Creating more inclusive spaces in academia

The academia has been characterized as an “ivory tower” because of its elitism and disconnection with the reality of many communities around the world. In the case of the geosciences, it has been a discipline dominated by White males. This lack of racial/ethnic and gender diversity resulted in many cases in an unwelcoming environment. In order to transform the geosciences it is necessary that all its members act at an individual and collective levels to embrace the values of equity and inclusion necessary to create a sense of belonging for everyone.

Examine your own bias

The first step towards embracing and enacting the values of justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion is to recognize our personal biases, which many times remain hidden or unconscious. The following resources are meant to understand how bias and prejudice might limit the creation of more inclusive spaces:

• Bias tools, Stanford University
• What is bias? ADVANCEGeo Partnership

How to create inclusive spaces?

• Creating Inclusive Classrooms, Stanford University
• Creating Inclusive Workplace Climates, ADVANCEGeo Partnership
• Creating Inclusive Virtual Spaces, ADVANCEGeo Partnership
• Harassment Prevention Training, Stanford University (via Axess)
• Inclusive Spaces in the Field, ADVANCEGeo Partnership
• Inclusive Teaching, Dartmouth 
• Making Science Labs Accessible to Students with Disabilities, DO-IT

Readings

• Bernard, R. E., & Cooperdock, E. H. (2018). No progress on diversity in 40 years. Nature Geoscience, 11(5), 292-295.
• Fisher, A.J., Mendoza-Denton, R., et al., (2019). Structure and belonging: Pathways to success for underrepresented minority and women PhD students in STEM fields. PlosOne.
• Francis, W. (2019). Letter to Stanford Earth community: #StanfordEarthSoWhite Part I. The Stanford Daily Opinions.
• Green, L. (2008). ‘Indigenous Knowledge’ and ‘Science’: Reframing the Debate on Knowledge Diversity. Archaeologies, 4(1), 144-163.
• Hanson, B., Wooden, P., & Lerback, J. (2020). Age, gender, and international author networks in the Earth and space sciences: Implications for addressing implicit bias. Earth and Space Science, 7(5).
• Harrison, C. & Tanner, K.D. (2018). Language matters: Considering microaggressions in science. CBE Life Sciences Education, 17, 1-8.
• Macdonald, R. H., Beane, R. J., Baer, E. M., Eddy, P. L., Emerson, N. R., Hodder, J., ... & Ormand, C. J. (2019). Accelerating change: The power of faculty change agents to promote diversity and inclusive teaching practices. Journal of Geoscience Education, 67(4), 330-339.
• Mattheis, A., M. Murphy and E. Marín-Spiotta. (2019). Examining intersectionality and inclusivity in Geosciences Education Research: A Synthesis of the literature 2008-2018. Journal of Geoscience Education 67
• Núñez, A. M., Rivera, J., & Hallmark, T. (2020). Applying an intersectionality lens to expand equity in the geosciences. Journal of Geoscience Education, 68(2), 97-114.
• Powell, K. (2018). These labs are remarkably diverse--here's why they're winning at science. Nature, 558(7708), 19-23.

Aggregated Resources from the Geoscience community and Societies

• American Geosciences Institute DEI Community Documents
• AGU Ethics & Equity
• Geo Reading for Equity, resources and library curated for geoscientists!
• Unlearning Racism in Geoscience resources