Planning Grant: From Classroom to career: Building a Culture of Access for Geoscientists with Disabilities

在地球科学领域，残疾人被视为成功职业的障碍，学位课程的文化阻碍了许多残疾人开始或继续攻读地球科学学位课程。 持有科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）学科学位的残疾人失业率也明显高于非残疾人（NCSES，2021年）。除非改变普遍存在的难以接近的文化，使残疾地球科学家的支持和成功正常化，否则许多人将继续被排除在地球科学之外。今天的残疾早期职业地球科学家是“ADA一代”的先锋，出生于1990年美国残疾人法案通过后。ADA一代不仅希望获得无障碍的学习和工作条件，他们还期望这样。随着ADA一代的成长，需要更好地描述地球科学中所有职业阶段的残疾人经历（见Kingsbury等人，2020）。还迫切需要审查残疾人身份中的偏见和种族主义。虽然访问障碍影响我们所有人，但种族主义加剧了残疾BIPOC个人所面临的偏见（例如加西亚，2019年），但很少有人知道（除了轶事证据）这对学生和地球科学专业人士的影响。该项目的领导者旨在征求来自不同背景、各个职业阶段和工作部门的地球科学家的意见，并与他们建立社区。具有不同学术经验和生活道路的残疾地球科学家意识到，残疾科学家需要的不仅仅是轶事和个人倡导来改变地球科学文化。该规划补助金的目标是促进这种文化变革，首先通过调查社区内的残疾地球科学家来确定和描述残疾人在地球科学职业道路上面临的重大障碍，然后通过国家地球科学会议附属的混合研讨会制定可以解决这些障碍的具体举措。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得支持通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估。

In the geosciences, the perception of disability as a barrier to a successful career and the inaccessible culture of degree programs discourage many people with disabilities from starting or staying in geoscience degree programs. Disabled degree-holding individuals in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) disciplines also have a significantly higher unemployment rate than their non-disabled peers (NCSES, 2021). Until there is change in the prevailing culture of inaccessibility and normalize the support and success of disabled geoscientists, there will be continued exclusion of many from the geosciences. Today’s disabled early career geoscientists are the vanguard of the ‘ADA generation’, born after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. The ADA generation doesn’t just hope for accessible learning and work conditions, they expect it. As the ADA generation comes of age, there is need of better characterization of the disabled experience in the geosciences across all career stages (see Kingsbury et al, 2020). There is also a compelling need to examine the biases and racism within the Disabled identity. While access barriers impact us all, racism compounds the biases faced by disabled BIPOC individuals (e.g. Garcia, 2019), yet little is known (outside of anecdotal evidence) about how that impacts students and career professionals in the geosciences. The leaders of this project aim to solicit input from - and build community with - geoscientists from diverse backgrounds, all career stages, and work sectors.Disabled geoscientists with diverse academic experiences and life paths are realizing disabled scientists need more than anecdotes and individual advocacy to transform the culture of geosciences. The goal of this planning grant is to facilitate this culture change by first identifying and characterizing significant barriers faced by people with disabilities on geoscience career paths by surveying disabled geoscientists within the community and then strategizing specific initiatives that could address those barriers via a hybrid workshop attached to a national geoscience conference.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.