Andrea Carter, Adler University

Diversity, equity and inclusion efforts have become increasingly visible in U.S. workplaces, especially over the past five years. However, DEI has recently come under attack, with companies scaling back their DEI plans.

As a professor of organizational psychology, I believe businesses should refine rather than abandon these efforts. Introducing a powerful concept, “belonging,” could hold the key.

Although people mistakenly use “belonging” and “inclusion” interchangeably, their differences matter a lot – and can have a significant impact on employee satisfaction and organizational success.

What DEI is and why it’s struggling

Diversity initiatives have a long history in American workplaces, but it’s only recently that “DEI” has become a buzzword. DEI refers to policies and initiatives implemented by organizations to ensure fair treatment of and full participation by all people.

Adoption of formal DEI programs has seen significant growth. In 2019, around 64% of organizations had some form of DEI initiative. By 2023, this rose to 89%, demonstrating a clear upward trend.

Research shows that companies with diverse teams are 70% more likely to capture new markets and are 87% better at making decisions. Additionally, 85% of CEOs report diverse workforces improving profitability. Despite this, a trend of businesses and schools significantly or completely eradicating their DEI initiatives has become prevalent in 2024.

Advertisement

What happened? While external factors contributed to the backlash, including political pressure and a changed legal environment, research suggests that problems with how DEI is conceptualized and practiced also bear a fair share of the blame.

Misunderstanding DEI

While diversity and inclusion are often well-intentioned, many organizations that approached change initiatives solely through diversity metrics have failed. Effective DEI strategy focuses on learning and development, mentorship, and allyship, extending beyond race and gender. The challenge comes from narrow views of DEI, driving oversimplifications and zero-sum thinking.

For example, people have multiple intersecting identities, with complex traits that often depend on social context. But some DEI efforts ignore that complexity, reducing employees to a single category, such as gender, race, age or disability status. That leaves people, regardless of whether they feel included in “ingroups” or “outgroups,” feeling diminished.

Similarly, research shows that people’s actions and opportunities are strongly influenced by their environment. But too often, DEI efforts place the responsibility for growth entirely on individuals. That actually reinforces people’s biases because group dynamics and social structures shape collective behaviors.

When models fail to distribute accountability and responsibility effectively, collective behavior will uphold toxic environments.

To be fair, not all organizations have fallen into these traps. Those with leaders that adopted a more contemporary understanding of power and bias have developed more effective strategies for employees to thrive.

My research suggests that for DEI initiatives to succeed, respect and fairness must be present. These requirements are rooted in the foundations of belonging.

Advertisement

DEI’s evolution: Integrating belonging for lasting impact

While belonging is related to inclusion, research shows it’s much more than just a synonym.

Inclusion may focus on being seen, accepted and valued within a team or community. Belonging goes deeper, involving a genuine sense of connection and identity within a group.

To truly experience belonging, it’s not enough to feel included; my research shows that five critical indicators must also be present.

These elements ensure that individuals feel a deep, meaningful attachment to the group, which inclusion alone cannot fully achieve. This distinction underscores that belonging is a unique and essential experience, distinct from inclusion, and critical for fostering a truly cohesive and supportive environment.

So what are the five indicators of belonging? They are comfort, connection, contribution, psychological safety and well-being, and all of them can be measured.

When an environment is high in each of the five indicators, and the measured gap between the ingroup and outgroup is low, it suggests an environment where responsibility for creating opportunities to thrive are shared and balanced. Let’s unpack these concepts:

1. Comfort. When an organization is high in comfort, people feel seen for who they are. This requires them to accept that others have complex, sometimes contradictory identities, and to adopt a mindset of awareness. Perhaps counterintuitively, achieving comfort requires being a little uncomfortable, too. That’s because respectfully seeing and being seen means acknowledging other people’s discomfort.
2. Connection. Connection is the need to be known and trusted. For an organization to score high on connection, people will be aligned on values and goals. Connection creates a shared sense of responsibility and accountability. This shared responsibility is a foundation for empathy, since trust and fairness are born from understanding and empathizing with the social and emotional needs of others.
3. Contribution. An organization high in contribution values its members for the unique and diverse attributes they bring to the table. In belonging environments, an individual’s contribution is evaluated through curiosity and openness; ideas and perspectives are shared to influence and challenge the status quo, driving innovation and creativity. When someone is genuinely acknowledged for their contributions, both they and their team feel fulfilled.
4. Psychological safety. When a person is genuinely accepted into a group, making a mistake or even failing is seen as a chance to learn and grow, not an opportunity to shame, blame or exclude. This is the essence of psychological safety. In cases where people’s perspectives are dramatically different, psychological safety requires everyone to reflect and put themselves in the shoes of the other to respect their differences and be accountable for behavior.
5. Well-being. In an organization high in well-being, members’ experiences are considered and cared for. This requires everyone to share responsibility for caring for individuals, groups, teams and the organization as a whole, each with their authentic needs.

Belonging, based on my research, is not just a buzzword; it’s the bedrock of a thriving, innovative workplace. Leaders who understand this and take action can enhance individual well-being while unlocking the full potential of their teams.

