Diversity & Inclusion at the FDA

In getting more involved, I have been surprised by the efforts of the FDA to make everyone feel welcome in the work environment. This past week, I was made aware that the FDA has a quarterly “Diversity and Inclusion” magazine that they send out to the entire organization. One of the things that really caught my eye was their “Lunch & Learn” series. In this, they basically have a group of people get together for lunch on every other week and just talk about their differences. Different people from different backgrounds coming together to try to better understand other perspectives is something that I think is beautiful. It is also incredibly rare. To see this opportunity being presented really touched me. I even decided to tell my parents and some of my friends at school about it because I was so surprised. I think that one of the biggest problems in society today is that people make a lot of generalizations based on things they think they know rather than trying to research to get to the heart of the problem. Seeing them make such a big effort to get people to understand each other is awesome to me.

This week I also got to hang out with my department as they threw their yearly picnic. I think we only have about 30 people and about 20 came out to the picnic for lunch with us. I thought it was cool to see everyone in a much more relaxed context, talking not just about work and responsibilities, but family and social issues. One person even heard I was from the University of Richmond and, having a friend who attended UR 10 years ago, asked me how race relations have improved on campus and what steps are being taken to make sure everyone feels welcome. He noted that in getting a better understanding of everyone in the workplace, it helped their communication and even increased their productivity. This was very inspiring to me because it helped reassure me that inclusivity really can happen if it is a focus of an organization and the people are dedicated to change. I hope to be in work environments similar to these in my future.