On January 19, the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, nearly 200 Durham and Chapel Hill community members met for the first workshop of four on Racial Equity and Environment.

This workshop series was born from needs specifically identified by members of the Durham Environmental Coalition and it is sponsored by the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, The Burt’s Bees Foundation, as well as Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association, Keep Durham Beautiful, TreesDurham, and the Triangle Land Conservancy.

In this first session, Paul James, of Lighthouse Strategy Consulting led us through Community Norms, including committing to a “deep sense of conversation confidentiality” and “not attempt[ing] to co-opt someone’s narrative or journey”.

The group also review assumptions and goals for this process, explored some of the work of James Baldwin and Margaret Heffernan, and level-set with a discussion of key terminology for this work (e.g., diversity, implicit association, equality vs. equity). In this, a connection was made: power + influence + bias = destruction. Also, the idea emerged that leadership must embrace difference and give people an opportunity to belong. In small groups, people explored the concepts of race, racism, and institutional betrayal.

The DEEP Collaborative, in collaboration with the Durham Environmental Coalition, is pleased to announce its four-part workshop series on Racial Equity and the Environment sponsored by the Burt’s Bees Foundation and the Nicholas School of the Environment, as well as Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association, Keep Durham Beautiful, TreesDurham, and Triangle Land Conservancy. Please join us.

Overview. The DEEP Collaborative, in collaboration with the Durham Environmental Coalition (DEC) is offering two cohorts of a four-part workshop series for environmental, education, and JEDI focused organizations. These on-line, interactive workshops (1.5 hrs each) will include participatory dialogue and case studies, as we:

• Expand and develop language and a common set of terms to talk about race and racialized oppression.
• Learn how systems of racialized oppression operate at multiple scales, including individual, institutional, and systematic scales.
• Understand the ways that racialized oppression has affected our own community, especially in terms of environmental justice.
• Develop strategies on how their organizations can fight environmental injustice in our own communities.
• Draw correlations between the history of race (in America) and city planning related to the natural environment.

Paul James of Lighthouse Strategy Consulting will serve as the workshop series facilitator. Funding for this workshop has generously been provided by Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and The Burt’s Bees Foundation, as well as Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association, Keep Durham Beautiful, TreesDurham, and Triangle Land Conservancy, allowing us to offer this series free of charge to participants.

Application Prioritization. We accept applications primarily from Durham-Chapel Hill organizations and individuals. While we welcome applications from individuals, priority will be given to organizations committing to participating in the series in groups of 3-6 people. We strongly encourage you to consider representing the full diversity of your organization when creating your group. Moreover, we require that each participant commit to attending all 4 workshops. The workshops are meant to build on each other.

Workshop Dates/Time/Location. 10:30am-12pm (morning cohort) and 1pm-2:30pm (afternoon cohort) on Tuesdays, January 19, February 2, 16, and March 2, 2021. Online via Zoom.

• Tuesday, January 19 – introduction to racial equity
• Tuesday, February 2 – introduction to environmental justice
• Tuesday, February 16 – case studies exploring race and environmental justice in Durham
• Tuesday, March 2 – case studies and planning ways to incorporate racial equity and address environmental injustice through the lens of your organization or work.

Application. Apply here by Friday, November 20 at 5pm.

Diversity & Equity in Environmental Programs (DEEP) Collaborative Meeting:

Recent survey results from the DEEP network indicate a clear interest in the network and landscape analysis of environmental and diversity, equity, and inclusion focused organizations locally. To meet this need, we would like to invite you to our DEEP Zoom meeting on Thursday, October 1 at 12PM.

During this 1-hour meeting we will:

• Engage in small group networking;
• Learn about the Durham-Chapel Hill network analysis completed by Bhargavi Karumuri Jeyarajah and Emma Fulop; and
• Participate in a solutions-focused small group workshop building from the network analysis.

If you’re planning to attend, please send me an email ( nicolette.cagle@duke.edu).

The DEEP Collaborative brings together Durham-Chapel Hill organizations and  initiatives that address diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), K-12 education, and the environment.

The purpose of the DEEP Collaborative is to 1) facilitate the development and growth of environmental-focused diversity and inclusion programs in the Triangle and 2) identify potential areas of overlap and partnership.

