SAGE Musings: the SAGE 2YC Project Blog

The SAGE Musings blog features posts that address topics related to supporting students' academic success, facilitating students' professional pathways in the geosciences, broadening participation in the geosciences, and catalyzing change. Although written for geoscience faculty at two-year colleges, most posts are relevant for any STEM faculty member. Check out the collection of posts and share them with your colleagues.

Blog posts were published bi-weekly from April, 2016 through October, 2019, with ad hoc blog posts added through the end of the project in 2021.


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SAGE Musings: Impostor Syndrome


Posted: Oct 17 2019 by Carol Ormand, SERC, Carleton College

The Impostor Syndrome: that persistent, pernicious feeling that you aren't really qualified for the position you find yourself in -- that sooner or later, someone is going to find out that you are a "fraud" (e.g., see references). Originally described as a phenomenon affecting high-achieving women (Clance and Imes, 1978), the impostor "syndrome" is now widely recognized as affecting men in equal numbers (Laursen, 2008). Although I've been unable to find a reference describing how prevalent the impostor phenomenon is in STEM, it appears to be fairly common, prompting one Engineering professor to write a short article entitled "Impostors Everywhere" (Felder, 1988). In any case, it affects both faculty members and students (e.g. Felder, 1988; Laursen, 2008; Campbell, 2019). Fortunately, there are effective strategies for addressing and overcoming these feelings. More

SAGE Musings: Developing Students' Science Identities in an Oceanography Course


Posted: May 30 2019 by Lynsey LeMay, Thomas Nelson Community College

A while back, at one of our SAGE gatherings, after a discussion on science identity and seeing some of Jan's scientist profiles, I knew I needed to be more intentional with introducing scientists and the diversity of career options to my students. I share lots of stories in class about days in the field and lab, and try to provide a realistic view of the life of a scientist. However, when it comes down to it, my students are seeing one White woman and her colleagues, most of whom are also White, do science. Most of my students are certainly not White women! While I'm slowly infusing science identity throughout all of the classes that I teach, I've been most successful, and most intentional, in my Oceanography course. More

SAGE Musings: 2018 Report on the Status of the Geoscience Workforce


Posted: Apr 4 2019 by Carol Ormand, SERC, Carleton College

About a decade ago, the American Geosciences Institute began publishing reports on the status of the geoscience workforce. This year's report, authored by Carolyn Wilson, is a detailed summary of trends in geoscience education and employment, with information compiled from primary data collected by AGI and from the US Government, the geoscience industry, and professional societies. If you are looking for information on the current state of the geoscience workforce and projections of geoscience employment opportunities in the near future, the 2018 Report on the Status of the Geoscience Workforce is a wealth of information. There are three topics in this year's report that I think will be of high interest to everyone involved in the SAGE 2YC project: trends in two-year college geoscience programs; trends in geoscience employment, including salary projections; and demographic data on the geoscience workforce. More

SAGE Musings: Strategies for Supporting 2YC-4YCU Transfer


Posted: Mar 21 2019 by Carol Ormand, SERC, Carleton College

Facilitating geoscience students' professional pathways is one of the key goals of the SAGE 2YC project, and one means to that end is supporting 2YC - 4YCU transfer. The National Science Foundation's GeoPaths program is extremely well-aligned with this goal. We conducted an inventory of strategies used in nine funded GeoPaths projects, several involving SAGE 2YC faculty members. Strategies to support 2YC - 4YCU transfer in the geosciences that are common across multiple projects include advising and mentoring, internships and research opportunities, providing students with career information and introducing them to geoscience professionals, aligning 2YC and 4YCU curricula, bridge programs, institutional collaborations, and financial support. While no program has all of these elements, each of the programs we inventoried uses multiple strategies. Here are a few examples of how each of these strategies is implemented. More

SAGE Musings: Geoscience Career Resources on the SAGE 2YC Website


Posted: Mar 7 2019 by Carol Ormand, SERC, Carleton College

When I was a faculty member, I gave very little thought to teaching my students about geoscience careers. I suppose I thought -- to the extent that I thought about it at all -- that if they enjoyed my course enough, they would choose to major in geoscience, would earn their Bachelors degree in it, and would then do what I did: go to graduate school. If I were teaching now, I would take a very different approach. There are a wide array of careers available to people with degrees in geoscience; it seems to me that I could find a geoscience career option that would appeal to almost anyone. Moreover, there are geoscience careers available to people with any college degree, including an Associates degree. If you would like to include information about geoscience careers in your courses, check out the SAGE 2YC web pages on providing geoscience career information to your students. More

