CLARK ATLANTA UNIVERSITY EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE PROGRAM ESSE21

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CLARK ATLANTA UNIVERSITYEARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE
PROGRAMESSE-21

• Diversity Working Group Meeting
• August 25, 2004
• Submitted by
• Brenda Chee Wah
• Research Associate, ESSP/CAU

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MSI Needs in the Area of Earth System Science and
STEM Education--How ESSE 21 Can Help Meet Them

• Needs
• Sustainable funding for programs over 5-10 year
  period.
• Limited number of minority faculty at
  institutions stretched to the limit in teaching,
  finding funding, mentoring, committees,
  research-tenure issues.
• Small numbers of minority geoscience faculty tend
  to cause them to work in isolation at their
  institution.

• Solutions
• Agencies must be committed to programs that are
  sustained and renewable over years, rather then
  just short term.
• Allow overtaxed faculty some incentive for
  additional work. Scientist adopt an institution.
  Supplemental payment for committee
  participation, mentoring.
• Collaborative projects with non-traditional
  collaborators--not only from traditional STEM
  faculty, but with curriculum specialists, social
  scientists, economists, political scientists--to
  recruit never-targeted student population.

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MSI Problems in the Area of Earth System Science
and STEM Education--How ESSE 21 Can Help Solve
Them

• Problems
• All agencies/programs vying for the same
  students.
• MSIs spend a considerable amount of time in
  remedial/course preparation work to prepare
  students for higher education studies.
• Students need to receive meaningful research
  experiences which encourage a developmental
  career relationship, whereby students see the
  internship or summer experience at ESS labs and
  centers as a future career.

• Solutions
• Recruit students from non-traditional sciences or
  majors.
• There is the possibility of having more peer
  tutoring, mentoring by good STEM students.
• Establish research experiences that challenge
  students to meaningful research that addresses
  problems that require a collaborative approach
  across disciplines. Agency mentors adopt a
  student and follow through for 5-7 years.

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Needs Assessment for a Successful ESS Program at
CAU

• Needs
• Academic major in ESS field.
• Additional faculty instructors and mentors.
• Funding for infrastructure development.
• Funding for student researchers.
• Increased collaboration between School of Arts
  and Sciences and School of Education.
• Significant tuition, room, board, book assistance
  for ESS students.

• Action Taken
• Physics Dept. Curriculum Committee has begun to
  develop a degree track in environmental science.
• Physics professor Lonzy Lewis has joined ESSP.
• Proposals are being prepared for NSF
  Geo-Diversity and Geo-Education, and for NASA
  Earth Explorers programs.
• Renewal proposal has been submitted for NSF REU
  program.
• Writing NSF and NASA proposals in collaboration
  with Co-PIs from School of Education
• Partial tuition assistance (1,000) available to
  NOAA EPP students

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How a Successful ESS Program at CAU Would Look

• 3-4 ESS faculty members (earth, atmospheric,
  environmental, hydrological)
• 10-20 undergraduate ESS majors
• 6-8 graduate ESS majors
• 4-6 research scientists/research associates/post
  docs
• Aggressive recruitment activities K-12, transfer
  students, REU students, graduate students
• Recruitment outreach to non-traditional students
• Comprehensive tracking of ESS graduates, former
  ESS students, and dropouts
• Long-term funded programs with lifetimes of 5-10
  years.
• Across-campus ( Morehouse, Spelman, Morris Brown
  Colleges, and senior high schools) career
  opportunity days where agencies and other
  employers can promote career activities and
  visions. Illustrate positive impact of
  employers' activities on society. Special
  invitations to faculty.
• Funding for students that is continuous and
  sustainable. Students need continuity in funding
  if they are to be retained in an academic major
  that is perceived as carrying risk.

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Prioritizing and matching MSI needs with ESSE 21

• Need for more STEM and non-traditional faculty to
  come on board. (Unless others envision this as a
  collaborative effort, the few geo-scientists will
  be drowned out)
• Work at the regional level with planning events
  and activities, so that the few can spread
  further among the MSI involve graduate students,
  researchers, science educators.
• Empower graduate students to become part of the
  effort not only giving presentations of their
  research to their peers in the sciences alone,
  but invite other interested students to hear
  presentations. If this is done with collaboration
  of other disciplines- finance, business, media
  arts, psychology, sociology, think of this
  enriched experience for all, if there is a
  component within the presentation that focus on
  other disciplines.
• Identify a common funding pool to pull for
  incentives for working and new faculty,
  researchers working to improve the ESSE
  21efforts, whether it is conference travel,
  conference registration other collaborative
  funding initiatives.

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Course of Action

• Share best and most successful practices in ESS
  programs among ESS-21 group members.
• Identification of funding for more sustainable
  programs to ensure that students who begin degree
  level ESS Programs can see them to completion.
• ESSE 21 team members can begin to dialogue with
  other sciences and non-traditional disciplines,
  to form collaboratives for attracting students,
  who did not feel that earth sciences was a
  possibility that they could explore.
• ESSE 21 team can assist in setting up at least
  one annual summer project or part-time internship
  for undergraduate students to work on an earth
  science research project at their university.
• Finding out what happens at your institution
  School of Education, how can you combine with
  other ESSE 21 team members to present some
  meaningful ways to integrate earth system science
  into math, sciences, and social studies within
  high school, or college prep summer courses.
• Create a database of Earth System Science
  scientists among the ESS-21 groups, who either
  directly teach ESS courses or have strong ESS
  components woven in to engineering, biology,
  mathematics, chemistry, physics, agriculture,
  computer sciences syllabi.