SIPS Access & Community Empowerment
Learn how the School of Integrative Plant Science contributes to CALS' mission to cultivate an inclusive community by incorporating equitable practices that empower individuals, foster engagement, and advance equal opportunities for all. See also: CALS Access & Community Empowerment
Get involved with SIPS access & community empowerment efforts
Each SIPS section has a Leader for Diversity and Inclusion (LDI), who works with the CALS Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) to develop a strategic plan and best practices for their section, building on resources being developed across CALS and coordinating with efforts of fellow LDIs within SIPS.
LDIs work with others in their Section to forge the best working group, committee and reporting structure to achieve section- and SIPS-wide goals. If you'd like to get involved, contact them:
- Horticulture: Jason Londo
- Plant Biology: Gaurav Moghe
- Plant Breeding and Genetics: Hale Tufan
- Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology: Teresa Pawlowska
- Soil and Crop Sciences: Carmen Enid Martinez
Assisting the SIPS LDIs and coordinating school-wide efforts is Chelsea Specht, Associate Director for Faculty Development, Equity and Inclusion.
Graduate students can also bring issues to their graduate field's Graduate Student Association (GSA) to make sure that their issues of concern are addressed, or contact Claire King SIPS DEI Liaison to the Graduate Student Council directly: cmk323 [at] cornell.edu (cmk323[at]cornell[dot]edu).
See also: CALS Access & Community Empowerment
Expressive activity policy update
On December 19, 2024, the Cornell Committee on Expressive Activity released this memo and its final report and proposed policy and submitted them for consideration to university leadership, which will determine next steps per the university’s policy review process.
Cornell AgriTech Belonging Bulletins
These Belonging at AgriTech Bulletins will help you discover new ways to incorporate belonging into your daily life.
- January 24, 2025 Writing an inclusive course syllabus
- December 14, 2024 Holiday greetings and why they matter
- August 14, 2024 Deconstructing Political Stereotypes
- May 13, 2024 Race and ethnicity
- March 29, 2024 Reporting bias
- February 14, 2024 Making labs more inclusive
- January 31, 2024 Dismantling Anti-Fat Bias
- December 20, 2023 What is ‘Implicit Bias?’
- November 21, 2023 Rethinking Thanksgiving
- October 6, 2023. Celebrating Coming Out Day
- September 27, 2023. What is ‘Intersectionality’?
- March 30, 2023. International Transgender Day of Visibility
- March 13, 2023: Celebrating neurodiversity
- February 14, 2023: Cornell’s first Black woman graduate
- February 4, 2023: Language bias
- November 27, 2022: Names matter
Our Stories
Morgan Irons: Creating safe spaces
It has been an absolute joy to connect with researchers who are also LGBTQIA2S+ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or gender expansive, queer and/or questioning, intersex, asexual and two-spirit] in my lab, across campus and at academic conferences. Having an environment or at least safe spaces where my colleagues, friends and myself can be open and honest about who we are has given me the courage and support I need to help create spaces in my office, lab and department where myself and my colleagues who are also LGBTQIA2S+ researchers can bring our full selves to our work, teaching and outreach. Identities are not boxes or distinct labels that only affect us in our personal lives or just in our work lives; identities are fluid and affect all aspects of our lives.
Our Stories
Tom Silva: Working through first-gen challenges
I'm a senior lecturer in the Plant Biology Section and former chair of the SIPS Diversity and Inclusion Council. But I am also the first in my family to attend college, a story I share with my students to help them overcome anxiety and imposter syndrome.
Our Stories
Hana Barrett: Need to be proactive so we have more time for our science
As a nonbinary scientist I have experienced both transphobia and radical allyship in academia. My previous and current supervisors, Drs. Matt Kasson and Teresa Pawlowska, have been incredibly supportive of my identity, my advocacy and my research.
Our Stories
Byron Rusnak: Shared STEM connections
A major source of joy has been the connections I have created with other LGBTQIA+ researchers in STEM. Through groups like Qgrads, which helps to represent and support the queer graduate student community, I have been able to forge friendships across disciplines in a way that would likely have not occurred without the shared connection of our queerness.