By committing to building environments where the indicators of belonging are prioritized, leaders can ignite passion, loyalty and excellence in their workplaces.

Andrea Carter, Adjunct Faculty in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Adler University

Advertisement

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Bridge is a section of the STM Daily News Blog meant for diversity, offering real news stories about bona fide community efforts to perpetuate a greater good. The purpose of The Bridge is to connect the divides that separate us, fostering understanding and empathy among different groups. By highlighting positive initiatives and inspirational actions, The Bridge aims to create a sense of unity and shared purpose. This section brings to light stories of individuals and organizations working tirelessly to promote inclusivity, equality, and mutual respect. Through these narratives, readers are encouraged to appreciate the richness of diverse perspectives and to participate actively in building stronger, more cohesive communities.

https://stmdailynews.com/category/the-bridge

NASA will provide live coverage of the upcoming activities for Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft departure from the International Space Station and return to Earth. The uncrewed spacecraft will depart from the orbiting laboratory for a landing at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.

Starliner is scheduled to autonomously undock from the space station at approximately 6:04 p.m. EDT Friday, Sept. 6, to begin the journey home, weather conditions permitting. NASA and Boeing are targeting approximately 12:03 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 7, for the landing and conclusion of the flight test.

NASA’s live coverage of return and related activities will stream on NASA+, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA programming through a variety of platforms including social media.

Ahead of Starliner’s return, NASA will host a pre-departure news conference at 12 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 4, from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. NASA’s Commercial Crew and International Space Station Program managers and a flight director will participate.

To attend the pre-departure news conference in person, U.S. media must contact the NASA Johnson newsroom by 5 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 3, at jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov or 281-483-5111. To join the pre-departure news conference by phone, media must contact the NASA newsroom no later than two hours prior to the start of the call.

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on June 5 for its first crewed flight, arriving at the space station on June 6. As Starliner approached the orbiting laboratory, NASA and Boeing identified helium leaks and experienced issues with the spacecraft reaction control thrusters. For the safety of the astronauts, NASA announced on Aug. 24 that Starliner will return to Earth from the station without a crew. Wilmore and Williams will remain aboard the station and return home in February 2025 aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft with two other crew members assigned to NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission.

NASA’s coverage is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):

Wednesday, Sept. 4

Advertisement

12 p.m. – Starliner pre-departure news conference from NASA’s Johnson Space Center on NASA+, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

Friday, Sept. 6

5:45 p.m. – Undocking coverage begins on NASA+, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

6:04 p.m. – Undocking

10:50 p.m. – Coverage resumes for deorbit burn, entry, and landing on NASA+, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

Saturday, Sept. 7

12:03 a.m. – Targeted landing

Advertisement

1:30 a.m. – Post-landing news conference with the following participants:

• Joel Montalbano, deputy associate administrator, Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington
• Steve Stich, manager, Commercial Crew Program, NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida
• Dana Weigel, manager, International Space Station, NASA Johnson
• John Shannon, vice president, Boeing Exploration Systems
• Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager, Boeing Commercial Crew Program

Coverage of the post-landing news conference will stream live on NASA+, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

To attend the post-landing news conference in person, U.S. media must contact the NASA Johnson newsroom by 12 p.m., Sept. 6. To join the post-landing news conference by phone, media must contact the NASA Johnson newsroom no later than one hour prior to the start of the event.

See full mission coverage, NASA’s commercial crew blog, and more information about the mission at:

https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew

Vahe Peroomian, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

The stars aren’t fixed and unchanging, unlike what many ancient people thought. Once in a while, a star appears where there wasn’t one before, and then it fades away in a matter of days or weeks.

The earliest record of such a “guest star,” named so by ancient Chinese astronomers, is a star that suddenly appeared in skies around the world on July 4, 1054. It quickly brightened, becoming visible even during the day for the next 23 days.

Astronomers in Japan, China and the Middle East observed this event, as did the Anasazi in what is now New Mexico.

In the second half of 2024, a nova explosion in the star system called T Coronae Borealis, or T CrB, will once again be visible to people on Earth. T CrB will appear 1,500 times brighter than usual, but it won’t be as spectacular as the event in 1054.

I am a space scientist with a passion for teaching physics and astronomy. I love photographing the night sky and astronomical events, including eclipses, meteor showers and once-in-a-lifetime astronomical events such as the T CrB nova. T CrB will become, at best, the 50th brightest star in the night sky – brighter than only half the stars in the Big Dipper. It might take some effort to find, but if you have the time, you’ll witness a rare event.

What is a nova?

In 1572, the famous Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe observed a new star in the constellation Cassiopeia. After reporting the event in his work “De Nova Stella,” or “On the New Star,” astronomers came to associate the word nova with stellar explosions.

Stars, regardless of size, spend 90% of their lives fusing hydrogen into helium in their cores. How a star’s life ends, though, depends on the mass of the star. Very massive stars – those more than eight times the mass of our Sun – explode in dramatic supernova explosions, like the ones people observed in 1054 and 1572.

