GEOFORCE TEXAS IN THE 10TH YEAR: GROWTH AND MATURATION OF A DIVERSITY-FOCUSED OUTREACH PROGRAM

GeoFORCE Texas is an outreach program of the Jackson School of Geosciences at UT Austin. In ten years the program has grown to include 600 high school students each summer and another 570 in college. GeoFORCE operates on a cohort model. We recruit groups of 40 students in the 8^th grade and take them on four geologic field trips over four years. Through the years, the students’ geologic knowledge grows, and they build college skills and confidence that translate to a highly successful STEM college experience. Most GeoFORCE graduates pursue college (97%); they major in STEM fields at more than double the national rate (66%). Among the 570 GeoFORCE college students 93 are geology majors and 83 are studying engineering.

GeoFORCE students are mostly minority (85%); more than half will be the first in their family to earn a college degree. They are remarkably successful in college. Several elements embedded in the program are important in driving this success. First, keeping them in GeoFORCE for four years strongly influences both their ambition and their confidence in pursuing college. They fill out surveys every summer about their attitudes and goals, and we see steady change over time. Second, keeping them with the same cohort of students is more impactful than we expected at the outset. The students form strong bonds with each other and those relationships prove sustaining through high school and college. Third, providing them with adult mentors shows them a pathway forward and gives them people they can call on during college to provide support and encouragement.

GeoFORCE has been a public/private partnership from the start; this is the key to the sustainability of the program. The Jackson School provides salary and operating expenses, but the programmatic costs are all covered by annual donations from corporate partners, foundations, agencies, and private donors. In the first year of the program, a grant from the Texas Workforce Commission gave GeoFORCE some time to build critical relationships with other stakeholders. Because we promise 8^th graders that we will be there for four years, the financial support is the first foundation that needs to be built in creating this type of program. In this 10^th anniversary year we are launching an endowment campaign that we hope will provide a long-term stable source of funding.