The AGU Heads and Chairs program and the American Geosciences Institute are pleased to be offering a free online webinar and discussion about best practices to recruit and retain students. Recent research has shown us that informing students about the altruistic potential of geoscience careers can be an effective strategy to broaden recruitment and engagement of students from historically marginalized communities into the geosciences.

Meet authors Elizabeth M. Griffith (Associate Professor) and W. Ashley Griffith (Associate Professor) and Steven Lower (Director and Professor) from The Ohio State University School of Geosciences who will discuss how they used this research to improve their recruitment and retention practices to increase the participation of students from communities that have been historically marginalized in the geosciences.

Additional Resources

Download the slides from this webinar

The AGU Heads and Chairs program and the American Geosciences Institute are pleased to be offering a free online webinar and discussion about building antiracist spaces in academic departments. A recent paper by Bala Chaudhary, Dartmouth University and Asmeret Berhe, University of California Merced discussed ten simple rules for building an antiracist lab. Meet the authors and discuss how you can apply these principles to create not only policies and inclusive spaces in your laboratories but in also other spaces within your department. Please join us Friday 11th February, 2022 at 1 pm Eastern Time for a stimulating conversation with the authors and other attendees from our geoscience community.

The AGU Heads and Chairs program and the American Geosciences Institute are pleased to be offering a free online webinar and discussion about the racial diversity of geoscience students. The racial diversity of geoscience undergraduates is increasing, more than for graduate students.  However, this progress is currently uneven and concentrated in relatively few departments. Please join Rachel Beane (Bowdoin College), Eric Baer (Highline College), and Vernon Morris (Arizona State University) to learn about recent student diversity trends and participate in a conversation about making our discipline more accessible, inclusive, and equitable.

Additional Resources

• Download presentation slides
• Beane, R.J., Baer, E.M.D., Lockwood, R. et al. Uneven increases in racial diversity of US geoscience undergraduates. Commun Earth Environ 2, 126 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-021-00196-6

This month's Heads and Chairs webinar will examine the issue of diversity in the geosciences.  First we will look at the data about diversity, including current trends and drivers, and challenges in effectively measuring progress.   Then there will be a look at what the geoscience societies are doing to address the challenges to making the discipline inclusive and representative and a look at some of the current steps.  Finally, as an example, AGU will discuss their new diversity initiative LANDInG.   These presentations will be followed by time for a discussion about both what is presented and the experiences department leadership are having with addressing diversity in their programs.