Diversity Updates Archive

DEI Member Update – [2 May 2022]

In another milestone on its path to meeting strategic goals for broader participation in the Society, GSA is pleased to welcome Elizabeth Long as Associate Director for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Long comes to GSA from her previous position as Director and Lead Scientist with Appalachian Headwaters, a not-for-profit located in Lewisburg, West Virginia. Prior to that, Long worked with the Mohonk Preserve in New Paltz, New York, as Director for the Dept. of Conservation Science & Daniel Smiley Research Center. Her many talents and accomplishments include extensive public programming and community science initiatives, effective fundraising, strategic planning, and building collaborations among diverse stakeholders.

Long is charged with leading efforts to implement priorities identified in GSA’s Decadal Strategic Plan and for helping to secure funding to make DEI work sustainable within the Society.

Armed with recommendations from the GSA’s Diversity Working Group and its Culture Task Force, Long is working closely with Council’s Diversity in the Geosciences Committee, the staff URGE (Unlearning Racism in the Geosciences) pod, and other parties with common aims, to ensure that GSA policies reflect and affirm a longstanding commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. “I speak for all GSA leadership when I say what a pleasure it is to welcome Dr. Long to GSA. We are excited for her to take the lead on our DEI and justice initiatives,” said GSA Executive Director Vicki McConnell.

Near-term projects include:

Overseeing revisions to awards procedures where needed to ensure inclusivity, developing unbiased selection rubrics, devising strategies for recruiting and training reviewers, and attracting a diverse slate of nominees for each award;
Working with GSA programs that collect demographic data to standardize data collection and better benchmark and track participation over time;
Assuming a leadership role with GSA’s GEO ASCENDS grant and helping to support and expand the On To the Future (OTF) and Expanding Representation in the Geosciences (ERG) programs.

Long earned her Ph.D. in ecology from the University of California Davis. She extended her interest in community service activities after graduation by developing collaborative science projects and field research with diverse rural and urban community members.

At Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, Long worked with the Women’s and Diversity Center program and Student Disability Office to increase accessibility to field and laboratory classes and improve culture and climate in the sciences and developed new programs and courses to attract and recruit a diverse student audience.

At the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, UCLA La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science, Long conducted field ecology and collections-based research across an urban-wildland interface, engaged in donor development, public programming, education programming, and developed community science initiatives.

She completed training through the ADVANCEGeoPartnership in 2020 and began to facilitate workshops on improving bystander intervention and reducing workplace harassment, tackling implicit bias and microaggressions in the workplace, and developing workplace codes of conduct. She is a current co-principal investigator on an NSF-funded planning grant to develop leadership tools for women in the field sciences.

Throughout her career, Long has been a champion for making science accessible to marginalized and underrepresented groups and believes in taking an intersectional approach to that work.

“I’m thrilled to be joining an organization that takes DEI work to heart,” said Long. “GSA has already laid strong foundations for progress in this area, and in the short time I've been here, GSA members, staff, and partners have given me so much support.”

“Meaningful change can’t happen without support and collaboration, and there’s no shortage of that at GSA,” said Long.

Read the original press release.

DEI Member Update – [6 July 2021]

GSA has been working on reforms to achieve greater Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion within the Society with renewed purpose and resolve over the past year.

Since my last update in April, I am happy to report that we have made significant progress on how we nominate and award GSA fellowships. An ad hoc committee, formed in December 2020, was charged with reviewing the fellowship criteria and nominations process with the objectives of benchmarking the nomination processes to similar professional organizations, coupled with working to identify and remove any potential biases in the process of recruiting and vetting Fellows. One of the numerous recommendations that was approved by GSA Council in May 2021 is to revise the fellowship nomination categories and provide greater detail for fellowship requirements, including actions that promote diversity and inclusion in the geosciences. We expect to complete implementation of the revised fellowship election process by the next round of nominations in October.

