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

长期以来，科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）一直是美国创造力、创新、进步和竞争优势的基石。总的来说，这些学科在上个世纪几乎整个时期都是推动美国经济繁荣、实力和全球领导地位的引擎。不幸的是，最近大量有信誉的研究强调并引起了全国对STEM基岩的惊人侵蚀以及STEM发动机功率输出和效率的稳步下降的关注。现在全国一致认为，美国正处于一场STEM危机之中，这场危机如此可怕，甚至连国家安全都受到了威胁。研究表明，在STEM学科中，地球科学领域的危机最为严重。地球科学主要有以下三个方面的问题：1。尽管预测表明，由于预期的地球科学需求，未来的地球科学劳动力将以高于平均水平的速度增长，尽管估计由于退休导致的流动率将会很高，但由于新地球科学家加入地球科学劳动力队伍的比例严重不足，将会出现重大的劳动力短缺。据预测，到2022年，地球科学家缺口约为13.5万名；2. 地球科学的学术管道不仅在泄漏，而且还在堵塞。在高等教育阶段，只有少数学生被保留下来，继续攻读并获得地球科学学位。此外，大多数高中课程并不要求学生参加地球科学课程作为毕业标准。更复杂的是，与其他STEM学科不同，地球科学没有一个清晰、明确、明确的学术走廊/成长和学位获得途径，引导学生从高中到研究生院并进入地球科学工作队伍。地球科学既缺乏种族多样性，也缺乏性别多样性——潜在的地球科学家群体仍未被开发和开发，但它们是可用的和可利用的。很明显，在上面概述的地球科学的三重问题中，第2点加剧了第1点，而第3点改善了第1点。尽管存在这些弊病，但地球科学的主要优势之一是它们的跨学科性质。这一关键特点使来自广泛STEM学科的学生有多个切入点，他们可以通过这些切入点从事地球科学，甚至成为地球科学专业的学生。这是地球科学的独特资产，这个项目是建立在它试图纠正地球科学的当前和未来的状态的问题。该项目通过帮助培养反映国家多样性的未来STEM劳动力来支持科学进步。纽约城市大学（CUNY）系统下的纽约城市技术学院（City Tech）在培养未来的科学家、工程师、技术专家和数学家方面在全国发挥着重要作用。城市科技是一所联邦政府指定的西班牙裔服务机构（HSI），有超过17300名学生，他们认为自己是黑人（31%），西班牙裔（35.6%）和亚洲/太平洋岛民（20.6%），以及其他类别。这种多样化的学生群体为STEM教育和职业发展提供了人才储备。虽然城市科技目前没有地球科学系（一个正在计划中），因此不提供终极地球科学学位，这个为少数族裔服务的机构（拥有有限的地球科学课程）正在帮助改善地球科学劳动力的困境，为非地球科学少数族裔STEM学生创建并维持为期两年的地球科学劳动力准备和地球科学职业指导计划，从他们大三的关键时刻开始。选择这个节点是因为在他们学术发展的这个阶段，这些STEM学生已经获得了一套足够全面的STEM技能，这些技能可以转移到地球科学工作人员的操作中。因此，这批正在崛起的STEM大三学生是一群现成的、可用的地球科学培训生，有潜力成为未来地球科学劳动力的一部分。在为期两年的全面地球科学劳动力模型框架的指导下，这些学生将装备他们并使他们接触到变革性的地球科学课程，职业机会，探索和参与，这些学生先前的STEM知识将与技能和能力(批判性思维和解决问题的能力，空间和时间能力，强大的定量分析技能，以及团队合作的能力，这对地球科学工作者来说是必不可少的。由于地球科学本质上是跨学科的，主要是本科阶段的“探索专业”，并且有多个进入该领域的切入点，因此提出的地球科学劳动力模型非常适合城市理工学院的学生。城市科技地球科学劳动力计划的设计有以下两个主要目标：1)为非地球科学少数族裔STEM专业的学生创建地球科学劳动力途径；2)通过地学行业指导发展地学职业合作。每年，该计划将招收12名学生参加其结构化的地球科学劳动力模型，该模型由地球科学-接触，准备，学徒和经验（EPA-E）组成。学生们不仅将得到队伍建设活动的支持，还将参加两个地球科学实习项目，这将使他们具备地球科学知识和劳动力技能，在联邦、地方或私人地球科学机构进行暑期实习，得到地球科学从业者的指导，并有机会与地球科学公司和地球科学专业协会建立联系。实习机会将与纽约市环境保护部、美国环境保护局（第二区）、美国国家海洋和大气管理局气候和天气预报中心、布鲁克海文国家实验室、卡里生态系统研究所以及合作伙伴工程和科学合作提供。通过这一举措的期望是，许多不愿从事地球科学职业的少数族裔（URM）学生现在可能会选择地球科学走廊，这不仅可以带来利润丰厚的地球科学职业，还可以帮助地球科学多样化，同时有助于改善国家严重的地球科学劳动力困境。这一举措还将成为一个榜样，说明没有最终地球科学学位的机构如何对地球科学教育和地球科学就业产生积极影响。

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.