Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

MEAS Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusiveness

We acknowledge that academic institutions have failed to address racism, bigotry, discrimination and inequality, and we recognize that MEAS must do more to include and to protect the safety of people from marginalized groups (e.g., BIPOC, women, GLBT+, people with disabilities and neurodivergence). We condemn racism and institutionalized racial violence, and we stand in solidarity with communities and movements that confront them. We intend to enact changes, continuously and persistently, to ensure that a welcoming and inclusive environment becomes the permanent reality in MEAS.

To this end, MEAS is taking action to:

• Recruit and support diverse faculty, researchers, staff and students;
• Pursue and make available training to address racism and implicit bias, end harassment, and implement bystander intervention;
• Amplify the voices of historically-marginalized groups in STEM via seminars, town halls and other available platforms and resources.
• Create an environment in which all members of MEAS recognize and act upon our shared responsibility to report abusive or hostile behavior when witnessed and to support those who experience and/or report such behavior;
• Stay fully informed of campus policies and reporting mechanisms to combat discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and retaliation; develop departmental strategies to ensure such campus policies are followed with MEAS;
• Promote the success of and provide encouragement to all members of the MEAS community so as to fully integrate students, staff and faculty from historically-marginalized groups into the life and work of the department.

Two committees have been formed to address diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) issues:

Diversity Committee
Community Climate Committee

To learn more about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the geosciences, resources are available.

Diversity-Related Activities of Faculty, Staff and Students

GLBT+ Advocates: Several MEAS Department faculty and staff are GLBT+ Advocates. For more information about NC State’s GLBT Advocate Program.

MEAS representatives: Lisa Falk, Ethan Hyland, Jay Levine and Astrid Schnetzer

AGEP-NC: The AGEP-NC project, an Alliance of NC A&T State University, UNC Charlotte and NC State, provides a catalyst for departments wishing to build an infrastructure for their doctoral programs and a culture among dissertation advisors that successfully prepares underrepresented minority (URM) dissertation students for faculty careers in the sciences and engineering.

MEAS AGEP Faculty Fellow: Walt Robinson

Recruiting Diverse Faculty Committee: The Recruiting Diverse Faculty (RDF) committee is a faculty-run group that promotes the recruitment and retention of diverse faculty across the university through faculty to faculty engagement and provision of academic resources and tools to assist departments in this process. Upon request, RDF members will consult search committees and facilitate a session on running diverse searches, fair evaluation of candidates, and increase awareness of systemic bias in the faculty hiring process. RDF’s resource library includes discipline-relevant academic research on faculty diversity, examples of departmental diversity plans, templates for candidate evaluations, links to Office for Institutional Equity and Diversity (OIED) hiring pamphlets, presentations on the need for hiring diverse faculty and reducing unconscious bias, and examples of faculty diversity statements available upon request.

MEAS representative: Carli Arendt

OIED Cultural Competence Program: Foundations in Cultural Competence and Inclusivity Certificate Program for Faculty is designed to enhance cultural competency or our ability to successfully interact with people of different backgrounds and allows us to think and do better. This certificate program provides multiple levels of engagement in the areas of cultural competence and cultural intelligence for NC State University faculty.

MEAS representative: Ethan Hyland