Advertisement

In lower mass stars, including our Sun, once the hydrogen in the core is exhausted, the star expands into what astronomers call a red giant. The red giant is hundreds of times its original size and more unstable. Eventually, all that is left is a white dwarf – an Earth-sized remnant made up of carbon and oxygen. White dwarves are a hundred thousand times denser than diamond. Unless they’re part of a binary star system, where two stars orbit each other, they slowly fade in brightness over billions of years and eventually disappear from sight.

T CrB is a binary star system – it’s made up of a red giant and a white dwarf, which orbit each other every 228 days at about half the distance between Earth and the Sun. The red giant is nearing the end of its life, so it has expanded dramatically, and it’s feeding material into a rotating disk of matter called an accretion disk, which surrounds the white dwarf.

Matter from the accretion disk, which is made mostly of hydrogen, spirals in and slowly accumulates on the surface of the white dwarf. Over time, this blanket of hydrogen becomes thicker and denser, until its temperature exceeds 18 million degrees Fahrenheit (10 million degrees Celsius).

A nova is a runaway thermonuclear reaction similar to the detonation of a hydrogen bomb. Once the accretion disk gets hot enough, a nova occurs where the hydrogen ignites, gets blown outward and emits bright light.

When will it occur?

Astronomers know of 10 recurrent novae – stars that have undergone nova explosions more than once. T CrB is the most famous of these. It erupts on average every 80 years.

Because T CrB is 2,630 light-years from Earth, it takes light 2,630 years to travel the distance from T CrB to Earth. The nova we will see later this year occurred over 2,000 years ago, but its light will be just reaching us later this year.

The accretion of hydrogen on the surface of the white dwarf is like sand in an 80-year hourglass. Each time a nova occurs and the hydrogen ignites, the white dwarf itself is unaffected, but the surface of the white dwarf is wiped clean of hydrogen. Soon after, hydrogen begins accreting on the surface of the white dwarf again: The hourglass flips, and the 80-year countdown to the next nova begins anew.

Advertisement

Careful observations during its past two novae in 1866 and 1946 showed that T CrB became slightly brighter about 10 years before the nova was visible from Earth. Then, it briefly dimmed. Although scientists aren’t sure what causes these brightness changes, this pattern has repeated, with a brightening in 2015 and a dimming in March 2023.

Based on these observations, scientists predict the nova will be visible to us sometime in 2024.

How bright will it be?

Astronomers use a magnitude system first devised by Hipparchus of Nicaea more than 2,100 years ago to classify the brightness of stars. In this system, a difference of 5 in magnitude signifies a change by a factor of 100 in brightness. The smaller the magnitude, the brighter the star.

In dark skies, the human eye can see stars as dim as magnitude 6. Ordinarily, the visible light we receive from T CrB comes entirely from its red giant, a magnitude 10 star barely visible with binoculars.

During the nova event, the white dwarf’s exploding hydrogen envelope will brighten to a magnitude 2 or 3. It will briefly become the brightest star in its home constellation, Corona Borealis. This maximum brightness will last only several hours, and T CrB will fade from visibility with the naked eye in a matter of days.

Where to look

Corona Borealis is not a prominent constellation. It’s nestled above Bootes and to the west of Ursa Major, home to the Big Dipper, in northern skies.

To locate the constellation, look due west and find Arcturus, the brightest star in that region of the sky. Then look about halfway between the horizon and zenith – the point directly above you – at 10 p.m. local time in North America.

Corona Borealis is approximately 20 degrees above Arcturus. That’s about the span of one hand, from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the pinky, at arm’s length. At its brightest, T CrB will be brighter than all the stars in Corona Borealis, but not as bright as Arcturus. https://www.youtube.com/embed/4FWiaWlMGLg?wmode=transparent&start=0 To find Corona Borealis, locate Arcturus, and then look about a handspan above.

Advertisement

You can also use an interactive star chart such as Stellarium, or one of the many apps available for smartphones, to locate the constellation. Familiarizing yourself with the stars in this region of the sky before the nova occurs will help identify the new star once T CrB brightens.

Although T CrB is too far from Earth for this event to rival the supernova of 1054, it is nevertheless an opportunity to observe a rare astronomical event with your own eyes. For many of us, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

For children, however, this event could ignite a passion in astronomy. Eighty years in the future, they may look forward to observing it once again.

Vahe Peroomian, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The science section of our news blog STM Daily News provides readers with captivating and up-to-date information on the latest scientific discoveries, breakthroughs, and innovations across various fields. We offer engaging and accessible content, ensuring that readers with different levels of scientific knowledge can stay informed. Whether it’s exploring advancements in medicine, astronomy, technology, or environmental sciences, our science section strives to shed light on the intriguing world of scientific exploration and its profound impact on our daily lives. From thought-provoking articles to informative interviews with experts in the field, STM Daily News Science offers a harmonious blend of factual reporting, analysis, and exploration, making it a go-to source for science enthusiasts and curious minds alike. https://stmdailynews.com/category/science/

Advertisement