SAGE Musings: Selected NSF Programs of Interest to 2YC Faculty


Posted: Feb 7 2019 by Carol Ormand, SERC, Carleton College

As the SAGE 2YC: Faculty as Change Agents project comes to a close, many of the faculty members involved in the project have expressed an interest in obtaining funding the support the continuation of their work. That's wonderful! We would like to see this work continue, too. Furthermore, the goals of the SAGE 2YC project are of high interest in higher education right now: supporting the academic success of all students, broadening participation in the geosciences and in STEM, and promoting students' professional pathways. In many cases, continuing the work of the SAGE 2YC project -- especially on your own campus -- won't require any funding, or can be supported by internal funding from your institution. But if what you envision requires a significant influx of funding, there are NSF programs that might be of interest. Here are a few to consider, listed in alphabetical order. Each of the descriptions below is taken verbatim from the National Science Foundation (NSF) website. More

SAGE Musings: Addressing Implicit Bias in STEM


Posted: Nov 29 2018 by Carol Ormand, SERC, Carleton College

Implicit biases are unconscious, negative associations or stereotypes. As I described in my last SAGE Musing, implicit bias is pervasive in STEM, profoundly impacting the experiences of anyone who belongs to groups that are underrepresented in the STEM disciplines. Moreover, being a member of an underrepresented group does not make one immune to these biases; we ALL have them (Ashburn-Nardo, 2018). Fortunately, there are evidence-based strategies and resources we can all use to identify and mitigate implicit biases. In October, 2018, I attended a series of four webinars, produced by the CIRTL network, about implicit biases. In this Musing, I highlight strategies to identify and address implicit biases. More

SAGE Musings: Implicit Bias in STEM


Posted: Nov 8 2018 by Carol Ormand, SERC, Carleton College

Unconscious, negative associations or stereotypes are called implicit biases. Extensive research has documented that implicit bias is pervasive in STEM, that it negatively impacts the participation and success of people who belong to demographic groups underrepresented in STEM (women, underrepresented minorities, people with disabilities, and others), and that even those of us who belong to underrepresented groups have implicit biases. Fortunately, there are evidence-based strategies and resources we can all use to identify and mitigate implicit biases. In October, 2018, I attended a series of four webinars, produced by the CIRTL network, about implicit biases. This Musing outlines how pervasive implicit biases are in STEM; I'll follow up with a future Musing about how to identify and address implicit biases. More

SAGE Musings: Highlights from a Field Safety Course


Posted: Jun 7 2018 by Kristie Bradford, Lone Star College – Tomball

I am writing this Musing about the Field Leadership Safety course I took the Friday and Saturday before the Geological Society of America meeting in Seattle. I took this course for two reasons: 1. I really want to make sure that my field trips are as safe as possible, and 2. I am working to create a field course to the Florida Keys, so I figured taking a field safety course was in my best interest!

The book on which the course was based is Field Safety in Uncontrolled Environments: A Process-Based Guidebook, written by Stephen R. Oliveri and Kevin Bohacs and published by AAPG (the American Association of Petroleum Geologists). Kevin Bohacs ran the course and I must say he is a brilliant instructor! Very knowledgeable and really quite funny! Take the course in Indianapolis next year if they offer it! More

SAGE Musings: Fostering A Broader Network of Geoscientists Through Career Mentoring Workshops


Posted: May 24 2018 by Karen Layou, Reynolds Community College

One strategy of the Virginia Change Agent team is to leverage currently existing opportunities for geoscientists across the state to advance the broader goals of the SAGE 2YC: Faculty as Change Agents project. Each year, the Virginia Geological Field Conference (VGFC) provides an opportunity for geoscientists to come together to do what we love—get out and see the rocks while discussing some of the latest research on the various physiographic provinces of Virginia. Traditionally, conference attendants are primarily academic and professional geologists, with a few graduate students, and even fewer undergraduates thrown in the mix. In recent years, members of the Virginia Change Agent team have served as leaders of the field conference, and have begun to encourage their two-year college students to participate. This is a fantastic chance for two-year college students to not only interact with other two-year and four-year college students, but also to network with a variety of geoscientists and to see how geology works in the field. More

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