GP-IMPACTS: Nevada’s GeoGateway Program-A Collaboration Between Nevada State College, College of Southern Nevada, and the Desert Research Institute

Abstract:

Nevada's GeoGateway Program is creating a structured pathway linking academic and research institutions in southern Nevada to train a new generation of geoscientists to serve the region and nation. We are recruiting and engaging students taking geoscience-related coursework and those graduating with Associate in Science degrees from College of Southern Nevada (a 2 yr college), channeling them into Nevada State College's (NSC) four-year Environmental and Resource Science (ERS) program. The cooperative project will take advantage of scientific infrastructure already supported by NSF, the Nevada Climate-ecohydrology Assessment Network (NevCAN). Nevada State College is an Hispanic Serving Institution with 75% of our students female, mostly interested in the nursing and education programs. Over the 3-4 years of the project, we will reach more than 536 CSN students and 680 NSC students through jointly-programmed introductory curricula, guest lectures, field trips, and film screenings and will generate 25% growth in ERS majors and 25% increase in ERS graduates at the end of four years. Demographic trends at CSN and NSC suggest that a growing share of female underrepresented minorities are participating in STEM-related fields; this project will focus on recruitment and retention of underrepresented students, especially Hispanic and female students. As a result of the project, NSC and its partners will have developed and strengthened the pipeline from the community college to a four-year degree that will help meet Nevada’s need for geoscientists. We describe here the results of the project to date, and discuss the difficulties of recruiting and retaining underrepresented students into our ERS program. We also discuss some of the challenges of moving away from face to face recruitment and interactions to a more virtual reality, along with economic difficulties in our state and region.