Spreading and Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in Chemical Sciences: Increasing the Presence and Participation of Black African Communities: Taking Action

 

Diversity has been a hot topic in recent times, with majority work and study places in academia and industrial relaying to achieve a diversified working and or studying environments something which is instrumental to achieving team goals more than ever.

The need for an immense diversified community gave momentum around diversity and inclusivity growth. Well diversified and inclusive organizations have over the years proven to make solid, bolder decisions and are more competitive not just in academia but even in industrial setup and it goes beyond either admission of students and or hiring employees of different ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, gender, age, religion, or language.

Graduate school from every corner of the world has managed to bring together students and professionals from a wide array of social, economic and continents. We recently jumped on the wagon in trying to promote a diversified society buy increasing participation of underrepresented black minority in chemical sciences as we strongly believe that a diversified team brings immeasurable value to graduate school and thus steaming either into industrial or academia setup. Reaching a fully diverse  team is critical aspect of the 21st century and is a sole purpose of our ongoing projects. Recent sociological research has shown that teams which are widely diversified achieve their teams better than less diverse teams e.g. In 2020 a report published by McKinsey and Co showed that because diverse teams easily reach bold decisions faster it allows them to be more productive and have massive turnover even under stressful working conditions or time periods, the research output was complimented by similar studies published by Boston Consulting group which indicated the correlation between high revenues and diverse and inclusive companies. How ever the aim focus of this project was to address the root cause of lack of diversity, lack of participation of under represented black minority because as much as the rest of the world is rooting for diverse society if a certain group isn’t involved then the world’s consensus about diversity will never be reached. Thus, we see the need to keep the project alive until we actually see the underrepresented minority taking part. We strong believe that diversity and inclusion lead to a broader access of talent and skill pool which directly translates to a stronger team and healthier culture and with no doubt diversity has benefits that go far beyond the bottom line.

In today’s world the source of creativity doesn’t belong to a confined race ethnicity gender or religion, the mixing and blending of the aforementioned will be the breeding ground of this project which doesn’t need to overstate the essentiality of diversity and inclusivity for industrial and academia setups the sole idea of this project is to make sure that under represented black minority with diverse religious beliefs, with a wide socioeconomic back ground, gender , culture or sexual orientation are actually involved and participate in contributing to an immensely diverse and inclusive society and we have seeded restless efforts to see it to fruition and with inequalities widening in recent times we have taken the responsibility upon our selves to lead such pertinent conversations astounding diversity equity and inclusion and such efforts are woodenly key which otherwise if no one moves to the forefront of this people might end up not thinking differently and the diversity we all wish to see might take a long time to be achieved.

It has been proven over the years that diversity sets the foundation for success and creates solid foundation for either graduate students in academia or young professional in industrial setup and in recent times most tenure track positions or entry level positions in industry are not only looking for degree holders but responsible, thoughtful and leaders who are open to change and embrace differences of opinion and such attributes have been affiliated with individuals wo have been exposed to diverse and include backgrounds because its difficult t have new ideas with same people who have the same line of thinking, molded by same education system , language and culture thus there is need for a diverse team to bring fresh ideas to the table who brings, adaptability, strategic analysis, and effective communication.

Diversifying STEM programs for underrepresented minority will be advantageous to the black student, this will allow creation of empathy amongst them and innovation driven minds which will set a personal transformation amongst students towards progressive creation of the future leaders. Which surely guarantee feasible impact as they walk back into the world. The project is here to make sure that a diverse society won’t be just a group of black students joining other ethnicities of different gender or race with different religious views but a group of black under represented minorities who understands differences and are able to embrace it and respect opposing opinions and put aside what they know from their back grounds and have a wanting to learn mind as if they were looking at something for the first time.