Publication Date
8-2015
Document Type
Report
Description
Geo-Needs focus group meetings report from the August 5-7 and 9-11, 2015 conference at the Nothern Illinois University Conference Center in Naperville, Illinois.
Despite a significant investment of resources, underrepresented minorities constitute ~8% of the geoscience-related workforce, making the geosciences one of the least diverse of all science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines. While this pattern of underrepresentation has been attributed to numerous factors, the Geo-Needs project is focused on lack of access to undergraduate courses and programs of study at two-year technical and community colleges (2YCs) and minority-serving institutions (MSIs). Based on our analysis, only about 2.5% of institutions with geoscience degree programs are federally designated as minority-serving.
To address this issue, four focus group meetings were held in August 2015 at the Northern Illinois Conference Center, Naperville, Illinois, USA.