The Cascadia Coastal Hazards and Resilience Training, Education, and Research (CHARTER) Fellows Mentoring Model for Underrepresented Students

Abstract

Engaging underrepresented scholars in climate change-related research is not just a matter of diversity and inclusion but a necessity for addressing the complex challenges we face as a global society. While government officials, scientists, environmentalists, practitioners, and other stakeholders have increased calls for collaborative approaches, historically underrepresented communities, specifically students, still need to be included in such initiatives and collaborations. The National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Coastal Hazards and Resilience Training, Education, and Research (CHARTER) program responds to this gap by explicitly incorporating and supporting historically underrepresented students from K-12, community college, undergraduate, and graduate schools with diverse lived and educational backgrounds into disaster and hazard research and spaces. Through the CHARTER Fellows program, we maintain that our model:1. Assists in combating the barriers that historically marginalized and underrepresented students face by creating a pipeline training cohort system.2. Increases representation in the disaster and hazards field by centering students that reflect the overall population.3. Advances disaster science by including diverse perspectives and creating convergent work among other researchers, practitioners, and educators.4. Creates practical opportunities to produce equitable experiences and educational outcomes for underrepresented groups.This project highlights our experience developing and facilitating this new innovative minority mentoring model. Through this work, we provide program details, lessons learned, and recommendations for faculty to incorporate our model when engaging with underrepresented undergraduate students.