BUILDING A DEI PROGRAM IN GEOSCIENCES AROUND AN LSAMP CORE

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) projects in Geosciences can be greatly enhanced by building them around an existing LSAMP (Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation) alliance. There are about 55 LSAMP alliances encompassing some 600 institutions nationwide. LSAMPs promote the recruitment, retention and graduation of underrepresented minority (URM) students in STEM including the geosciences. Alliances recruit as many URM students as possible from each institution and support them academically including preparation for research and enrichment activities. For this reason, these students are interested and ready for additional and extended experiences that are provided in enrichment projects like NSF REU, IRES and IUSE among others. The LSAMP can be used to advertise the opportunities to students and the site coordinators make extra efforts to ensure that their students apply for and participate in them. LSAMPs can fund the students to continue research on topics that students find interesting during subsequent semesters or summers. They also have workshops and special advising to ensure that as many of their students enter graduate school as possible. This includes LSAMP Bridges to the Doctorate programs which support students for the first two years. The collaboration provides better direct outcomes for the DEI projects as well as for the retention and success of the participants. LSAMPs have already developed a series of best practices that can be adopted or adapted to the project thereby enhancing it. Because these and the success of the LSAMP can be leveraged to improve the project, collaborations with LSAMPs can improve the success of DEI proposals to federal funding agencies. In turn, collaborating with an LSAMP can improve geoscience departmental DEI efforts. The LSAMP forms a core to a potential cluster of synergistic DEI efforts.