[MARMAM] Unpaid positions in marine mammal science: a response to a response

[Alexander M. Costidis]

Dear fellow SMMers,


Watching this discussion unfold, I feel compelled to contribute. While I cannot 
help but support the open and honest exchange of ideas and philosophies, I find 
myself wholeheartedly agreeing with Phil Clapham. As someone who has both 
benefited tremendously from being unpaid labor, and also seen others benefit 
from it, I cannot in good conscience support an outright professional ban on 
such opportunities. I believe that would be a misguided broad brush stroke that 
takes away positive programs rather than creating more of them.



There is no question that the system as a whole needs to be re-examined 
carefully, but as I believe Phil alluded to, it is a structural change that is 
needed. Many (perhaps even most) organizations that are not part of a large 
university or government system simply do not have the resources to pay people 
to receive an education, which is what many internships provide. Internships in 
this business are frequently unlike veterinary or medical internships, in which 
a certain expertise and/or certification has already been acquired by the 
intern. Intern candidates often have little to no relevant experience and are 
not much different from a brand new volunteer. Some have considerable 
experience or education in other areas, but are trying new things. A 
one-size-fits-all strategy for addressing the baked-in inequities seems 
restrictive at best, as the inequities are not all one size or one shape.



Many organizations do everything they can to facilitate people's education. It 
is done as unpaid community outreach, unfunded participation in graduate 
student committees, unsupported participation in student conferences, and 
providing volunteerism and internships. Those internship opportunities are not 
charged for in the way an academic institution would charge for an education, 
despite having many similarities. Those same organizations often have staff 
that are not paid what they deserve based on their work ethic, their 
competencies, their qualifications, or their dedication. Their operations are 
often chronically underfunded on federal, municipal and institutional levels. 
All these things take a toll on staff retention, conservation effectiveness, 
etc. Perhaps because this is personal, it seems reciprocally unfair to 
categorize all organizations with blanket statements of unfairness, when many 
are already stretched thinly, with funds diluted beyond belief, trying their 
best to make a small bit of difference.



Having such organizations stop offering unpaid internships without already 
having a viable alternative to this process will likely have other unintended 
consequences, such as reduced capacity for research or conservation work. This 
will not only affect those interns who have and continue to benefit from robust 
internship programs, but will likely also impact the very animals we are all so 
passionate about helping. I would urge this passionate and vocal community to 
come together to build more opportunities, rather than suggest removal of 
pre-existing ones which have given many people the chance to course correct or 
enrich their lives. To that end, I offer up a few modest suggestions that might 
conceivably help jump start such an effort, if embraced.



1) Create consortium of organizations that offer internships. Each organization 
contributes seed money to an endowment or some other means of growing a fund to 
support financial need-based internships within the consortium. Those 
organizations can use their political and economic clout and their media 
presence to promote additional outside support. Such a consortium may also help 
with promoting successful interns toward employment opportunities within the 
consortium.



2) SMM members join to form virtual classes or thematic video shorts that can 
help address the very insightful point Phil made about reaching young people 
and infecting them with our excitement and passion, on topics so few of them 
are ever exposed to until it's too late. Many of us have been to SMM video 
night and seen the exciting whale tagging videos, gross necropsy videos, 
heartbreaking bycatch videos, etc. Those same visuals that move us, could move 
current students, form future researchers, and reach broader audiences.



3) Unified messaging (and lobbying) to government and funding agencies for 
need-based federal/national support of career training programs related to 
marine mammal science. Perhaps this could have some sort of accreditation 
process to weed out those organizations with questionable intern practices and 
questionable intern education.



4) Grant funded academic research programs that depend on free labor to run 
large programs should indeed re-examine if/how intern funding is written into 
grant proposals. It is common practice for grant budgets to have graduate 
student funds built into them, so if those projects will require intern labor, 
perhaps that should be a 

[MARMAM] Unpaid positions in marine mammal science: a response

[WIMMS]

Dear MARMAM community -

We are glad that a long overdue discussion has been initiated about the
prevalence and effect of unpaid positions in marine mammal science.
Clearly, this is a complex and challenging issue that will require input
from people from a variety of backgrounds and career stages to adequately
address the broader impacts of our field’s reliance on unpaid positions.

We support the letter

to the Society for Marine Mammalogy (SMM), drafted by Dr. Eiren Jacobson,
Chloe Malinka, and Dr. Margaret Siple and now signed by almost 700
individuals, that seeks to end unpaid positions as the status quo in our
field. By supporting this letter, we recognize that unpaid positions are
only one factor of many that need consideration in order to improve
diversity, equity, and inclusion in our field. We also recognize that many
of us have been able to advance our careers in marine mammal science as a
result of unpaid positions.

We conducted a survey on gender-specific experiences in marine mammal
science and are actively working to analyze and publish the survey results.
Of the 670 respondents (n=586 female), 549 (82%) indicated participating in
at least one unpaid work experience opportunity (e.g., an internship or
temporary position with a university, non-profit, government agency, or
independent scientist). We will explore in our publication some important
nuances of this participation and specific ways in which respondents
highlighted unpaid work as a barrier to success in marine mammal science,
but this percentage speaks to the high prevalence of unpaid work in our
field.

