Geoscience departments and programs on campuses across the United States (and elsewhere) face many challenges to their survival. Not least of these are perceptions that they are nonessential and that their courses and cultures do not match students’ interests. Countering these perceptions often requires difficult but necessary measures to rebrand or reshape. In “Geoscience Departments Can ‘Phone a Friend’ for Support,” learn from two insiders about the Traveling Workshops Program, which for a decade has been guiding departments through needed conversations and helping them adapt to their changing environments.
Many faculty and students in the Earth and space sciences also face substantial hurdles, including to their sense of belonging in these fields. As a trio of community college instructors write, meaningfully engaging faculty and students from 2-year-colleges through research partnerships, conferences, and other avenues can both support these individuals in their careers and improve diversity within the discipline.
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Rows of corn stretch into the distance. Credit: iStock.com/AVTG Read more -
The Colorado River cuts a path through silt and mud near Hite Marina in Utah. Credit: Alexander Heilner/The Water Desk, with aerial support provided by LightHawk; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Read more -
Commercial flights, like this one over Greenland, often fly through the lowermost stratosphere, an isolated portion of the atmosphere that is being directly affected by surface ozone pollution. Credit: M. J. Prather Read more
Broadening out, for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education in the United States to maintain its leadership globally and continue attracting top talent domestically and from abroad, it must receive more federal support and investment. That was the conclusion of a prominent report published earlier this year by the National Science Board, as Grace Van Deelen reports.
Education faces challenges at all levels, but as each of these articles suggests, solutions exist that can help set individuals, departments, and institutions on a better path.
—Timothy Oleson, Senior Science Editor
Citation: Oleson, T. (2024), Adapting to change in the educational landscape, Eos, 105, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EO240381. Published on 26 August 2024.
Text © 2024. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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