Executive Summary of the Diversity Audit and the Survey
As part of its ongoing commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) commissioned Dr Jennifer A. Stollman of J.A. Stollman Consulting to conduct an audit of SHA diversity practices and understandings. The work (conducted in 2022) included a review of SHA policies, publication data, website, social media, marketing materials and initiatives in general, combined with 10 focus group discussions, 7 small group discussions, and 30 one-on-one interviews with members, leaders, and committee chairs. Additionally, a climate survey was distributed to the SHA membership, garnering 235 responses. This work serves as a baseline evaluation of the state of SHA diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and mattering (DEIB&M) efforts as of 2022, and is part of an ongoing process of proactively addressing challenges, improving practices, and meeting strategic goals. Follow up audits are planned and will allow SHA to chart progress, highlight new issues or concerns, and, critically, to be accountable for positive, transformative change.
Key findings of the audit include both strengths (demonstrated commitment to valuing diversity and inclusion, openness to addressing past harms and creating positive change, proactivity in expanding a diverse membership and providing mentoring opportunities, financial commitment to DEIB&M) as well as weaknesses (historical legacies of bias, gaps in understanding among membership, poor communication of DEIB&M values, dependence on volunteerism, insufficient structure and metrics for DEIB&M, overall limited diversity amongst membership in terms of racial and ethnic identity, sexual orientation, differently abled individuals, class, and political identities, and limited considerations of disability in SHA activity planning). Nineteen recommendations were made (see below).
Key recommendations:
- Establish and implement organizational-wide, with area-specific, formal DEIB&M commitments, vision, and plans.
- Strongly encourage and provide consistent, foundational, elevated-general, and area-specific DEIB&M professional development for leadership and membership.
- Allocate significant resources to support widespread organizational transformation.
- Establish and sustain diverse, prospective professional and mentoring pipelines.
- Collect and retain demographic data and use this information to close DEIB&M gaps and advance strengths.
- Conduct a comprehensive review of all policies, principles, philosophies, objectives, and processes, revise for explicit inclusion and equity, and eliminate bias.
- Hire a DEB&M Officer who reports to the SHA Board and the President to organize and guide inclusivity efforts with supporting committees and membership
- Establish broader representation across leadership positions
- Provide more grant monies for student and professional conference attendance.
- Coordinate DEIB&M vision and messaging with communication and social media coordinators.
- Tie DEB&M to organizational assessments and event evaluations.
- Establish SHA DEIB&M main page tabs with accompanying and associated web pages that link to such items as resources, policies, events, professional development, organizations, and affinity groups.
- Craft an SHA acknowledgment of past harms statement outlining past injuries to significantly impacted groups, identify current and future action items with an eye toward reconciliation and equity.
- Create a SHA Bias Incident Response Committee to receive and review incidents to decide how best to address incidents.
- Direct specific attention to international members to create more inclusive and equitable learning and working experiences.
- To fight bias often built into foundational historical archaeological training, SHA should benchmark a percentage of DEIB&M focused professional development through presentations, dialogue, plenary sessions and workshops at all conferences.
- SHA should develop and publicize an ethics agreement and conduct code at conferences which upholds equity, prohibits discrimination, and offers sanctions to code breaches. adhere to a conduct code at conferences.
- Any agreed upon SHA DEIB&M plan should encourage SHA members to do the same in their respective professional areas.
- Provide members with anti-bias self-assessment tools.
The SHA Board has carefully considered these recommendations, identified strategies for addressing the recommendations, and begun implementation. Specific actions include: requiring DEI&BM statements from election candidates (1,2,8), ensuring that the new SHA website will include extensive DEIB&M content and resources (10, 12,19), working with committee chairs to ensure all committee prioritize DEIB&M concerns (1, 2, 8, 15), developing additional mentoring opportunities and providing anti-bias training tools (2, 4, 9) revising and updating the ethics and code of conduct statements and establishing the conference code of conduct committee (14, 17), maintaining and interrogating demographic data (5), ongoing review and revision of all policies and procedures (6), and working to better communicate DEIB&M concerns with membership (10, 18, 19). Challenges remain, including limited financial resources to fully implement recommendations 3 and 7; identifying additional strategies to significantly diversify our membership; and identifying appropriate means for addressing historical biases and harms. SHA is committed to addressing these and other challenges.
SHA believes that diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and mattering are essential to our excellence and to the execution of our mission. The SHA community values differences in the pursuit of inquiry and knowledge, mutual understanding, respect, trust, transparency, and cooperation. We are committed to creating a diverse and welcoming place that reflects the diversity of the communities we serve and includes individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences, individuals of color, women, LGBTQIA+, and persons with disabilities.