A message from the FIRST in the Upper Midwest Board of Directors and the FIRST in the Upper Midwest Diversity and Inclusion Committee

The world recoiled at the killing of Mr. George Floyd on May 25 – both by the horror of how it happened, and the fact that things like this are still happening.  The protests in our community and around the world reflect a demand to finally end centuries of systemic racism and injustice.

What can we do now to truly enact culture change?

We encourage your team to meet and spend some time processing all the emotions that have been stirred up.  Take care of yourself, check in with the students and mentors on your team (especially students and mentors of color), connect with colleagues, and extend active compassion to others.  These are the first steps to meaningful action. Just as with COVID-19, FRC teams can step up to address the current situation.  Support the Cities is a great resource to find volunteer opportunities, and the Twin Cities Aid Map provides locations that are open for receiving and distributing donations.

We all share a love of FIRST and robotics.  In Minnesota, black and indigenous students are under-represented on FRC teams as a whole.  Minnesota has some of the largest education achievement gaps in the nation.  We can address the large opportunity gap that exists for black and other underrepresented students in accessing programs like ours.

As we look forward, it will be important to know the racial and other key demographic makeup for your team in comparison to your school, community, and state as a whole. This will help your team set reasonable goals and strategies to increase the diversity and success of your team.  Some schools will provide data on student ethnicity, gender, free and reduced lunch, IEP/508 plans, English Language Learners or other key demographics for your team. Most teams will have to collect this data themselves. Adding this to fall onboarding processes works well for many teams. Remember that demographic questions must be optional – our goal is not to single out students or make them uncomfortable. The Diversity and Inclusion committee is developing a survey that you will be able to use or modify.  Don’t forget about mentors either. Having mentors “like me” is incredibly powerful for students.

The Diversity and Inclusion committee is also working on a toolkit of ideas to address many kinds of diversity on your team, both during recruitment and for retention. We will be sharing that toolkit, along with a modified version for social distancing, later this summer.  But education and action can start now.  We encourage you, especially if you are white, to learn more with these online anti-racism resources here, here, and here.

As a robotics community, we strive to create spaces where everyone is safe, respected, and heard.  Our work of culture change and inspiring young people to be STEM leaders is taking place in a broader community where many are not safe, are not respected, and are not heard.  Now more than ever, it is critical that we find meaningful ways to support each other and do everything we can to end systemic racism.  Thank you for joining with others in taking on this urgent work of creating a safe and supportive community for all of us, in robotics and beyond.