Strengthen DEIA in our education program

Strengthen DEIA in our education program

this Columbia Climate School It is the first new college of the university in more than two decades. In the process of building new things, we have a real opportunity to establish institutional structures, policies, and processes—more importantly, to build a culture—to place our values ​​in diversity, fairness, tolerance, anti-bias, and anti-racial On the basis of ism. At the forefront of everything we aspire to do. This is the second article in our mini-series focusing on DEIA activities.Check out the first article here.

The Earth Institute and Climate School are committed to promoting and strengthening diversity, equity, inclusiveness, and anti-bias across the organization. This article focuses on the important and critical DEIA work that occurred in our education program-from undergraduate level to doctoral level. These programs are committed to anti-racism and are committed to fostering a community that is diverse, fair and inclusive for all. The following is an overview of ongoing initiatives, activities and reflections in the Climate School and Earth Institute affiliate programs.

Undergraduate course

this Sustainable Development Undergraduate Course (SDEV) Measures are being taken to improve the diversity of its faculty, students, and staff, and to incorporate fairness issues into its curricula and programs.

In 2018, the project was compared and analyzed with other schools/projects in Colombia and STEM projects in other universities to evaluate the demographic data of teachers and students.These findings were published in New directions for teaching and learningIn 2020, the SDEV program held an internal dialogue on how to increase inclusiveness, support systemic change, and promote anti-racism. The program also surveys students and alumni to better understand the current climate and identify specific areas for improvement. It also established a Diversity, Equity, Inclusive and Justice (DEI&J) working group represented by students and alumni. The group identified six key areas for further discussion/action: (1) Curriculum; (2) Programming; (3) Increased representation; (4) Career, alumni network and guidance; (5) Culture; (6) Faculty Work education.

In the past year, the plan continued to carry out this important work. In February 2021, the program held a listening meeting with students and alumni to listen to the opinions of the community and prioritize which of the six key areas to address. At the 2021 spring meeting, SDEV project directors and staff met with the faculty and staff union to brief them on the latest situation of the DEI&J initiative and conveyed the project goals of integrating environmental justice, fairness and anti-racism into relevant courses. The program also surveyed SDEV faculty and staff to gather information on the following issues and topics:

1. Whether and how teachers incorporate environmental justice, fairness or anti-racism topics into their curricula;
2. Resources that can be shared more widely among teachers who wish to incorporate these topics;
3. New environmental justice courses and faculty’s ideas.

The program also held course discussions with SDEV faculty members to discuss how to incorporate environmental justice issues into existing and new courses.The meeting includes from Earth Institute Environmental Justice Network.

All this information can be found in SDEV DEIJ Action Plan.

Graduate courses

The Earth Institute’s Office of Academic and Research Programs (ORP) is leading the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) program on a global scale. Master of Sustainability Management (SUMA) and MPA Environmental Science and Policy (ESP). OARP also advises on other educational programs affiliated with the Earth Institute and provides DE&I extracurricular programs for all affiliated students.

SUMA and ESP are working hard to achieve the following three interrelated goals. All of this work is carried out under the auspices of three project-specific DE&I committees, which include faculty, students, alumni, and staff.

1. Incorporate equity and environmental justice issues into their curricula;
2. Diversify the personnel of each project (students, faculty, staff);
3. Create a more inclusive environment so that students can learn and grow better.

In the 2020-2021 school year, each of these two projects underwent a third-party DE&I audit to set a benchmark for measuring performance (available online on the linked page above). While conducting audits, these plans also took the following actions in each of the above three areas.

1. Curriculum/Co-curricular Programming

• Include modules on equity and sustainability in all parts of the required sustainability management curriculum;
• Provide fair-related seminar projects;
• A new SUMA elective course was opened, “Building Resilience in Detroit in the 21st Century: The Roots and Remedies of Racial Justice”;
• Several joint curriculum programs are provided, including a sustainability skills seminar on environmental justice and activism in cooperation with WEACT, a non-profit organization dedicated to environmental justice.