A critical goal of the DEEP Collaborative is to build the capacity of environmental organizations to understand the local and global context of environmental injustice in relation to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and ability. The DEEP Collaborative also provides a means for community members to meet, share, and exchange ideas regularly. If you would like to be part of this network, please email me (nicolette.cagle@duke.edu).

EENC has launched (August 2019) a “new “Equity and Inclusion in Environmental Education” online resource collection” that includes “articles, research, videos, podcasts, books, people, and organizations from across the internet into five categories:

• Making the Case for Equity and Inclusion in EE
• Helping You Learn More: Deeper Dives, Strategies, and Best Practices
• Teaching With Equity and Inclusion
• Inspirational People and Stories: Shining a Spotlight on Amazing Work by Phenomenal People
• Building Your Network: Organizations, Business and Agencies” – Lauren Pyle, EENC, 13 Aug 2019

On Friday, March 29 the Paul James (Duke University Office of Institutional Equity) and Nicolette Cagle (Nicholas School of the Environment) led a field trip to Greensboro, NC that included representatives from the City of Durham Human Relations Commission, the Triangle Land Conservancy, SEEDS, Durham Public Schools and other local groups.

During this trip, the DEEP (Diversity and Equity in Environmental Programs) Collaborative continued its journey to understand History, Race, and the Environment in our local community by exploring local 20th and 21st century history at Bennett College, an all-women HBCU.The DEEP Collaborative at Bennett College, Greensboro, NC

We also visited the International Civil Rights Center and Museum in Greensboro, NC.This trip allowed the DEEP Collaborative to apply the context of history and race in the United States directly to issues of environmental justice and being to consider the implications of this for our work in environmental fields.

 

 

On October 5, our DEEP Community members to attended a special DEEP Field Trip co-hosted by the Nicholas School of the Environment (NSOE) at Duke University and Duke University’s Office for Institutional Equity and supported by the Triangle Land Conservancy.

During this DEEP event, we traveled from Duke University to Historic Stagville for a private tour about History, Race, and Environment. Next, we met with the Triangle Land Conservancy (TLC) to learn about the intersection of land conservation and racial equity. Finally, we ate lunch at the Counting House, where Paul James, Assistant Vice President of the Office for Institutional Equity at Duke University, led us in a discussion about race, history and intercultural awareness in the context of our Stagville tour. We engaged with a common read with an eye toward the history of land procurement, human rights, and American history.

 

Schedule:

9:30AM Depart from Environment Hall

10:00AM Tour at Historic Stagville

11:15AM TLC Walk at Horton Grove Nature Preserve

12:00PM Leave for Lunch

12:30PM Lunch at the Counting House

1:45PM Depart from the Counting House

2:00PM Return to Environment Hall

Common Read. The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.

Diversity in Environmental Fields Workshop II Details:

Paul James, our intercultural awareness partner, engaged the group in an interactive case study about how we (as DEEP participants) effectively engage communities of color in the Triangle. This included how we create a sense of real community (that includes everyone) around engagement and major environmental concerns. Participants were also asked to wrestle with, and respond to, big and broad questions. The case study engaged participants in four key areas: innovative ideas, cross-cultural communication, environmental justice, and how identity and history shape workforce interactions today.

On February 21, 2018, Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Office of Institutional Equity in partnership with the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science offered a workshop for the DEEP Community.

The workshop included a collective journey into the realm of diversity and intercultural awareness with a focus on environmental fields. Paul James, Assistant Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Duke University facilitated the highly interactive workshop that surveyed the following areas: understanding diversity and inclusion in the environmental profession, creating an inclusive learning environment, and aspects of implicit bias. The session was foundational and explorative. During the session, participants unpacked and identified intersections that cross multiple forms of diversity and belonging – including cross cultural communication and equity.

Summary of Meeting of Diversity & Equity in Environmental Programs

Fall 2017

Prepared by Nicolette L. Cagle on November 22, 2017

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Executive Summary

On November 17, 2017, NSOE hosted the Chapel Hill-Durham-Beaufort Diversity & Equity in Environmental Programs (DEEP) Meeting. The purpose of the DEEP Meeting was to facilitate the development and growth of environmental and STEM-based diversity and inclusion programs in the Chapel Hill-Durham-Beaufort Community.

