by taking advantage of those flexible working arrangements. Yeah, so one thing that was found was in taking that leave of absence or you know be, you know, removing themselves in order to try to, you know, whether it's caregiving support or whatever that might look like. It can potentially affect career growth and advancement thereafter because of just believe. And so that's kind of where that was going of, you know, make sure that they're flexible work policies but also appropriate caregiving support in in the flexible work policies actually with that in mind all flag that the the committee on women actually just released a or is going to release in a week. A caregiving study report that shares a lot more about this topic and what it looks like to have appropriate policies that support caregivers both elderly child care and between. Thank you. So Gina we kept you a lot longer than you had planned to hope that's okay this has been really informative though. Great. All right, I see a thumbs up. I don't see any more questions. So I'm going to say going, going once, going twice. Shall we let Gina go. Okay. All right, I don't see any other questions. I think this is fantastic. You'll probably hear from us again. I think we'll learn from your learning experience and I know that you've benefited a lot from the sexual harassment action collaborative. So we can all help each other out. Thank you so much for joining us and going above and beyond today. I believe this concludes the, the public session of our meeting. Thank you all for joining and a recording will be available in roughly a week's time. So thanks again and have a wonderful rest of your day.