Sustaining URGE (Unlearning Racism in Geosciences)

Unlearning Racism in Geoscience (URGE) is a community-wide journal-reading and policy-design curriculum to help geoscientists unlearn racism and improve belonging, accessibility, justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (Be A JEDI) in Geoscience. The geosciences remain one of the least diverse of the science fields with little change in the demographics of the discipline despite decades of effort.

URGE’s primary objectives are to (1) deepen the community’s knowledge of the effects of racism on the participation and retention of Black, Brown, Indigenous, and People of Color in Geoscience, (2) draw on existing literature, expert opinions, and personal experiences to develop anti-racist policies and strategies, and (3) share, discuss and modify anti-racist policies and strategies within a dynamic community network and on a national stage. This proposal supports the community facilitation activities of URGE (e.g., virtual meetings and events), documentation of the development and operations of the program, and summarization of the response of the Geoscience community to URGE.

These data are important for later studies focused on identifying what makes Be A JEDI initiatives successful. The data will also allow us to assess whether the structure and curriculum of URGE lead to effective anti-racist policies and strategies and significant short and long-term changes at the institutions and organizations that participated in the program.

Unlearning Racism in Geoscience (URGE) is a community-wide journal-reading and policy-design curriculum to help geoscientists unlearn racism and improve the discipline for all communities. URGE’s main structure brings together the geoscience community to participate in a curriculum designed to educate, provide expert opinions, and draft anti-racist policies and strategies in the geosciences.

Throughout eight two-week sessions, geoscientists cover different topics on racism, including identity, history, justice, accessibility, inclusivity, and accountability. Each session includes deliverables specific to the session’s topic and developed by each group through the use of knowledge from provided literature, interviews from experts in the field, group discussions, and broader community-wide discourse.

URGE will follow this sixteen-week curriculum by reviewing and distilling the policies developed by the community, facilitating policy meetings at institutions, and disseminating the findings at national conferences. Project personnel will analyze data collected at the end of the sixteen-week URGE session using modified versions of validated survey tools that focus on assessing behavior change and attitudes towards improving belonging, accessibility, justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (Be A JEDI).

This will be followed by longitudinal surveys to evaluate the long-term impacts of the URGE program. Project personnel will also analyze data on URGE participants to better understand who took part in the program and what work may need to be done in the future to bring in more majority identities into programs like URGE.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.