| NSF Org: |
RISE Integrative and Collaborative Education and Research (ICER) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 23, 2021 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 23, 2021 |
| Award Number: | 2136010 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Brandon Jones
mbjones@nsf.gov (703)292-4713 RISE Integrative and Collaborative Education and Research (ICER) GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | October 1, 2021 |
| End Date: | September 30, 2023 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $41,819.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $41,819.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
155 S PLEASANT ST AMHERST MA US 01002-2234 (413)542-2804 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
155 South Pleasant Street Amherst MA US 01002-5000 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | GOLD-GEO Opps LeadersDiversity |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
In 1972, geoscientist Dr. Randolph Bromery chaired the ?First National Conference on Minority Participation in Earth Science and Mineral Engineering?, a gathering of more than 300 representatives of academia, industry, government, and civil rights organizations. The goal of the conference was to broaden participation and support the success of Black, Native, and Latinx geoscientists. Despite this goal, the geoscience community remains a long way from achieving the level of diversity needed to tackle some of the nation?s most pressing environmental challenges. This project will develop a scholarly, community-driven, forward-looking roadmap that institutions, funding agencies, industry, and the public can use to contribute to the universally beneficial goal of broadening participation in the geosciences over the next half century. Training a diverse cohort of geoscientists is essential to meeting the growing demands for a robust geoscience workforce that can address the societal challenges posed by natural hazards, global change, and energy in the 21st century. However, historical efforts to advance this goal have been ignored or forgotten among most geoscientists, the scientific community, and the broader public. To make substantive and lasting demographic change in the geosciences, the research community must understand past efforts to advance justice and use them to inform new ways forward and to establish mechanisms for accountability over the next fifty years. To develop the roadmap report, this project will first convene the geoscience community at a ?Second National Conference? to examine the past fifty years of efforts to advance broadening participation in the geosciences. Following the convening, the project will form a group of twenty early-career geoscientists that will co-author and deliver the roadmap report. This project has a novel approach as early-career scholars usually are not in the leading role of such large community-wide efforts. The project leads and the twenty-person writing team will be early career professionals. If successful, this project will provide the new and innovative ways forward towards achieving more justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in the geosciences.
This project advances a radically new strategy, centered on brave leadership, to achieve broadening participation goals in the geoscience community. By drawing on tenets of Black studies and other frameworks from social science and humanities, this project will take a novel, interdisciplinary approach and establish evidence and experience-based strategies for broadening participation that expand the understanding of the history, current state, and future of geoscience. To ensure that progress is made on reaching the goals for broadening participation in the coming decades, the geoscience community needs a roadmap that will provide checkpoints, strategies, and accountability. To create this roadmap, principal investigators (PIs) will (1) convene a conference with participation from stakeholders, representatives, and leaders across academia, industry, professional organizations, and government agencies. Participants will reflect on past efforts to advance JEDI goals and cultivate partnerships to support new institutional and community goals. Then, PIs will (2) identify a team of twenty early-career leaders to develop ?The 2072 Report?. Developing the report will be a unique professional development experience that will equip the next generation of geoscience leaders with tools, frameworks, and partnerships necessary for making lasting change in the field. This project has a novel approach as early-career scholars usually are not in the leading role of such large community-wide efforts. The project leads and the twenty-person writing team will be early career professionals. If successful, this project will provide the new and innovative ways forward towards achieving more justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in the geosciences. A primary outcome of this work will be the co-creation of a community-driven framework for achieving a just, diverse, and equitable geoscience community. It will include best practices, tools, and ideas for broadening participation; checkpoints and goals that will keep the community on track; and strategies for ensuring accountability over the next fifty years. This roadmap will provide the geoscience community with direct opportunities for reflection on what can be achieved in two years, what is feasible in a five- or ten-year strategic plan, and how those components can provide building blocks towards fundamental, sustainable, systemic change. Another outcome will be the establishment of a cohort of early-career geoscientists who are committed to dedicating their careers to transforming the geoscience landscape while they pursue academic positions. This will encourage novel and interdisciplinary research directions across geosciences.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
This award provided the funding for the PI to co-organize and travel to the Second National Conference on Justice in Geoscience (SNC). This award was part of a larger collaborative project that funded the SNC, which brought together a broad, interdisciplinary group of geoscientists and scholars working towards broadening participation in geoscience. By drawing on and leveraging frameworks from social science and humanities, the SNC transcended disciplinary boundaries and established evidence-based strategies for broadening participation that will be synthesized into a white paper that can serve as a community-driven roadmap towards the goal of broadening participation in geoscience over the next several decades. This gathering, which was co-funded and sponsored by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) -- along with other funding foundations, non-profits, and academic institutions -- was held at AGU headquarters in Washington, DC in the summer of 2022. The conference had over 200 in-person and over 80 virtual attendees. 55 in-person scientific sessions and 21 virtual sessions were held using five distinct session formats: reading seminars, workshops, arts and creative sessions, action labs, and question-driven sessions. This award funded a single PIs summer salary and travel. The lead proposal in this collaborative project (NSF #2230755) is not yet completed due to a no-cost extension, so the final products of the SNC will be reported on in the outcomes report for that award. The white paper is currently being written by a writing team, most of whom attended the SNC. A manuscript on the conference organization and outcomes is currently being prepared, for an expected submission to a peer-reviewed journal in 2024. Two presentations and a community town-hall were held at AGU 2022, disseminating the outcomes of this conference:
- Bernard, Rachel E., Raquel Bryant, and Benjamin Andrew Keisling. "The Second National Conference: Community Reflections on Past, Present, and Future." Fall Meeting 2022. AGU, 2022.
- Keisling, Benjamin Andrew, Raquel Bryant, and Rachel E. Bernard. "a rift in space and time: honoring the legacy of the first national conference." AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts. Vol. 2022. 2022.
- Keisling, Benjamin Andrew, Raquel Bryant, and Rachel E. Bernard. "Sharing geoscience's distinct legacy of broadening participation at the Second National Conference." AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts. Vol. 2022.
Last Modified: 01/09/2024
Modified by: Rachel E Bernard
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