Also at its spring meeting, GSA Council approved and adopted bold new recommendations from our Diversity Working Group to address short- and long-term remedies for shortcomings in our procedures and operations. Steps toward lasting systemic change include:

Measure and regularly report to the GSA Council and to the community on the demographics and experience of GSA members and staff.
Embed JEDI (justice, equity, diversity, inclusion) in GSA’s governance structure and operations.
Institutionalize culture change and responsibility for action beginning with GSA leaders.
Increase funding for diversity staff, programs, and service-leadership, including funding a full-time diversity officer.
Redouble efforts to make meetings and publications diverse and inclusive.
Form a standing “GSA JEDI” advisory group.
Cultivate diversity among future GSA leaders.
Encourage the GSA membership to be champions for diversity, equity, and inclusion at their workplaces and home institutions.

The Executive Director and staff will work to implement these over the next twelve months and beyond. Read the full Diversity Working Group report.

We continue to work on improving our awards nominations and selection processes, aiming for having revisions to announce by the GSA Connects 2021 meeting.

We are confident that together these actions will make GSA stronger and fairer in the pursuit to eliminate systematic racism and bias in our Society. We express our thanks to the many volunteers who are helping with this work and our appreciation for the support of the membership at large.

—J. Douglas Walker, Immediate Past-President, GSA

DEI Member Update – [2 April 2021]

As yet another segment of our citizenry comes under senseless attack in America, GSA would like to refocus attention on our 1 June Statement About Diversity, Ethics & Inclusion, and be very clear that it includes our Asian colleagues.

GSA embraces diversity found among humans collectively, and the richness of resources, perspectives, and experience, that inclusion lends to the better understanding of geoscience.

“We condemn discrimination and harassment in any form, and are actively working to promote the ideals and principles of our position statements on Diversity in the Geosciences Community and Removing Barriers to Career Progression for Women in the Geosciences. GSA's Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct gives process to our vision and purpose for representing the best that our science can be.”

GSA continues to work toward our diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals at the operational level. Our special committee for evaluation of GSA Fellowships is preparing its report and recommendations. The Council-implemented Diversity Working Group is also circulating their report and recommendations. Both of these will be addressed at the meeting of GSA Council at the end of April for discussion and adoption.

In Other News

Seven members of the GSA staff are participating in the 16-week NSF-funded Unlearning Racism in Geoscience (URGE) project. “Pods” at institutions all over the country are working on a curriculum focused on providing tools and resources to help geoscientists develop policies that improve accessibility, justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace and community.

[see video introduction]

An all-staff development workshop on diversity, equity, and inclusion is scheduled for the end of May with Dr. Nita Mosby-Tyler, of the Equity Project.

GSA moves forward with DEI – [2 February 2021]

Update from President J. Douglas Walker, 2 February 2021

GSA is taking major steps to address Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the society. We now have four Council-implemented ad hoc committees and working groups in place to assess four key areas of governance and planning:

Review of nominations and awards recruitment, selection, and processes;
Review of criteria and processes for election to Fellowship;
Measuring DEI priorities, strategies, and action in GSA and realigning these with the Decadal Strategic Plan; and
Revising the GSA Diversity Position Statement to more strongly articulate GSA’s DEI priorities.

All groups are currently active, and will be reporting their recommendations on or before the Spring GSA Council meeting, 1–2 May 2021. We will continue to update the community as results become available.

Action and Progress Toward GSA's DEI Goals – [14 December 2020]

The Geological Society of America continues moving forward with actions to support our public commitments to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Most recently, we have formed an ad hoc committee, headed by Peter Vrolijk and Doug Walker, to begin revising the process for soliciting and naming GSA Fellows. The committee reflects the Society’s diversity and draws from both GSA leadership and membership. This work is a next step resulting from our August retreat identifying four pillars for reform.

We will keep the GSA membership informed as we make progress toward these goals.

GSA wins NSF Geosciences ASCEND Award – [16 September 2020]

The Geological Society of America is excited to announce a new initiative in partnership with the University of Arkansas, University of Florida, James Madison University, and the University of Texas-Austin and funded by the National Science Foundation.

