AGI PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE: THE VALUE OF BEING A MEMBER SOCIETY

The American Geosciences Institute (AGI), an umbrella organization comprising 46 geoscientific societies, has been a leader in key areas for many years. AGI has long-established and well-respected programs in K-16 geoscience education, public outreach, publishing, workforce, and government affairs. As an AGI member society, the Mineralogical Society of America (MSA) has benefited from these programs in a number of ways. For example, as a participant in Earth Science Week (ESW - second full week of October), MSA is able to promote the importance of mineralogy and petrology to the K-12 audience and to the general public. MSA’s learning activity in the ESW calendar points people to MSA’s website, thus making a new audience aware of MSA’s educational and outreach resources. In 2020, MSA collaborated with AGI to launch the first Minerals Day (Monday of ESW). Now in its third year, Minerals Day has raised awareness of MSA’s mission and work, an enormous bonus to the organization and its members.

MSA has also collaborated with AGI on geoscience careers webinars as part of the Minerals Day/ESW effort. But more than this, AGI’s workforce program has provided essential information about career paths that MSA can share with those studying mineralogy and petrology. MSA has greatly benefited from the AGI-led effort that resulted in the GeoScienceWorld (GSW) publishing consortium. MSA’s publications reach a wide international audience through GSW, which provides a major source of revenue for the partner organizations. In the future, MSA looks forward to a continued and expanded collaboration with AGI’s education, outreach, and workforce efforts.