Western Kentucky University
Western Kentucky University (WKU) is a public, comprehensive university of over 21,000 students. It is located in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and it is one of nine state-supported institutions in Kentucky's postsecondary system. The university was founded as a Normal school in 1906. Over time it evolved beyond its Teacher College roots to become, in 1966, a University with six distinct colleges. It is currently the largest four-year comprehensive university in Kentucky. The Geology program at WKU is part of the Department of Geography and Geology and WKU's Ogden College of Science and Engineering. The Department is one of the oldest at WKU with roots traceable back to WKU's early Teacher College years. The department has always had a strong connection to the cave and karst landscape of south-central, KY, including Mammoth Cave National Park; the karst resources of the region have been a major attraction and an important focus of the department's activities and its educational programs. The Department of Geography and Geology currently has 206 active majors among four programs: geography (61 majors), geology (63 majors), meteorology (70 majors) and geographic information systems (12 majors). The demographic make-up of the Department is similar to College of Science and Engineering; approximately two-thirds of the students are male and 80% of the students are white. These data differ from the University as a whole, which although predominantly white (79%), has more female undergraduate students (58%) than male students (42%).

Fort Valley State University: CDEP
Geoscience is not an available major at Fort Valley State and there is no Geology department. But participants in the Cooperative Development Energy Program (CDEP) can obtain a degree in geoscience from a partner institution in addition to a degree in Math or Chemistry from FVSU through its 3+2 dual degree transfer program. In addition, the program provides a number of support mechanisms for the participants, who are all members of underrepresented minorities or women.

El Paso Community College: SOLARIS
The SOLARIS (Student Opportunity for Learning Advanced Research In geoScience) program is aimed to increase participation, particularly for minority students, in the geosciences at El Paso Community College (EPCC). Funded by NSF's Opportunities in Enhancing Diversity in the Geosciences (OEDG) program, SOLARIS has two primary facets. First, workshops for local high school instructors and EPCC faculty provide educators with strategies to engage students with active learning techniques, information about geoscience careers, and possible degree plans through EPCC and the University of Texas El Paso (UTEP). Secondly, as a bridge between the A.S. and B.S. degrees, the program allows up to 10 EPCC geological science majors per year to conduct geological research using equipment and facilities at both EPCC and UTEP and receive mentoring by both instructors at both institutions.

Wayne State University
Support for our minority students is an integral part of both the Geology & the Environmental Science programs.

University of Arizona
The University of Arizona (UA) is located in downtown Tucson, Arizona. Tucson is the second largest city in Arizona and is situated about 100 km from the U.S.-Mexico border. Tucson has 500,000 people; the greater metro area has about 1,000,000. The population of Tucson is about 40% Hispanic or Latino, and this group is growing. For instance, in the Tucson Unified School District, Hispanics/Latinos make up about 60% of all students. The UA was founded in 1885 and was the first university in the Arizona territory (that's right, ASU). In the fall of 2013, the UA undergraduate enrollment was 31, 670 students. Approximately 39% of these students were from a minority (undifferentiated). The UA currently offers degrees in 334 fields of study. The Department of Geosciences offers undergraduate and graduate degrees. For undergrads, Geosciences has three tracks: Geology, Geophysics, and Earth Systems Science. There is also a minor in Geology. For grads, the department offers the M.S. and Ph.D. The department is ranked #1 in Geology, #7 in Earth Sciences, and #10 in Geochemistry in the most recent U.S. News and World Report national survey of graduate programs.

St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, University of Minnesota
The Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory (SAFL) is a research laboratory situated on Hennepin Island in the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Research at SAFL includes the work of many fields, including civil engineering, hydraulic engineering, hydrology, ecology, and geology. Research at SAFL has been spurred on in the first decade of the 21st century by its status as the headquarters of the National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED). SAFL and NCED have developed and support national and regional programs related to broadening participation of underrepresented groups in STEM. The St. Anthony Falls Laboratory is part of the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota. The central theme of research at St. Anthony Falls Laboratory (SAFL) is interdisciplinary fluid mechanics. Researchers at SAFL combine field experiments with physical and computational modeling, utilizing our building's unique facilities, to address emerging societal problems in energy, environmental restoration, and human and ecosystem health. They emphasize quantitative and predictive understanding of the underlying physical processes across a broad range of spatial and temporal scales. Researchers at SAFL are primarily faculty, graduate students and post-doctoral scholars affiliated with the College of Science and Engineering (primarily Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Earth Sciences) and with the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior in the College of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resource Science.

US State Dept, International Boundary and Water Commission
The USIBWC supports hiring individuals whose skill sets match our focus of work along the U.S.- Mexico border. We actively recruit on USAJOBS and with outreach to universities and our own staff. We hire many individuals with disabilities, veterans and minorities to keep a diverse pool of talent and cultures. We hire many Engineers for water, environmental and in house business operations and those in other critical skills. As part of this hiring I work with many students outside of work to help them in processing paperwork, education and teaching. My work is in the environmental field at the USIBWC but I also work with others at UTEP as I am developing a textbook on teaching the visually disabled geology. Our recruitment of those who are minorities, veterans and the disabled has increased over the last several years as we actively approach those with the skill sets to help in securing a Federal job.

Northern Virginia Community College
We are a large, multi-campus community college in the suburban fringe of a major metropolitan area (Washington, D.C.). We grant A.S. degrees in Science (among many other degrees), and so any student who intends to major in geology would first get an A.S. with us, then transfer to a four-year college for their B.S. degree in geology.

Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi
According to U.S. Census data, approximately 60% of the population in Corpus Christi was Hispanic in 2010 (most current data available). In the Fall of that year, approximately 40% of the students enrolled at TAMUCC were Hispanics (about 4,000 students). Nearly 20% of the geology majors that year were declared Hispanics; 13 students). The numbers increased for 2011 (30%) as well as 2012 (30%; 24 of the 79 geology majors). Despite the increase, these numbers clearly show, that recruitment efforts geared towards this population group need to improve. Within our department, there are also over 170 declared Environmental Sciences majors. As with Geology, approximately 30% of these students are Hispanics. Overall the Geology Program at TAMUCC has seen a substantial growth over the past 6 years (40% increase in enrollment). The program currently serves 85 majors and over 500 non-science majors (yearly). Part of the growth may reflect a regional increase in interest in the geosciences because of the Eagle Ford Shale "boom".

UNAVCO
Over the past 9 years, UNAVCO has supported 44 interns through Research Experiences in Solid Earth Science for Students (RESESS), an NSF-funded multi-year, geoscience research internship, community support, and professional development program. Upper-division students from underrepresented groups spend 11 weeks in Boulder, Colorado during the summer conducting an independent, authentic research project under the guidance of a research mentor and the support of a communications mentor. RESESS interns are also mentored and supported after the summer program, and throughout the academic year by RESESS program staff. The primary goal of the RESESS program is to increase the number of historically underrepresented students entering the geosciences. The alumni of RESESS are 55% Latino/Hispanic, 27% African American/Black, 11% Native American, and 7% Asian American. Of the 30 interns who have earned a BS or BA, 13 are enrolled in a Masters program, and 8 are currently enrolled in a doctorate program. Nine RESESS alumni are working in private industry, five of those in the geosciences.