FROM THE TOS PRESIDENT
Deborah Bronk

Hello TOS members! This month I’d like to discuss self-nominations and suggest that…

If we rely on people in power to nominate candidates, most candidates will look like the people in power.

As a more senior member of the ocean science community, I have nominated a lot of my colleagues for service on boards or committees over the years. Since nominating someone can take a lot of time, I found many of the people I nominated were my close colleagues. They were people I liked and knew well and felt I could vouch for as people and scientists. Looking back, many of the people I nominated looked like me—born in the US, white, middle class. They were people who were trained in major universities and had lots of professional opportunities as students and early career scientists. This is a problem.

If we want to truly diversify our science community, we need our council and committee members to reflect the full spectrum of humanity. We need role models where the next generation see themselves in people in leadership positions. To address this situation—TOS is doing an experiment. We have removed the gate keepers of the process by only considering self-nominations for TOS Council and committee membership. Now we need people brave enough to step forward and put their hat in the ring. If you are willing to give your passion and experience in service to the TOS community, please consider nominating yourself to stand for election for the TOS Council or membership on the TOS Ethics Committee, Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Committee, or Honors Selection Committee. It is a wonderful way to build your network, get valuable experience and to serve others.

I’m here to serve, so please reach out to me at [email protected] if you have any concerns or ideas of how TOS can better serve its members and the work they do.