RECRUITING GEOSCIENTISTS TO INCREASE DIVERSITY: WHEN, AND HOW?

Recent research by AGI has predicted a workforce deficit of ~130,000 geoscientists within 5 years. Recruitment studies in STEM are common, however, there are few recent studies addressing the recruitment of geoscience students in higher education. Current recruitment practices and strategies for geoscience majors at American colleges and universities are currently not recruiting enough students to fill the projected workforce gapl, and are especially lacking in recruiting underrepresented minority (URM) students. Census data indicate the rising diversity of the US population, yet geoscience has remained one of the least diverse STEM disciplines. To address the expected gap of future geoscientists, we constructed a survey to ask current undergraduate majors in the United States if/when they changed their major to geoscience, why they changed their major, and what keeps them from changing their major. We envision the collected data will enable more evidenced-based strategies for increasing recruitment of geoscientists and comparisons to general demographic information will ensure strategies are evaluated for diversity, equity, and inclusion. To ensure an unbiased survey pool, the survey population will be any undergraduate geoscience major currently enrolled as a full-time student at a 4-year U.S. institution. The survey will be distributed to geoscience department chairs at universities via email in addition to being advertised via social media pages (geoscience Facebook groups, LinkedIn, etc.). Flyers will be emailed to the department chairs to hang in their respective hallways and classrooms with a QR linked to the survey for students to scan. This annual meeting will be used as an opportunity to increase survey participation via QR code because high survey participation will be critical to evaluate the demographic considerations.