The meeting included 31 participants, representing 29 organizations from Durham, Chapel Hill, and Beaufort, NC. These organizations included universities, environmental organizations, diversity-focused organizations, and STEM educators.

As a result of DEEP, we developed a common terminology with which local organizations framed issues of diversity and the environment; laid the ground for local environmental pipeline/pathway organizations to work collaboratively to maximize efforts; gave prominence to critical data illustrating strengths and weakness in local environmental pipeline/pathway efforts (including section of the pipeline addressed and resources); highlighted the commonalities among organizations in regard to emphasis and importance of diversity in environmental fields; recognized and supported various environmental pipeline program organizations and initiatives; and ensured that lessons learned were lessons shared so local environmental pipeline programs can replicate successful projects.

Based on the results of the meeting, we have identified four potential next steps: 1) hold another DEEP meeting within the next 6 to 12 months; 2) develop a web-based environmental pipeline and pathway program directory; 3) deliver a network and landscape analysis to the DEEP community; 4) offer diversity training to the DEEP community.

[Please note that the overall results of the pre-meeting data collection effort are also presented in this report.]

Purpose

On November 17, 2017, NSOE hosted the Chapel Hill-Durham-Beaufort Diversity & Equity in Environmental Programs (DEEP) Meeting. The purpose of the DEEP Meeting was to facilitate the development and growth of environmental and STEM-based diversity and inclusion programs in the Chapel Hill-Durham-Beaufort Community.

In this meeting, we emphasized environmental or science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pipelines. Environmental and STEM pipeline programs seek to increase the representation of particular groups (e.g., under-represented minorities, women) in environmental and STEM fields.

 

 

Overview of Meeting Participants

While the meeting emphasized environmentally- and STEM-focused programs, we did not limit participation to those programs. Instead, we found three groups represented by DEEP Meeting participants:

1. Those working locally on diversity and inclusion initiatives and pipelines with a variety of age groups (i.e., pre-K to adults).
2. Those working locally on environment and conservation initiatives.
3. Those working both in diversity & inclusion and environment & STEM arenas.

The meeting included 31 participants, representing 29 organizations from Durham, Chapel Hill, and Beaufort, NC (see Supplemental Table 1). These organizations included universities (e.g., Duke University, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, and North Carolina Central University), environmental non-profits (e.g., Triangle Land Conservancy, Eno River Association), diversity and equity focused non-profits organizations (Durham P.R.O.U.D., East Durham Children’s Alliance), environmental or STEM pipeline or pathway programs (e.g., BOOST, GALS) and Durham Public Schools.

Significant Meeting Outcomes

The DEEP meeting spurred a number of important outcomes for the environmental pipeline/pathway program community. As a result of DEEP, we:

• Developed a common terminology with which local organizations framed issues of diversity and the environment;
• Laid the ground for local environmental pipeline/pathway organizations to work collaboratively to maximize efforts;
• Gave prominence to critical data illustrating strengths and weakness in local environmental pipeline/pathway efforts (including section of the pipeline addressed and resources);
• Highlighted the commonalities among organizations in regard to emphasis and importance of diversity in environmental fields;
• Recognized and supported various environmental pipeline program organizations and initiatives; and
• Ensured that lessons learned were lessons shared so local environmental pipeline programs can replicate successful projects.

Summary of Meeting Discussions

Goals of DEEP Meeting Participants. At the beginning of the meeting, the DEEP meeting participants were asked to identify their own meeting goals. Meeting participants sought to:

• Understand the challenges that organizations face
• Consider new approaches to overcoming challenges and barriers
• Develop long-term program continuity and leadership
• Create partnerships that provide resource support
• Brainstorm ideas on how to increase environment/STEM proficiency in students
• Identify appropriate measures of success for programs
• Promote the need for environment/STEM pipelines to the community
• Connect existing programs to under-served communities
• Create a community of organizations

 

Best Practices. During the DEEP Meeting, participants were grouped with others that worked with similar age groups. They were asked to discuss best practices for environmental/STEM pipeline and pathway programs. Those best practices, organized into four categories, are presented below.

