GP-EXTRA: Recruiting and Retaining Non-geoscience Minority STEM Majors for the Geoscience Workforce

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) have long been the bedrock on which American ingenuity, innovation, advancement, and competitive edge are built. Collectively, these disciplines have been the engine that has powered American economic prosperity, strength, and global leadership for almost all of the last century. Unfortunately, a plethora of recent, reputable studies have highlighted and drawn national attention to the alarming erosion of the STEM bedrock and to the steady decline in the power output and the efficiency of the STEM engine. There is now national consensus that the nation is in the midst of a STEM crisis, a crisis so dire that even national security is being jeopardized. Studies show that among the STEM disciplines, the crisis is most acute within the geosciences. The geosciences primarily have the following threefold problem: 1. Despite projections indicating that due to anticipated geoscience demands the future geoscience workforce will grow at above average rates and despite estimates that the turnover rate due to retirements will be significant, there will be major workforce shortfalls due to the woefully insufficient rate at which new geoscientists join the ranks of the geoscience workforce. Shortfalls of about 135,000 geoscientists by 2022 have been predicted; 2. The geoscience academic pipeline is not only leaking, but it is also clogged. Only a small number of students at the tertiary level are retained, pursue, and earn geoscience degrees. Moreover, most high school programs do not require students to take geoscience courses as a criteria for graduation. To compound the problem, unlike other STEM disciplines, the geosciences do not have a clear, unambiguous, definite academic corridor/pathway for growth and degree attainment that shepherds students from high school to graduate school and onto the geoscience workforce, and 3. The geosciences lack both ethnic and gender diversity - pools of potential geoscientists remain untapped and underdeveloped yet available and accessible. It is quite evident that among the geosciences' threefold problem outlined above, point #2 exacerbates point #1, while point #3 ameliorates point #1.Despite these ills, one of the major strengths of the geosciences is their interdisciplinary nature. This key characteristic allows students from a wide-range of STEM disciplines to have multiple entry points through which they may engage with the geosciences and even become geoscience majors. It is this unique asset of the geosciences that this project is built upon as it seeks to redress the problems of the current and future state of the geosciences. This project supports the progress of science by helping to prepare a future STEM workforce that reflects the diversity of the nation. The New York City College of Technology (City Tech)of the City University of New York (CUNY) system, plays an important role nationally in the education of future scientists, engineers, technologists, and mathematicians. City Tech is a federally designated Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) of more than 17,300 students, who have identified themselves as Black (31%), Hispanic (35.6%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (20.6%), among other categories. This diverse student population offers a talented pool of students to recruit into STEM education and career pathways. Although City Tech does not currently have a geoscience department (one is being planned) and, therefore, does not offer a terminal geoscience degree, this minority-serving institution (with its limited set of geoscience offerings) is aiding in the amelioration of the geoscience workforce plight by creating and sustaining a two-year geoscience workforce preparation and geoscience career mentoring program for non-geoscience minority STEM students beginning at the critical juncture of their junior year. This juncture is chosen because at this stage of their academic development, these STEM students would have already acquired a comprehensive enough set of STEM skills that are transferrable to geoscience workforce operations. This cohort of rising STEM juniors is, therefore, a ready and available pool of geoscience trainees with the potential to become part of the future geoscience workforce. Guided within the two-year framework of a comprehensive geoscience workforce model that equips them for and exposes them to transformative geoscience courses, career opportunities, explorations, and engagements, these students' prior STEM knowledge will be integrated and enhanced with the skills and competencies (critical thinking and problem-solving skills, spatial and temporal abilities, strong quantitative skills, and the ability to work in teams) that are essential for the geoscience workforce. Since geoscience is interdisciplinary in nature, is primarily a "discovery major" at the undergraduate level, and has multiple entry points into the field, this proposed geoscience workforce model is well-suited for City Tech students. The City Tech geoscience workforce program is designed with the following two primary goals: 1) to create a geoscience workforce pathway for non-geoscience minority STEM majors; and 2) to develop geoscience career-aligned collaboration via geoscience industry mentoring. Each year, the program will recruit twelve students to participate in its structured geoscience workforce model that consists of geoscience - Exposure, Preparation, Apprenticeship, and Experience (EPA-E). The students will not only be supported with cohort-building activities, but they will also participate in two geoscience internship programs that will equip them with geoscience knowledge and workforce skills, summer internships at a federal, local, or private geoscience facility, mentoring by geoscience practitioners, and networking opportunities with geoscience companies and geoscience professional societies. Interships are being offered in collaboration with the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, the US Environmental Protection Agency (Region 2), NOAA's Climate and Weather Prediction Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, and Partner Engineering and Science. The expectation through this initiative is that many underrepresented minority (URM) students who would otherwise not pursue a geoscience career may now choose to follow a geoscience corridor that could not only lead to lucrative geoscience careers, but could also help to diversify the geosciences and simultaneously help to ameliorate the nation's grave geoscience workforce dilemma. This initiative will also serve as a model of how institutions without terminal geoscience degrees may yet positively impact both geoscience education and geoscience employment.