Supporting Minority Students at Metropolitan State University part of Integrate:Program Design:Increase Diversity:Supporting Minority Students
Information for this profile was provided by Julie Maxson, Metropolitan State University. Information is also available on the program website. Jump Down To: Context | Keys to Success | Attracting New Students | ...

Supporting Minority Students at Wayne State University part of Integrate:Program Design:Increase Diversity:Supporting Minority Students
Support for our minority students is an integral part of both the Geology & the Environmental Science programs.

Supporting Minority Students at Purdue University-Main Campus part of Integrate:Program Design:Increase Diversity:Supporting Minority Students
The majority of undergraduate students at Purdue University are from Indiana (57%) or surrounding states in the mid-west. Also, international students make up 17% of the undergraduate enrollment. The mid-western states have the lowest percentage of minority population of any region in the United States. Below are some statistics (2013-14) for undergraduate enrollment of the university. Purdue undergraduate enrollment: Male 16,843 (57.2%) Female 12,597 (42.8%) Purdue undergraduate minority enrollment: 16% of all undergraduates 19.4% of all U.S. undergraduates Purdue undergraduate underrepresented minority (URM) enrollment: 8.5% of all undergraduates 10.2% of all U.S. undergraduates Within Purdue's College of Science, there are 3319 undergraduates of which 2164 (65.2%) are male and 1155 (34.8%) are female. Demographic data for the Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) department are shown below: EAPS undergraduate majors (2013-14) Male 70 (60.9%) Female 45 (39.1%) International students 12 (10.4%) Minority students 13 (11.3%) There are six undergraduate major programs within EAPS: Atmospheric Science/Meteorology, Geology and Geophysics, Environmental Geoscience, Planetary Science, Earth and Space Science Education, and Interdisciplinary Science (joint with other departments in the College of Science). The EAPS department was founded in 1967 in order to increase the coverage of science programs within the College of Science, provide degree programs in Earth and atmospheric sciences, and in recognition of the significance of the geosciences to societal issues into the future. The department was originally named the Department of Geosciences. The name was subsequently changed to the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and then to the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences. There has been significant change in the EAPS demographics in the past 5 years. The percentage of female undergraduate students has increased from 27.2% in 2009-10 to 39.1% in 2013-14. Similarly, the percentage of international students has increased from 4.4% to 10.4%, and the percentage of minority students has increased from 5.2% to 11.3% in the same time period.

Supporting Minority Students at St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, University of Minnesota part of Integrate:Program Design:Increase Diversity:Supporting Minority Students
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.

Supporting Minority Students at University of Minnesota-Twin Cities part of Integrate:Program Design:Increase Diversity:Supporting Minority Students
LacCore, the National Lacustrine Core Facility, and the various students with whom we work in REU (NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates), UROP (UMN Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program), and other research programs and internships. "Diverse" in our case may refer to underrepresented minority students (with a focus on Native Americans in some of our projects, including those described by Diana Dalbotten in her parallel essay), disabled, veterans, women, and nontraditional students. Our REU and other interns come from a wide variety of US institutions.

Supporting Minority Students at Western Kentucky University part of Integrate:Program Design:Increase Diversity:Supporting Minority Students
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%).

Supporting Minority Students at US State Dept, International Boundary and Water Commission part of Integrate:Program Design:Increase Diversity:Supporting Minority Students
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.

Supporting Minority Students at Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi part of Integrate:Program Design:Increase Diversity:Supporting Minority Students
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".

Supporting Minority Students at UNAVCO part of Integrate:Program Design:Increase Diversity:Supporting Minority Students
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.

Supporting Minority Students at CUAHSI part of Integrate:Program Design:Increase Diversity:Supporting Minority Students
CUAHSI is a university consortium of over 100 public and private US universities, and over 20 international and affiliate members. CUAHSI provides research and education support services for the University Water Research community. As part of this, CUAHSI operates a Water Data Center facility, to enable and promote access, discovery and use of water data for research and education. The CUAHSI WDC has a new outreach program that is focusing on engaging tribal colleges. We are specifically focusing on supporting tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) to use water data services as part of natural resources and hydrologic curricula offered by many of these colleges. Most, if not all, tribal governments have natural resource agencies for administering tribal lands, so such data skills can lead to careers with tribal governments as well as being highly marketable in the general economy. Place-based education has been shown to be of particularly efficacy with Native American students [17]. Currently our nation awards an average of 30 degrees per year in the disciplines of geosciences to Native American students[18]. Only a small fraction of these students are in the field of hydrology or water resources, despite the importance of water and water rights to many tribes. Historically, in the 1980's there were more settlements, court decisions, legislative actions, and budgetary appropriations related to tribal water issues than in the previous seven decades combined. By any standard, satisfying Indian water entitlements has become one of the major resource challenges facing the American West. We are piloting this program by working with Salish Kootenai College (SKC), the only tribal college in the nation to offer 2- and 4-year degrees in hydrology, to implement training in use of water data as part of tribal college courses. SKC students are typically 80% Native American, and include students from more than 100 federally recognized tribes.