Diversity, Inclusion, & Accessibility resources
- Eloy Rodriguez Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Conference Travel Award - Broadens connections and recruitment of graduate students from groups historically excluded from STEM by supporting the presence of Cornell students and postdocs at key DEI events and conferences.
- MANRRS - Scholarships promote academic and professional advancement by empowering minorities in agriculture, natural resources, and related sciences.
- SACNAS conference scholarship - Advances Chicano/Hispanic and Native Americans in science.
- Ford Foundation Fellowships - Seeks to increase the diversity of the nation’s college and university faculties by increasing their ethnic and racial diversity, maximize the educational benefits of diversity, and increase the number of professors who can and will use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.
- HHMI Gilliam Fellowships for Advanced Study - Provides awards to pairs of dissertation advisers and their graduate students based on what HHMI values and considers essential components of the environment, particularly the institution and adviser’s commitment to creating a healthy academic ecosystem and the student’s potential for scientific leadership.
- NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology (PRFB) - Broadening participation of groups underrepresented in biology.
- Belonging at Cornell - University-wide resources
- Inclusive Excellence Network (IEN) - Working at Cornell a collection of programs designed to engage Cornell staff in action-oriented discussions, self-reflection, and productive discourse around topics that impact the workplace.
- Mentorship resources for graduate and postdoctoral students - CALS Diversity & Inclusion website.
- Resources for students and post-docs at Cornell - Belonging at Cornell Diversity and Inclusion website.
- Office of Institutional Equity and Title IX
- Cornell Graduate School Office of Inclusion and Student Engagement (OISE)
- Cornell University diversity dashboard
- Any Person, Many Stories: Histories of Exclusion and Inclusion at Cornell - Project coordinated by staff of the Center for Teaching Innovation
Cornell's Accessibility Services page provides accessibility information for faculty/staff, students, and visitors including:
- Assistive technology for classes and meetings
- Accessible dining and library details
- Contacts to report a physical barrier to accessibility
- Accessible meeting and event checklist
- Contacts for the ADA Coordinator Team
- Resources for obtaining accommodations at Cornell
Since 2000, Cornell University has had a program to track bias that is occurring on all campuses in an effort to be proactive in creating an inclusive climate for all. The Department of Inclusion and Workforce Diversity is responsible for collecting and tracking all reported bias activity that occurs at Cornell University that could potentially impact our commitment to diversity and inclusion, including all reports made by faculty, staff, students, and visitors to the Ithaca, Weill Cornell Medicine, and Cornell Tech campuses. If you have seen, heard, or experienced bias, you can make a report here:
Around campus
Indigenous Summer Research Scholars Program
A grant from the USDA's New Beginning for Tribal Students (NBTS) program (matched by Cornell CALS) has made it possible to fully fund Indigenous students to take part in Cornell AgriTech's Summer Research Scholars Program.
In 2024, Sebastian April (Mi'kmaq) joined the Christine Smart Lab as the first Indigenous Summer Scholar. Seb majors in Sustainable Plant and Soil Systems (with a minor in Cannabis Cultivation) at the University of Connecticut.
Smart paired him with plant pathology PhD student Jocelyn Schwartz as a mentor for his summer project investigating management and resistance of hemp to the fungal disease Septoria leaf spot. "When I ... saw all that I'd accomplished in just a few short weeks, it felt good to know that I could make a real contribution to the science of cultivating cannabis," says Seb.
Around campus
Dinners explore intersection of Black history, plant history, cuisine
The cuisines of the African diaspora tell the story of how food plants native to Africa have, across generations, remained central to the foods that Black communities celebrate. Throughout Black History Month, Cornell Dining has been offering a series of dinners featuring its take on traditional dishes of the African diaspora. And at these dinners, the Cornell Botanic Gardens is introducing students to its exhibition, “Seeds of Survival and Celebration: Plants and the Black Experience.”
View videos: Honoring Black History Through Collaboration and Celebration: A panel discussion about the Cornell Botanic Gardens Seeds of Survival and Celebration exhibit - Feb. 23 | Feb. 24
Around campus
CALS hires faculty cohort to address grand DEI challenges
Announced in fall 2021, the cohort initiative was led by Chelsea Specht, the Barbara McClintock Professor of Plant Biology and CALS’ associate dean for diversity and inclusion. The search committee, composed of 10 faculty members from across CALS, spent considerable time developing a recruitment ad that would reflect the values they were seeking, “to appeal to the hearts and minds of the people we wanted to apply,” Specht said. It worked: 381 people applied for the six positions.
Fifth in a series of stories detailing actions CALS students, faculty and staff have taken over the past several years to make our community a more diverse, equitable and inclusive place for everyone.
Around campus
Botanic Gardens features Seeds of Survival and Celebration exhibit
An exhibit at the Nevin Welcome Center reveals how enslaved Africans used their culinary skills and plants that came with them from West Africa to prepare foods, which eventually became regional staples. During the 2022 growing season, special gardens featured more than 20 plants grown and used by enslaved Africans in the Americas. Learn more:
Overview | Library guide | Featured plants | Exhibit panels | Audio narratives | Collaborators
Update: View panel discussions of the exhibit held during Black History Month 2023: Feb. 23 | Feb. 24




CALS Access & Community Empowerment News & Events

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- Diversity & Inclusion

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- Diversity & Inclusion

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- Diversity & Inclusion
- American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program
Land Acknowledgment
Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ (the Cayuga Nation). The Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign Nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The Confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York state, and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ people, past and present, to these lands and waters.
This land acknowledgment has been reviewed and approved by the traditional Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ leadership. Learn more from the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program website.