For my many colleagues from Washington University School of Medicine who were unable to attend the reception, below are the key elements of my remarks, in italics.
On the upcoming AWN 25th Year Anniversary Gala:
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| AWN 2013-2014 Board |
We are gearing up for the 2015 anniversary gala on April 17th 2015.... We envision the Gala
as an opportunity to celebrate and reflect on the progress made in the last 25
years and to imagine the progress that we will accomplish in the next 25.
On the main point I wanted to make:
I will
attempt to make a point... by combining elements of two bestseller books that I read this
year.
One of them was: "The Invisible Gorilla". The other one is “The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales
of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the
Elements”. In parenthesis, I am not developing a new interest in Chemistry because our Chancellor and Provost are
chemists. In fact, the road to that spoon book started with a column by Oliver
Sacks on the joy of getting old in which he described always counting his age
in elements: he was gold (79) and becoming mercury (80). This lovely image rekindled
my dormant love affair with Chemistry (young love, an affair that occurred
about 30 years ago-actually, the peak and through of that relationship was being at Linus
Pauling's house for a holiday, either New Year’s eve or X-mas eve, I don't remember –the peak-… but
he, himself, was out of the country... that was the through.)
My point is getting closer: In the
invisible gorilla, which reviews the rich cognitive research on human biases,
you learn or re-learn that we are hopelessly
wired to be at least a little wrong, a little imprecise in our estimates, memories,
perceptions and interpretations. A little wrong that can lead to injustice (that’s my commentary). You also learn that there is no easy immunity
to bias, and, that there is an inverse relationship between intelligence and
skills and the rigid certainty that you are correct. (This is helpful by the
way, you can cut a lot of conversations that start with “Can you believe that
so and so thinks this”with: ” yes... I can.”) The Spoon book is good despite some inaccuracies (of course! That correlates with the Gorilla book's point.) It is named
after the misadventures that Roentgen had in the process of discovering X-rays.
So, if we put the two books together: unconscious cognitive biases are abundant. Those
biases that have to do with culture, race and gender can be insidious and
multi-layered. We are wired that
way.
When Ruth Simmons visited our
campus she described that even she, a bona fide, most highly accomplished force
of nature is sometimes initially treated at board meetings as if she were as
invisible as that spoon. Initially only: she is formidable at making herself
visible but she has super powers. We have some experiments that demonstrate
bias but we do not have something like X-rays to conclusively spot it. If we are really smart, I believe we, women and men at Washington University are really
smart (but I might be biased) we can put our heads together even more and check
and balance our perceptions and habits of mind and behavior, to further minimize
biases and create an even more diverse, interesting and enjoyable academic environment
for the benefit of all.
To conclude, like many of you I am not at Washington University because I am
from St. Louis. I am here because of compellingly unique
opportunities, great students and extraordinary colleagues, from the exceptional
chemists at the helm to the most junior faculty that we nurture well when we
are at our best. As we approach the AWN gala, quintessentially an opportunity
to celebrate accomplishments of the last 25 years and imagine those of the next
25 years, I would love us to imagine together what this progress is going to be
and to become even more outstanding at catalyzing it.
Till Later,
Anne
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