Geosciences Associated Societies Committed to Embracing and Normalizing Diversity (Geosciences ASCEND) is a 4-year program engaging a broad network of geosciences professional societies and academic institutions to promote, accelerate, and advance the geoscience disciplines toward greater representation and inclusion while celebrating our diverse identities.

Geosciences ASCEND will develop innovative programs using established methods and best practices of outreach messaging and cultural norming to expand recruitment and welcome greater participation of all people in the geosciences disciplines. Professional societies, academic institutions, and geoscience-oriented industries are invited to contact Tahlia Bear (tbear@geosociety.org) for details of Geosciences ASCEND and how they may participate with the Geosciences ASCEND network.

Advancing GSA’s Mission Toward Greater Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion – [26 August 2020]

Each year, GSA holds a leadership retreat to focus on critical issues for our Society. Such concentrated time allows for in-depth learning, analysis, and discussion. This year’s retreat, held on 22-23 August, was focused on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).

Our aims were to evaluate related activities in GSA’s 2019 Decadal Strategic Plan, to amplify our efforts with fresh perspectives, and to reinforce our commitment to positive change. To achieve these goals, the GSA Executive Committee and GSA staff were joined by 20 invited diversity leaders in the geosciences. Helping to guide us through the process was experienced facilitator and expert trainer Dr. Nita Mosby-Tyler of The Equity Project LLC , whose task it was to help us identify activities likely to have a measurable and lasting impact.

Priorities identified for improvement during the retreat included four target areas:

Communication and Transparency
Mentoring and Support
Revising the Nominations and Awards Process
Creating Diversity in Leadership and Meetings Participation

We are distilling the wealth of recommendations and advice from the retreat into obtainable and impactful goals to be shared soon. These goals will be integrated into our Strategic Plan, alongside existing initiatives, activities, and committees focused on DEI efforts.

We, GSA’s president and president-elect, are confident that this will be a successful approach to addressing issues of equity facing the geosciences and that actionable outcomes will position GSA to move forward in meeting its goals in the most effective way. Most importantly, we now have a clear path ahead to better weave DEI efforts into the entire GSA structure, and in so doing, better serve all of our membership. GSA hopes to lead the geosciences in furthering DEI efforts.

Our path is defined. Next steps include approving goals and metrics at the Council leadership level for action before GSA 2020 Connects Online in October. Please watch for more to come as implementation of this critical work gets underway.

Doug Walker, GSA President
Barb Dutrow, GSA President-Elect

Retreat Participants: Sarah Aarons, Nicole Aikin, Hendratta Ali, Beth Bartel, Tahlia Bear, Dick Berg, Todd Berggren, David Davis, Barbara Dutrow, Rod Ewing, Rebecca Fazzari, Nicole Gasparini, Tom Haberthier, Jeanette Hammann, Jose Hurtado, Pat Kilner, Mark Little, Susan Lofton, Chris Maples, Debbie Marcinkowski, Vicki McConnell, Claudia Mora, Allie Nagurney, Nathan Niemi, Tim Shin, Don Siegel, Wendy Smythe, Nan Stout, Christa Stratton, Marilyn Suiter, Doug Walker, Wes Ward, Lisa White, Kasey White, and Sherilyn Williams-Stroud.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Accountability Update – [25 June 2020]

On 1 June, GSA issued a statement affirming our solidarity with our fellow Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) colleagues and their families in facing injustice. Since then, a lot has happened inside and outside GSA.

GSA supports the changes and initiatives we are seeing within the geoscience community, such as the notimeforsilence petition, and we’re actively focusing on improvements within our own organization. GSA Council continues to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) because it is the right thing to do and leads to better science. They will be sharing their ideas and actions. More details and information about DEI in GSA’s Decadal Strategic Plan can be found here. Join GSA and challenge us to build a more diverse, respectful, and inclusive space for all science, and scientists, to thrive. As GSA continues to seek meaningful and robust ways to support DEI initiatives, we encourage our members to take action and offer suggestions at diversity@geosociety.org.

Donald I. Siegel, President
J. Douglas Walker, President-Elect

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