INCREMENTAL CHANGES TO PROMOTE DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION IN GEOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES AT APPALACHIAN STATE UNIVERSITY

The undergraduate-only Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences at Appalachian State University is working to foster an environment where everyone is included, respected, and valued. Our broad approach has been to make a number of small changes in all facets of our department (inclusive teaching, curriculum changes, rebranding our webpage, community building, diversity spotlights in our monthly newsletter, forming faculty and student DEI committees), combined with making positive changes to be more inclusive (URGE pod, attending workshops and conferences, reading the literature), soliciting feedback (student and faculty surveys, graduating senior exit surveys, informal listening sessions), and developing a strategic plan to support successful initiatives. Our initial changes were geared towards inclusive teaching, with the idea that making all students feel at home in our classrooms will increase inclusivity and student diversity in our department as a whole. Feedback from faculty and student DEI committees identified action items; students focused their efforts on building a post-COVID sense of community in the department and faculty focused their efforts on administrative activities with achievable goals. We changed the images on the departmental website to show more diverse individuals and less field work, organized workshops on inclusive teaching strategies, developed student surveys, spearheaded efforts to make our field camp and field methods more accessible, and implemented curricular policy changes that better serve our students (including students with accessibility issues, queer and transgender students, first generation college students, BIPOC students, and students with economic hardships including access to field equipment and food insecurity). We are striving to support and include all students who want to be geology or environmental science majors, and to make our department a safe space for all.