Relevance & Interest

• Identify and engage the audiences’ and students’ interests
• Engage in issues that are relevant to the audience
• Develop real world applications

 

Cultural Awareness

• Listen carefully to the community that you are serving
• Beware of making assumptions about a group’s needs
• Be aware of and sensitive to cultural identities
• Develop hyper-local knowledge of culture
• Include cultural histories and connections in program content
• Prepare staff, educator and mentors with training in diversity, equity, and inclusion

 

Building Programs

• Design programs to overcome specific barriers
• Consider building programs from a “strengths-based” perspective
• Build up from your base of current resources
• Replicate or modify programs that have demonstrated success
• Leverage the connections and partnerships of other organizations

 

Human Relationships

• Create opportunities for peer mentoring
• Call on alumni to be champions and leaders
• Involve families when working with children
• Share children/student experience with families (e.g., science night, family night)
• Create diverse teams of staff, educators, and mentors

 

Ideas for Synergies. During the DEEP Meeting, participants were assigned to groups that allowed them to interact with organizations working with different age groups or doing different types of work. During this break-out session, participants were asked to consider best practices for developing synergies, partnerships, and collaborations that would allow organizations to meet their goals and extend their reach. Meeting participants identified the following best practices for developing synergies:

• Work together to ensure less duplication
• Find the right people to work with at large institutions and organizations
• Identify gaps in outreach
• Think in terms of partnership and synergy instead of competition
• Consider other avenues for outreach (e.g., afterschool programs)
• Identify potential advocates and allies
• Use network to create training opportunities for staff and educators
• Allow relationships to build slowly and develop long-term trust
• Connect to schools, including specialists, teachers, and school counselors
• Develop relationships with organizations that work with the previous or next age group
• Spread out to different communities

 

Moving Forward in K-12 Diversity Programming

During the DEEP Meeting, participants also identified potential action items to further develop local pipeline and pathway programs in the environment and other STEM fields. Participants looked for leadership in:

• Developing a network analysis to see how local organizations are connected,
• Conducting a landscape analysis to identify age groups and communities that are not being served,
• Creating a centralized list of community resources in environment/STEM & diversity,
• Providing participants with a means to meet, share, and exchange ideas regularly, and
• Identifying and/or creating cultural competency training opportunities for environment & STEM providers.

 

Proposed Next Steps

Based on the results of the meeting, we have identified four potential next steps: 1) hold another DEEP meeting within the next 6 to 12 months; 2) develop a web-based environmental pipeline and pathway program directory; 3) deliver a network and landscape analysis to the DEEP community; 4) offer diversity training to the DEEP community. Those ideas are explored in more detail below.

1. DEEP 2 – Developing Collaborations. As a next step, we propose a DEEP 2 meeting in approximately 6 months. The objective of DEEP 2 would be to create teams to work along the environmental education pipeline through a collaborative project. To do this, we would first use a survey to 1) identify organizations interested in participating in a collaborative project workshop and 2) acquire data about the programs that could be used to create viable teams. Then, we would use another survey that would allow organizations to rank potential collaborators that operate in a different segment of the pipeline. The segments of the pipeline that would be addressed include: pre-K, elementary, middle school, high school, and family programs.
2. Develop an Environment Pipeline Directory. We recommend that NSOE, in collaboration with community partners, create a web-based environmental pipeline and pathway program directory or portal. This directory would allow organizations to register their activities and connect with other organizations in their area. In addition, the directory could be used as a repository for activities, a means to compile best practices, and a rich data source for NSOE-led publications. A similar portal has been developed for law-focused pipeline programs, it can be found here:

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/diversity/diversity_pipeline/resources/pipeline_diversity_directory.html

3. Develop a Network & Landscape Analysis. A third step is for NSOE to use our resources, in collaboration with community partners, to meet the need of meeting participants for a network and landscape analysis. NSOE will explore possible models (e.g., Masters Projects, independent studies) to complete this work on a 2 to 3 year timeline.
4. Offer Diversity Training to the DEEP Community. To meet the needs of the DEEP community, we propose to offer 1-2 trainings in diversity (e.g., diversity and inclusion in environmental fields, creating inclusive classrooms, implicit bias training) this Spring.