The aim of changing this as the status quo point of entry into our field is
not to disparage or discount individuals who have benefitted from these
opportunities, but rather to acknowledge, as Dr. Eric Archer eloquently
stated in his response on this thread
, “The voices
that we won't hear in this debate are those that didn't have those
opportunities.” We cannot deny that expecting most people to work for free
limits access to our field to those of a certain economic status, which in
the U.S. and many other countries is inextricably tied to race. Even if we
increase much-needed efforts to engage diverse young potential scientists,
we cannot expect to retain them if the only path forward relies on unpaid
work.

We also fully acknowledge that change from the status quo will not happen
instantaneously, and that the role of funding is not trivial. How change
occurs will be very different at a large institution in the U.S. compared
to a small non-profit in a low-income nation. Thus, we will need to come
together as a community to find creative and innovative ways in which we
can collectively increase the accessibility of internships and other work
experience positions and thereby increase diversity, equity, and inclusion
in marine mammal science.

Jacobsen et al. have taken an important step in giving our community an
opportunity to engage more broadly with each other, at a pivotal time, on
the impact of unpaid positions and, in turn, on other barriers to diversity
in our field. If not for this letter to the SMM, it is unlikely that these
conversations would be ongoing at this scale at this time. The women who
drafted this conversation starter are notably early-career researchers,
which makes their willingness to lead this effort especially courageous. We
would like to thank them, the letter cosignatories, and all those willing
to contribute constructively to this most important discussion.

Sincerely,

The WIMMS Initiative Organizers

Dr. Erin Ashe

Dr. Amanda Bradford

Dr. María Constanza Marchesi

Cara Gallagher

Natalie Mastick

Dr. Frances Robertson

Dr. Mridula Srinivasan

Dr. Karen Stockin

-- 
Women in Marine Mammal Science (WIMMS)
Email: womeninmm...@gmail.com
Website: https://wimms.weebly.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/womeninmmsci/
Twitter: @womeninmmsci
Hashtag: #womeninmmsci
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Re: [MARMAM] Unpaid positions in marine mammal science: a response

[Eric Archer - NOAA Federal]

I appreciate Phil Clapham's well-written opinion on unpaid positions, but
in general disagree with his conclusion that they do not represent a
significant barrier to entry to the field. I can offer my own experience as
a similar, yet counter example to Phil's. I am one of those few African
Americans that Phil can count on one hand as being involved in marine
mammal science I have been in the field for about 30 years, and I do not
know another African American in the field. That is, at least two of Phil's
fingers don't know each other.

Like Phil, I also owe my entrance to the field to a volunteer position. If
it wasn't for the generosity of Jim Mead, Charley Potter, and others at the
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, who allowed me to
volunteer there for two summers during my last two undergraduate years, I
don't know where I'd be. There were many unpaid positions that I wanted to
participate in, but there was no way I could afford the travel, lodging,
and loss of income to take them. The only reason that I could volunteer at
the Smithsonian was that my parents lived in the Washington, DC area and I
was living with them during the summer. I also took on part time summer
work, but if I had to work full time, I would never have been able to
volunteer. I knew people who did have to work more hours to help pay for
school or help their families, and they thought I was extremely lucky. I
felt extremely guilty that friends and relatives did not have the same
opportunity that I did, but vowed to not waste the opportunity I'd been
given. In short, I was only a few socio-economic rungs away from not being
able to pursue my dream. Today, Phil would need fewer fingers.

My point is this: We are all a product of the current system. We all have
benefited from somebody taking a chance on us and most of us have made
sacrifices or taken advantage of opportunities to participate in work where
we had to fund ourselves. Few of us have been paid at the start to get
those critical first few experiences or make those important first
connections. We all have been lucky. The voices that we won't hear in this
debate are those that didn't have those opportunities. How many people are
we missing from this field because they had to make a choice of doing
something to pay for school, family, or just existence rather than being
able to put it into their future?

Phil makes an excellent point about the need to expose more
underrepresented people to the field. The SMM Diversity and Inclusion
Committee is pursuing several avenues to make a closer connection between
the society and minority serving institutions and make our science more
available to a wider group of young students. However, I'm absolutely
convinced that although this is an important filter to be addressed, it
doesn't mean we shouldn't pay attention other obvious barriers like the
issue of unpaid internships.

While I don't agree with all of the demands of the Jacobsen et al letter, I
signed it because I strongly support the spirit of the initiative and want
to encourage the very discussion that we're having now. I think we can all
agree that we need to do everything we can to get as many voices to the
table as possible. Changing the way we think about unpaid internships is
one of them. Phil has outlined the harm that these changes would have to
research projects. I just wanted to add some words to voice the silent harm
experienced by people that we will never hear from.

