https://www.nwfecoleaders.org/forms/item/55/819

Community, State, National, International

The goals of this project are to address limited participation of racial and ethnic minorities and discussions of environmental equity by creating diverse events at the Association for Environmental Studies & Sciences (AESS) annual conferences. In 2021, we hosted a single Diversity panel over the course of the 3-day conference. This year I hope to implement the following events: 1) Thinking BEYOND Diversity in ESS (Track: Building Community in ESS); 2) 2) Diverse Schools of Thought (Track: Building Community in ESS).

Advocacy, Community Building, Communications/Marketing, Education

As a result of our previous efforts, AESS currently has an official Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and hosts one Diversity event at the Conference annually. Diverse persons are increasingly represented at AESS, and topics like environmental justice are more often discussed. However, the overall goals of the project are in progress. I have worked with my co-Chair to submit our proposed 2022 AESS Conference events: 1) Thinking BEYOND Diversity in ESS (Track: Building Community in ESS); 2) 2) Diverse Schools of Thought (Track: Building Community in ESS). Several key members of AESS have been recruited for their expertise and experience. We are hoping to propose more DEI conference events in the future so that issues like environmental equity and climate justice become central at AESS.

Policies implemented

As a result of our previous efforts, AESS currently has an official Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and hosts one Diversity event at the Conference annually. We are hoping to increase the number of DEI conference events in the future so that issues like environmental equity and climate justice become central at AESS.

We began the project for Diversity Panels at the AESS Conference in January 2021. We will complete this round of the project in June 2022 with the 2022 AESS Conference.

Major challenges to the project have been the limited budget, bureaucratic constraints, and poor technological understanding of AESS. We have responded by recruiting more active members of AESS with greater experience in DEI advocacy and funding.

Students and faculty from across America and different parts of the world interested in environmental equity were involved.

Last year's funding was provided by AESS. This year we also begin with initial funding from AESS. We are hoping to work with the AESS Development committee to obtain alternative funding.

We communicated about this project with the broader community via direct contact with universities across America/the world and active utilization of social media websites.

Group reflection, User survey

We evaluated last year's project through a thorough user survey for the AESS Conference. We are using this year to actively engage in implementing new events. We will conduct the next survey in 2023.

Presented your project results at a conference or meeting, Added new team members with different expertise, Applied for funding

The biggest finding we learned from our project last year was that there is a lot of untapped potential for increasing diversity at AESS. As a result of new members to our AESS Diversity Committee, we are now far more active and eager to increase diversity at AESS.

I would advise others working on similar projects to learn what they can from others and revitalize efforts to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in environmental organizations.

The current plans of the project are to address limited participation of racial and ethnic minorities and discussions of environmental equity by creating the following AESS 2022 Conference events: 1) Thinking BEYOND Diversity in ESS (Track: Building Community in ESS); 2) 2) Diverse Schools of Thought (Track: Building Community in ESS).