[Hearts-of-GOLD] FW: NSF Professional Development Workshop for Tenured Faculty and Administrators

[Grady Dixon]

Hi, everyone. The announcement below is from an NSF-funded project similar to our Hearts of Gold. GeoDES is a product of the same brainstorming session that our Co-PIs attended back in 2016, and I think it sounds like a very applicable training opportunity. Please consider forwarding this to some of your colleagues who might be good candidates.

This is the last of my "make-up" messages to this list.

_______________________________
P. Grady Dixon
Professor and Chair
Department of Geosciences
Fort Hays State University
pgdixon at fhsu.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: Heather Houlton [mailto:hrh at agiweb.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2017 3:16 PM
To: Grady Dixon <pgdixon at fhsu.edu>
Subject: NSF Professional Development Workshop for Tenured Faculty and Administrators


Dear Faculty and Administrators, 

We are seeking volunteers to participate in a new study investigating diversity within academic leadership in the geosciences. The project, "Geoscience Diversity Experiential Simulations" (GeoDES) is funded by the National Science Foundation.

The goal of the GeoDES project is to train selected geoscientists as "champions for diversity" to challenge prejudices and prejudicial structures at their institutions so that our field can become a more diverse and welcoming environment for scientists of all backgrounds.  At our 3-day workshop participants will learn about prejudice and about how institutions are structured (particularly in geoscience departments) such that they continually reproduce inequitable conditions.  We are collaborating with Mursion, Inc. to develop an innovative, mixed-reality, virtual simulation to build participants' skills to combat bias, prejudice, and prejudicial structures.  In the simulation, participants will interact with avatars in various situations that exhibit common prejudices in geoscience contexts.  These simulations give our participants practice for how to respond given different scenarios that commonly occur within our geoscience discipline, with the intention of building competency and confidence to combat these challenges when they occur in the workplace.

We are seeking 30 tenured faculty members, department heads or chairs, and geoscience department/college administrators to attend our workshop and participate in the follow-up activities. The 3-day workshop will take place from November 13th to November 15th, 2017 at an NCAR facility in Boulder, CO.  Costs for selected participants will be covered by the NSF grant, which includes travel to Boulder, lodging, and meals.  
Follow-up activities include a monthly virtual "check in" where we will discuss how to apply what participants have learned at the 3-day workshop to their specific institution.

If you or your colleagues are interested in this professional development opportunity, and have any questions, please email Jason Chen, Principal Investigator, at jachen at email.wm.edu. You can register for this opportunity at our website https://cpaess.ucar.edu/meetings/2017/geodes-workshop.  Deadline to apply is October 30, 2017.

Thanks,
Heather Houlton

--
Heather R. Houlton
Workforce Development, Education and Outreach Specialist American Geosciences Institute www.americangeosciences.org/workforce
4220 King Street, Alexandria VA 22302
P: (703) 379-2480 ext. 227
E: hrh at americangeosciences.org