AIC's 52nd Annual Meeting

Registration required - add this session to your Annual Meeting registration
FREE (please only add if you plan to participate); maximum 50 registrants

In response to the Equity and Inclusion Committee’s “Recommendations for Advancing Equity and Inclusion in the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works”, effort has been made over the past several years to bring awareness of the conservation profession to more diverse communities and encourage them to consider it as a career. These have been welcome opportunities and experiences to those who hadn’t previously seen space for themselves in the field. However, there has not been training offered to mentors to provide guidance on creating an inclusive environment that accounts for a more racially and culturally diverse group of professionals. While the principal target has been to increase racial and cultural diversity, intention to include gender, abilities, beliefs, socioeconomic status, and sexual orientation, among other human aspects is imperative to creating a holistically inclusive environment.

The goal of this workshop is to collaboratively work as members of this profession to improve our practices of inclusivity and belonging. Through facilitated discussions and reflection on our own experiences, we will identify the characteristics of effective mentorship and formulate recommendations for training to increase access to mentorship skills. The discussion and your feedback will help inform a series of professional development programs with the ultimate goal of training mentors to support an inclusive and supportive environment that will sustain a more diverse workforce. A summary of insights from the workshop will be shared with the AIC community at large at a later date.

Registration is open to all Annual Meeting attendees with some spots reserved for emerging professionals. Space is limited, so we ask that you only register if you plan to attend the workshop and commit to reflecting on and sharing your experiences with the group. The instructor will work to create a safe space. This is an interactive and participatory workshop. We understand that some may not feel comfortable sharing their experiences in person. If this is the case and you are uncomfortable or unable to attend the session and still wish to participate, we have provided an anonymized form in this link for you to contribute to the conversation (no registration is needed to participate in this way). The information gathered during the workshop and in this survey will be used to help inform future workshop development.