2. Diversity

• Provide scholarships for future students of BIOC;
• Targeted digital advertising for potential BIOC students;
• Expand connections with historically black colleges and universities, and minority service agencies;
• Hired BIOC faculty (SUMA).

3. Tolerance

• Provide hidden bias training for faculty, students and employees;
• Organize listening lessons for ESP students;
• Created hub, An online network for BIPOC students and alumni affiliated to the Earth Institute, now has about 300 members;
• All syllabuses include language related to DE&I;
• The anti-bias and anti-racism resources of Columbia University are published on the project website for easy access by students.

In the 2021-2022 school year, SUMA and ESP will implement many of the recommendations contained in their respective DE&I audits, including: (1) Curriculum review to further incorporate equity and environmental justice issues into the curriculum; (2) SUMA, ESP and SDEV Project teachers provide training in DE&I teaching technology.

OARP will continue to provide DE&I extracurricular programs-next Sustainability skills seminar on environmental justice, climate justice and advocacy It’s scheduled to be held on October 23-and as part of the recruitment effort to increase the diversity of students in these courses.

inside Master’s Program in Climate and Society, DE&I audits are conducted in parallel with SUMA and ESP, with the same goal: to set a baseline. Students, alumni, and faculty members were interviewed by the audit. The program also completed the following activities (some of which can be traced back to pre-audit) to enhance the DE&I of students and faculty:

1. Provide students with hidden bias training

2. Incorporate DEI sentences into the syllabus (applicable to most, but not all)

3. Comprehensive climate justice as a key topic of the following core courses:

• Manage and adapt to the climate
• Application in climate and society
• Summer internships and capstone workshops

4. Provide scholarships for all BIPOC/first-generation applicants

5. Provide staff support and funding DEES Seminar on Race, Climate Change and Environmental Justice

In recent years, MPA in development practice (MPA-DP) Deepen and expand the commitment to increase diversity, foster fair and inclusive communities, and provide students with the knowledge and skills needed to design and manage fair and inclusive policies and programs, and contribute to the organizational change they work. During the period 2020-2021, MPA-DP formulated and implemented the first one-year action plan for diversity, equity and inclusiveness. The plan has three pillars: (1) Further realize our diversity; (2) ) Ensure an inclusive community; (3) Bring social inclusion into the mainstream of our teaching. The plan has completed a report on the work, drafted an action plan for 2021-2022, and is launching a multi-stakeholder process to develop a vision and multi-year strategic plan in cooperation with a DE&I consultant. The program also recently established a DE&I program advisory committee composed of faculty, faculty, students, and alumni representatives.

Doctorate programme

this Sustainability PhD Program Believe that diversity, fairness and tolerance are at the core of its mission and the personal and social success of students. In line with this mission, the program carried out the following activities:

1. The syllabus was updated to include reading, research, and discussion by color and female researchers. This includes looking for journals that are not considered “top journals,” taking into account the bias against researchers of color, usually related to the institutions they participate in, which may be less prestigious, but due to cost and/or admissions bias. In addition to efforts to include research done by underrepresented minorities, it also promotes research related to race, inequality, gender, etc.
2. A student-led event was held to discuss with undergraduates how to prepare for the graduate-level economics course. This includes a larger (remote) “open day” that allows more participation in events.
3. The SustDev summer school has been held in Paris and generally focuses on white, male, European or American researchers and researchers. This year’s event was co-hosted by the Alliance Network and the Columbia Global Center in Santiago, Chile, and included presentations by Latin American researchers. The event is also remote and can provide greater accessibility.
4. Intensify efforts to invite more underrepresented ethnic and female researchers to participate in the weekly SustDev seminar.

Earth Institute Postdoctoral Scholarship Program

In addition, the Earth Institute currently offers diversity scholarships Postdoctoral projectThe diversity scholarship aims to promote the recruitment of outstanding postdoctoral scholars from historically underrepresented groups to more closely reflect the composition of the national qualified candidate pool.

For more information about the climate school DEIA program, please contact Alix Schroder (aschroder@ei.columbia.edu) Or Catherine Latimer (kl3383@columbia.edu).