BUILDING FROM A BRAIDED RIVER MINDSET TO CREATE FLEXIBLE STUDENT-FOCUSED PROGRAMMING AND MENTORSHIP (Invited Presentation)

Supporting and sustaining students from a braided river mindset (as opposed to a leaky pipeline) (Bachelor et al. 2021), requires student support customized to where they are academically, socially and within their field. This is especially important when program goals include broadening participation beyond the current majority population. We must abandon the one size fits all historical model of geoscience extracurricular experience through student focused diverse programming and mentorship.

The EarthScope Consortium facilitates a total of four internship programs, Geo-Launchpad, RESESS, URISE (formerly IRIS REU) and the Student Career Internship Program. Through this programming we support a range of students: recently enrolled community college students, undergraduates, enrolled and recently completed graduate students. Professionally, each program offers a unique experience, projects focused on research or career-ready skills, placement either in person, hybrid or fully remote, and the duration may span from 8 to 15 weeks.

During our programming, students have access to a mentoring network to gain support and guidance where needed. Our network includes 6 types of mentorship: research, occupational, writing, alumni, near-peer support, and a program facilitator. Our mentors have technical expertise, diverse lived experiences, and are passionate about student support. Students are mentored 1:1 or in groups of varying sizes, with frequency varying from daily or just once, and can meet either in person or on Zoom. The flexibility of our mentoring network allows us to create a tailored plan for each student, and adapt those plans as the students’ needs change and evolve. We aim for each student leaving our program to feel empowered and informed about their identity and potential in earth science and what healthy mentoring relationships are.

In this presentation, we will provide an overview of our internship programs, discuss the role of each mentor, how we facilitate positive and constructive mentor-mentee interactions, as well as historical successes and challenges.