The AGU Heads and Chairs program and the American Geosciences Institute are pleased to be offering a free online webinar and discussion about career preparation for students. Our speakers for this month's webinar are:

• Dana Thomas, Ph.D., Coordinator for College Transition, Student Success, and Learning Experiences, Jackson School of Geosciences, UT Austin
• Corey Garza, Ph.D., Professor in the Department of Marine Science at California State University, Monterey Bay
• Barbara Bruno, Ph.D., Faculty Specialist at the Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, University of Hawai'i, Manoa

Dana Thomas will be discussing the GeoFORCE program and high school transitions to college. Corey Garza will be discussing bridge programs and professional development for students to help guide them in their next steps in their geoscience career, and Barb Bruno will be discussing how students have been using individual development plans to map their careers. Please come prepared to share your own experiences, suggestions, and challenges as this session provides an opportunity for the community to share experiences and discuss strategies.

Additional Resources

• Download Barb Bruno's presentation
• Download Corey Garza's presentation
• Download Dana Thomas' presentation

The AGU Heads and Chairs program and the American Geosciences Institute are pleased to be offering a free online webinar and discussion about assessing program reforms. We are pleased to have Jennifer Roberts, Department Chair at the University of Kansas and Dallas Rhodes, Professor Emeritus, Georgia Southern University as our presenters for this month's webinar. Our presenters will be discussing their experiences in assessing program changes they have implemented, the challenges, and successful approaches that meaningfully support program reform.

Continue the exploration of key topics from the Vision and Change report with a discussion lead by James Kubicki and Hugo Gutierrez-Jurado of the University of Texas at El Paso about their experiences in implementing curricular reform. Please come prepared to share your own experiences, suggestions, and challenges as this session provides an opportunity for the community to share experiences and discuss strategies.

Additional Resources

• Download the presentation slides

Join Kate Miller (University of Wyoming) and Jeff Ryan (University of South Florida) to learn more about how the soon-to-be released Vision and Change in the Geosciences report identifies as essential geoscience concepts, essential geoscience skills and competencies at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Additional Resources

• Download Kate Miller's presentation
• Download Jeff Ryan's presentation

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.

Are you looking for ways to improve your undergraduate geoscience program? What tools and strategies can you use to identify where your program is succeeding and where it needs your attention? At many institutions of higher education, program assessment and review is required, and can be seen as a chore or busywork. But the data that goes into a program assessment can give you insight into your students, highlight your strengths and successes, and help focus your efforts to improve. In this webinar, we will approach the idea of program assessment starting with skills and concepts that are important to the geosciences, and consider the ways you can make use of community resources in program assessments that both help strengthen your program and meet the requirements of your institution. This webinar is designed for any department chair, program director, assessment coordinator, or instructor who is interested in collecting and using data to guide decisions about program improvements.

The webinar panelists are:

• Karen Viskupic, Assistant Professor, Department of Geoscience, Boise State University and President of National Association of Geoscience Teachers
• Anne Egger, Associate Professor, Geological Sciences and Science Education at Central Washington University and the Executive Director of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers

Additional Resources

Download the slides from this webinar

A discussion about the current state of the geoscience workforce and what the most recent data is indicating about emerging trends in skills, employment, and investment in the geosciences. The discussion will also include a look at the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on geoscience workplace and instructional environments based on data from AGI's Geoscience COVID-19 Survey. This discussion will be led by AGI's Workforce Program. Funding for this survey project is provided by the National Science Foundation (Award #2029570). The results and interpretation of the survey are the views of the American Geosciences Institute and not those of the National Science Foundation.

Additional Resources

• Download the slides from this webinar

Additional Resources

• Download the slides from this presentation
• International Association for Geoscience Diversity website
• Atchison, C.L., Parker, W.G., Riggs, N.R., Semken, S., and Whitmeyer, S.J., (2019). Accessibility and inclusion in the field: A field guide for central Arizona and Petrified Forest National Park, In Pearthree, P.A., ed., GSA 2019 Phoenix Field Guides: Geological Society of America Field Guide 55, 1–23, DOI: 10.1130/2019.0055(02).
• Atchison, C. L., Marshall, A.M, & and Collins, T., (2019). A multiple case study of inclusive learning communities enabling active participation in geoscience field courses for students with physical disabilities. Journal of Geoscience Ed. DOI: 10.1080/10899995.2019.1600962.
• Carabajal, I.G., Marshall, A.M., & Atchison, C.L. (2017).  A synthesis of access and inclusion in geoscience education literature.  Journal of Geoscience Education, 65, 531-541. DOI: 10.5408/16-211.1.
• Feig, A., Atchison, C.L., Stokes, A., & Gilley, B. (2019). Achieving inclusive field-based education: Results and recommendations from an accessible geoscience field trip. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 19(2), 66-87. DOI: 10.14434/josotl.v19i1.23455.
• Gilley, B.H., Atchison, C.L., Feig, A. & Stokes, A. (2015).  Impact of inclusive field trips.  Nature Geoscience, 8, 579-580.  DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2500
• Greene, S., Ashley, K., Dunne, E., Edgar, K., Giles, S., Hanson, E., (2020). Toilet stops in the field: An educational primer and recommended best practices for field-based teaching. DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/gnhj2
• Hendricks, J.E., Atchison, C.L., & Feig, A.D. (2017). Effective use of personal assistants for students with disabilities: Lessons learned from the 2014 accessible geoscience field trip. Journal of Geoscience Education, 65(1), 72-80.  DOI: 10.5408/16-185.1.
• Marshall, A & Thatcher, S., (2019). Creating Spaces for Geoscientists with Disabilities to Thrive. Eos, 100, DOI: 10.1029/2019EO136434.
• Designing Remote Field Experiences webpage
  
  
   

This webinar and discussion session presents data and research about the role of typical admissions criteria and practices in maintaining racial/ethnic inequalities in graduate education. Suitable for a wide variety of audiences, practical strategies for rethinking typical admissions criteria and processes are introduced, with a focus on equity-based holistic review and embedding attention to equity throughout the admissions and recruitment process. All aspects of this session are rooted in current research. Participants will learn how common admissions mindsets & practices tend to inhibit access for underrepresented groups, and they will be introduced to strategies to improve diversity & equity through holistic review processes.

Our panelists are:

• Julie Posselt, Associate Professor of higher education in the USC Rossier School of Education. Julie was a 2015-2017 National Academy of Education / Spencer Foundation postdoctoral research fellow.
• Casey Miller, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Affairs and Professor in the College of Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Both Julie and Casey are part of the leadership team for the Inclusive Graduate Education Network project.

Background

The Roundtable has launched a working group focused on departmental and disciplinary approaches to open activities. This webinar, led by the coordinators of the working group, will discuss what NASEM has learned about current and prospective plans for increasing the open sharing of research outputs within geoscience departments.  The session will also explore possibilities for coordinated disciplinary action - for example, adopting common language about open activities in job postings, annual reports, and (potentially) tenure & promotion procedures. Finally, the webinar speakers will share thoughts on engaging productively with institutional leadership (e.g., provosts, VPRs) to ensure that departmental policies are aligned with institutional policies.

Speakers

The two speakers are Greg Tananbaum and Loretta Parham.  Greg Tananbaum is the founder and coordinator of the Open Research Funders Group, a partnership of philanthropies committed to the open sharing of research outputs. Loretta Parham is CEO & Library Director of the Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center, Inc., an independent entity operating as the single library shared by its four member institutions.

Additional Resources

• Download the slides from this presentation