Our Values Defined
This article was produced after a conversation with Devon about our values!
oSTEM @ UCSD’s Guiding Values
1. Inclusivity
2. Diversity
3. Community
4. Chosen Family
5. Empathy
6. Compassion
7. Affirmation
8.Tenacity
9. Excellence
10. Activism
Like any good organization, oSTEM @ UCSD has a list of values that we use to guide our actions and move us closer to our goals. Even so, having a handful of words isn’t the most helpful when the nuances of their definitions aren’t discussed.
We can all agree that being inclusive and encouraging diversity is important, but what does it really mean? What challenges might we face? What might we be leaving out? So here’s a starting point for how we can begin to think about our values in a more complex way that reflects the reality that we live in.
1. Inclusivity and 2. Diversity
Inclusivity means considering the different needs and perspectives of people when designing events and communicating with members. It seems to go hand in hand with encouraging diversity which is all about welcoming and celebrating differences rather than imposing conformity. However, fostering belonging and creating a community is easiest when we recognize that we all have something in common.
The premise of a student organization rests on creating a community around a certain commonality. Being a person in the LGBTQIA+ community who is also pursuing a STEM career does seem like a somewhat specific niche of people. Then, how can we say that we are being inclusive and diverse? How can we include everyone while also claiming to make a space that supports only a subset of the population?
Even the LGBTQIA+ community and fields of STEM themselves are broad swathes of people. Taking every single person even within this limited scope seems to run into trouble.
We can resolve this by treating inclusivity and diversity not as a singular end destination, but as a continual process of better understanding each other’s needs.
It’s impossible to find out a magical formula that works for everyone and just treating everyone according to that same standard. Any attempt would, by default, be limited to a certain group of people.
So, the way that we can become inclusive of diversity is by recognizing that we will never get it perfect, and it’s only in the act of making steady improvements through recognizing differences and promoting an understanding that this value can be realized.
And for those who don’t identify with the LGBTQIA+ community and aren’t pursuing a STEM major, it’s okay to come to our events for the free food.
3. Community and 4. Chosen Family
Communities and families are very special types of relationships. It’s not exactly the same as other personal relationships like that of a friend or romantic partner. With these other types of relationships, the focus is between individuals. It depends on whether you share the same interests and enjoy spending time together. The fact that their problems affect you personally can influence how invested they are in solving them.
Communities are different because we might not know each other personally. I may not know what your favorite song or color, but you are important to me and I will support you in any way I can. We may be strangers and most likely are, just as two random members of oSTEM, but we are in the same community together.
Like a family, we may be at different stages in our lives and have very different interests, there is a common thread running through us that is part of our identities. Despite the differences you may have in your family, there is this underlying acceptance of each other and a willingness to live and support each other.
It goes further than a community because we recognize each other as people, not just as students who need support in one specific academic area. It’s difficult to compartmentalize your life and you shouldn’t have to. A family wants you to succeed both professionally and personally without compromising either.
Going beyond even the professional and personal sides, a family is there for you to celebrate the good times and provide a refuge in the bad times. It’s not selectively sharing what is easy and palatable to, but having people there for you at your all-time lows as well.
You may not have this with your blood relatives, but if you choose to, there is still a family where you belong.
5. Empathy, 6. Compassion, and 7. Affirmation
Building off of how a family supports you further than just practical needs, empathy and compassion are the necessary building blocks to creating connection, even across differences.
Every time you interact with someone is a chance to practice empathy. It could be having a discussion during a social event, having someone voice their concerns to an event organizer, or talking with your teammates of a project.
Empathy is especially important when someone comes to you with a problem they are struggling with.
It might be uncomfortable because their suffering relates to your own insecurities and vulnerabilities, but empathy is about being in the moment and not pushing away through judgment or advice: all ways that you can detach and numb yourself from the pain that you are feeling.
It’s also not about making it all about yourself and your own experience. This doesn’t mean it’s wrong to share, but that it should come from a place of assuring the other person that they are not alone.
Compassion, the feeling of wanting to alleviate another’s suffering naturally arises as a result of empathy and can be carried out without any strings attached.
And as much as practical advice can help, sometimes affirmation is what someone needs in the moment. It’s about recognizing that you are valid, not that you have the potential to be, but that you already are. Thinking about what needs to change can wait until after you’ve already accepted what is.
8. Tenacity and 9. Excellence
Tenacity is to keep moving in the same direction, steadily. It doesn’t matter where you are as long as you are making progress in the right direction. It can be applied to personal and professional skills on the individual level as well as creating culture and building community on an organizational level.
Tenacity is not something that you can act on once and never again; it requires continuous effort even when you’ve already achieved something. And when you are beginning something for the first time, the mistakes and missteps mean little compared to the fact that you are still moving.
It means knowing that difficulties are inevitable and can be overcome. Things that are worth doing take effort.
Excellence is about having pride in your work. Though your skills may not be at their peak, you yourself know that your effort was. It is about recognizing the value in what you do, even if it is just school work or attending a meeting for a student organization. It’s about seeing the purpose of university as to develop your skills and not just to get good grades and pass. It’s about coming to meetings and knowing and treating your contribution like it matters.
It’s about showing up and respecting the people around you and the work they do by putting the same amount of yourself into it.
10. Activism
Activism, while closely related to politics and upper institutions, also takes place within ourselves and our small, local communities. Activism can mean voting, attending town halls, and protesting, but it can also mean taking the time to reflect on our own biases and the way we treat ourselves and the people around us. Everyone inherits the culture they live in, meaning there is equally important work to be done to unlearn unhelpful beliefs.
To this end, it can also mean taking time to have difficult conversations and introduce new ways of thinking. It can mean listening to others and considering their ideas, knowing that your own perspective is always limited. You are part of this world, therefore making the effort to improve and care for yourself and others is activism.
Even though we are not to blame for the injustices of the past, we are alive now and that means we are responsible for each other and the future. Changes need to be made on both a societal and individual level in order for the impact to be felt.
No matter what kind and at what scale your activism is, it is all about moving forwards, being “active”, making changes towards a better world.
Having discussed these values at length, I hope that these words have more weight behind them. And even then, recognize that this is just one view on one set of values. Though some aspects are intended to be implemented at an organizational level, anyone can practice them at an individual level. I encourage you to reflect on the values that you yourself hold and align your actions to them as closely as possible.
