The Association of Primate Veterinarians recognize that as an organization, we do not adequately represent the current demographics of society. However, moving forward, we are committed to prioritizing efforts to understand inclusivity with the mission of creating more diversity within our professional community and a culture of antiracism in medicine and science.
Recognizing the negative impact of conscious and unconscious bias on diversity provides us the opportunity to generate divergent ideas necessary to address complex challenges such as racism, sexism, violence, discrimination, systemic injustice, and inequity. The collective sum of the individual differences in race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age or physical ability and the range of invisible differences and similarities in life experiences, knowledge, innovation, self-expression, and talent that a diverse membership provides, is invaluable and critical to the growth and long-term success of not only the organization but also for society as a whole. In turn, as we become better people we provide better medical care to our animals.
To foster a diverse, equitable and inclusive community, we understand it will require an intentional and sustained effort with accountability. To this effect, we have decided to take action on identifying ways that we can broaden the diversity of both our membership and leadership (BOD and committee chairs). As a few first steps:
The BOD has formed a Diversity and Inclusion committee tasked with evaluating the “current state” of the organization’s diversity and inclusivity metrics and identifying and prioritizing areas for improvement.
- The Diversity and Inclusion committee in collaboration with the annual workshop committee will include relevant opportunities of topics and speakers for the education of our members regarding the value of diversity and inclusion and how to promote them along with navigating unconscious bias.
- The Diversity and Inclusion committee will create a guidance document outlining metrics to support actively diversifying the organizational leadership to create inclusive representation on the BOD and committee membership selections.
- The BOD will include Diversity and Inclusion aims as a core priority within the next review of the strategic plan.