Broadening Participation of Minorities in the Geoscience Workforce in the Absence of a Geoscience Department
Oral Session Part of
Monday B: Geoscience Workforce Development: University and K-12
Authors
Janet Liou-Mark, CUNY New York City College of Technology
Reggie Blake, CUNY New York City College of Technology
Hamidreza Norouzi, CUNY New York City College of Technology
Viviana Vladutescu, CUNY City College
Laura Yuen-Lau, CUNY New York City College of Technology
Although the shortfall in the geoscience workforce through 2024 has been reduced from 135,00 to about 90,000, and although there has been increasing enrollment and graduation trends from geoscience programs nation-wide, there is still an urgent need to find alternative pathways to increase the geoscience workforce pipeline. A minority-serving technical college in the Northeast, without an environmental science department, is piloting a model to recruit underrepresented minorities majoring in a STEM discipline who are interested in the geosciences and to intentionally train them for the geoscience workforce. The Exposure, Preparation, Apprenticeship, and Experience (EPAE) model proposes key program activities necessary to produce well equip and knowledgeable undergraduates for the geoscience workforce through an undergraduate research program and a geoscience internship experience. The project is supported by NSF IUSE GEOPATH grant #1540721.