Kind Regards,
Eric Archer

On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 8:05 AM Phil Clapham 
wrote:

> At the risk of becoming unpopular with some good folks, I have to offer a
> different perspective on unpaid positions to that given in the letter
> posted by Eiren Jacobson on 2nd July, addressed to the leadership of the
> Society for Marine Mammalogy.  The authors of the letter are of course
> correct in that unpaid positions favor those who can afford to work for
> free, and as such they exclude numerous people, including minorities.
> Maybe a few institutions do intentionally exploit younger people in this
> way.  However, for many, this situation is a simple reflection of the state
> of funding in marine mammal science.
>Many institutions - notably smaller non-profits - have a hard time
> raising enough money to pay their own staff, support basic field work, and
> keep the lights on.  If you ban advertisements of unpaid positions, you are
> depriving countless people of the only opportunity they may ever get to
> participate in marine mammal science.  I'm a good example.  When I arrived
> on Cape Cod in the fall of 1980, I volunteered at the Center for Coastal
> Studies in Provincetown.  They weren't about to pay me, a young guy with
> zero experience; no one at the institution was receiving much or any
> salary, and our research budget for the entire year was a few thousand
> dollars.  Yes, I was able to support myself (barely) for a few months.  And
> yes, that was forty years ago; but for many small 

[MARMAM] Unpaid positions in marine mammal science: a response

[Phil Clapham]

At the risk of becoming unpopular with some good folks, I have to offer a
different perspective on unpaid positions to that given in the letter
posted by Eiren Jacobson on 2nd July, addressed to the leadership of the
Society for Marine Mammalogy.  The authors of the letter are of course
correct in that unpaid positions favor those who can afford to work for
free, and as such they exclude numerous people, including minorities.
Maybe a few institutions do intentionally exploit younger people in this
way.  However, for many, this situation is a simple reflection of the state
of funding in marine mammal science.
   Many institutions - notably smaller non-profits - have a hard time
raising enough money to pay their own staff, support basic field work, and
keep the lights on.  If you ban advertisements of unpaid positions, you are
depriving countless people of the only opportunity they may ever get to
participate in marine mammal science.  I'm a good example.  When I arrived
on Cape Cod in the fall of 1980, I volunteered at the Center for Coastal
Studies in Provincetown.  They weren't about to pay me, a young guy with
zero experience; no one at the institution was receiving much or any
salary, and our research budget for the entire year was a few thousand
dollars.  Yes, I was able to support myself (barely) for a few months.  And
yes, that was forty years ago; but for many small institutions, life today
isn't radically different in terms of funding.  Indeed, these days there is
more competition for money than there was when I entered the field.
   If I had insisted on being paid, or if the student internships we later
offered were subject to a ban on advertizing, I and many other individuals
who are today well known in the field would never have had that chance to
work with a research program, and try out for themselves the idea of a
career involving study of these fascinating animals.  My wife, Dr Yulia
Ivashchenko, has a similar story: had she not volunteered for an
underfunded whale research project in Russia, she almost certainly would
not be involved in the field today.
   By accusing underfunded institutions of unethical or illegal behavior,
and depriving everyone of such opportunities just because some are
disadvantaged, you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  We'd all
like to see everyone who wants to be involved, paid and given health
insurance.  But the harsh reality of funding is that this is often not
possible.
   Funding is hard enough to come by in the US, and far more difficult in
many other countries.  Do people really want to hobble projects in the
developing world from recruiting assistance with poorly funded studies
which sometimes involve critical conservation issues?
   There is a much broader issue here which the letter does not address,
and that is the failure of society in general, and the education system in
particular, to encourage minority and other under-represented school kids
to enter science.  During the ten years or so that I directed the
internship program at the Center for Coastal Studies, we were able to offer
internship positions that included accommodation and a small stipend; it
wasn't much, but was at least sufficient to keep our interns fed during the
two or three months they spent with us.  Every year, we had anywhere from
fifty to a couple of hundred applicants for the five or six internship
slots we offered.  They were almost all undergraduates - and, tellingly,
close to 100% were white.  I suspect that many institutions offering paid
internships see a similar disparity in applicants today.
   Given that our internships were actually paid at a basic level, what
this says is that the lack of minority applicants had little to do with
financial inequities.  Rather, the problem begins much earlier than the
undergraduate level.  As the infamous Sheldon Cooper once said in an
episode of The Big Bang Theory in which they're trying to recruit more
women into science, you have to start at least in middle school.  As is
well known, girls are still often actively discouraged from pursuing STEM
careers early on, and by the time you're dealing with the university level,
as Sheldon noted, it's too late.  The same applies even more markedly to
minorities.  I've been involved in this field for forty years, and I can
probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of African-Americans
I've known who've been significantly involved in US whale or seal research.
   So yes, try harder to fund internships and other entry-level positions.
But there also needs to be a concerted effort by the Society, and by the
field in general, to reach out to schoolchildren, notably girls and
minorities, and to aggressively promote programs that encourage kids from
all backgrounds to see careers in science as achievable (and cool).  Put
bluntly, you can offer paid internships all you want, but you probably
won't see people from under-represented populations flocking to apply when
an interest