Continuing the Climb: Join Us in Our Commitment to DEAI

By Lori Perkins

Where has the year gone?! Today is the second day of Black History Month, and I feel like it was just a few weeks ago that I was sharing my thoughts on starting with why and climbing this hill together. Have we as a community made any progress on that ascent? I think we have.

Last February, we hosted a webinar series focused on DEAI, specifically related to BIPOC leadership and representation. These Community Conversations included honest observations and stories of lived experiences that identified important and resonant themes, called out barriers to progress, and, importantly, encouraged personal commitments to advancing this work.

Those themes – the value of representation, the need for change in organizational cultures, the importance of broadening the availability of professional development opportunities – give us a road map for the path ahead, next steps on this hill we’ve agreed to climb together. And the barriers, particularly fear – stemming from not knowing where to start, from lack of confidence, from competing priorities – feel surmountable to me. The honesty that it took for many to share those worries was the hardest part. Shining a light on our doubts and acknowledging them to one another is a great way to move beyond inertia and paralysis and encourage deeper connection.

My favorite outcome of last year’s work was the willingness of so many of you to make personal pledges to moving DEAI work forward in your own lives, at your institutions, and across our community broadly.  How did you do on your pledges?? 😊 I hope you’ll be willing to share your answers at our upcoming webinar! Save the date for Thursday, February 17th at 12 P.M. EDT.

We’ve seen quite a lot of zoo and aquarium leadership change over the past year as well – the tsunami of change rolls on! There’s been good progress for gender equity…but not so much on other aspects of diversity at the executive level. I’m convinced that we can influence the lagging rate of racial, ethnic, and social diversity by what we’ve been referring to as “knowing the pool” and “growing the pool”.

Both knowing and growing are readily addressable priorities if we’re intentional about it. What we need to do is to actively seek and reach out to the next generation of leaders, representing all aspects of this thing called “diversity”, and purposefully encourage and mentor their growth and professional development. We talked a bit about this in terms of the “shoulder-tap” – mentors or sponsors who take the time to promote the development of rising leaders. To paraphrase Tony Vecchio, that’s the real legacy today’s leaders can offer to the next generation. It takes time and effort and commitment, but if this matters … then it matters, and we need to act like it does.

An organization that wasted no time in living its values is the Association of Minority Zoo and Aquarium Professionals. AMZAP’s explosive growth is clear evidence that it is addressing a powerful need. One of the organization’s principal tenets is that representation is key. As AMZAP Founder Craig Saffoe so perfectly put it, if they can see us, they can be us! To the extent that we are able to know and grow the pool of diverse leaders – at all levels, because change begins and has greater impact at levels below that of chief executive – representation will expand, and we can create a cycle of progress.

Black History Month (BHM) is intended to celebrate and honor black culture and influence, and the achievements, contributions, and sacrifices of the African diaspora in the United States. It’s important to embrace that intent – but we fail if we do so only in February.

It’s BHM here in BHM 😉, and all throughout our community and our country, and I’m excited to keep moving onward and upward with all of you! Please join us this month and beyond as we re-energize our DEAI efforts and take the next steps up the hill.