LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIRTY YEARS OF PROMOTING MINORITY GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION

UNO has had a minority recruitment program for the past 30 years. The primary focus of the program is a field trip for high school students that typically takes them to National Parks in the western U.S. Despite minimal funding, the program is a major success and many of the minority geoscientists in industry and academia were influenced by that field trip. In some cases, the successful minority geoscientists had been recruited directly from the field trip. In other cases, minority geoscientists met successful geoscientist recruited from the field trip. When we, the authors, took charge of the program we were also able to offer scholarships to incoming freshmen. The scholarships have roughly tripled the number of minority majors in UNO’s geoscience program. Most of the students planned to major in business or some other traditional field because they felt it would provide a better income than science. The scholarship support convinced students to try a geoscience major and the departmental activities as well as visits to, and talks by, various companies convinced students to stay in the geosciences. We have included mentoring and tutoring for all of our students regardless of ethnicity and all students have supported the program.