Pre-Meeting Data Summary

Prior to the DEEP Meeting, data was collected on 35 local organizations that work in the environment, STEM, and/or diversity. Important results emerging from this data include that majority of organizations working in this arena target 12 to 18 year-olds, and emphasize race, socioeconomic, and gender diversity.

Pre-Meeting Data Collection

Between May and September 2017, NSOE collected data on possible DEEP Meeting participants. We contacted 35 organizations in Chapel Hill-Durham-Beaufort (see Supplement 1) and requested that they fill out survey detailing the following attributes of their organizations:

 

• location;
• age groups targeted;
• number served per year;
• diversity goal(s);
• type(s) of diversity targeted;
• number of full time, part time and volunteer staff;
• length of program;
• whether programs included overnight experiences;
• additional mentoring, or reunions;
• primary academic content of program;
• type of environmental content in program,
• types of scientific content in program;
• secondary content;
• type of activities;
• college and careers as program elements;
• pedagogical practices employed;
• pipelines the program directly connects to; and
• measures of success.

 

 

Pre-Meeting Data Results

All (100%) organizations contacted responded to the pre-meeting survey. The majority (63%) of respondents worked primarily in Durham, but participants also worked in Beaufort and Chapel Hill. Additionally, some of participants worked across the Triangle, the state, or the country.

In addition, the majority (77% and 71% respectively) of participants identified their primary content area as science or the environment. Other primary content areas reported by participants included: technology (34%), engineering (34%), social science (34%), mathematics (26%) and humanities (23%).

Also, the majority of participants (70-80%) reported working with early and middle adolescents, although participants reported working with a range of age groups, from infancy to older adults (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Percent of organizations working with particular age groups.

In addition, 2/3^rds of the reporting organizations described enhancing diversity or representation or equity as an explicit goal. Of those 2/3^rds, over half of organizations reported emphasizing racial diversity, with socioeconomic (49%) and gender (43%) diversity being reported as diversity targets as well (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Types of diversity being targeted, as reported by the 66% of respondents that described enhancing diversity as an explicit organizational or programmatic goal.

Also, about 1/3^rd of participants explicitly considered themselves a diversity pipeline program, defined as “programs at all levels of education intended to target, enroll, and support to graduation certain students, usually underrepresented students including minority, low income, and women, with the goal of increasing their representation in certain fields.” Of that 1/3^rd, only 50% (5) of organizations report connecting directly to other pipelines.

Each year, these 35 organizations serve thousands of individuals (see Figure 3). Individuals are being served in a variety of ways, from one-day events to year-round programs; some programs include additional mentoring and reunions, and other programs (about 30% ) include an overnight component.

Figure 3. Percent of respondents associated with the number of individuals they serve annually.

Most organizations are serving their audiences with very limited staff. The majority (>50%) of our organizations have 0-3 full time staff members and 0-3 part time staff members (Figures 4 and 5).

Figure 4/5. Percent of organizations associated with the number of full time staff members working for the program or organization, and percent of organizations associated with the number of part time staff members working for the program or organization.

 

Organizations define success in a variety of ways (Figure 6). Many organizations emphasized increasing or reinforcing capacities, and ensuring success particularly among students. These capacities may be relate to the outdoors, or work or school. Nearly half of organizations emphasized the development of students’ socio-emotional capacities; academic and workforce capacities were emphasized by a smaller fraction of programs (approximately 1/5^th each). Environmental awareness was also mentioned as a goal, though reported by even fewer organizations.

Figure 6. Word size is proportional to the frequency that the idea appeared in participant responses to the question about defining success.

Pre-meeting data collection also allowed me to develop charts to help NSOE faculty and staff match up efforts with appropriate organizations (see Appendix 2). These charts are divided by region (Chapel Hill, Durham, Beaufort, or Raleigh/Statewide) and whether or not the organization is associated with NSOE. The charts further depict the age groups each organizations works with and the number of total participants in those programs.

 

 

 

Supplement 1. Organizations contacted and responding to DEEP Meeting pre-survey.

• BOOST
• Conservation Trust for North Carolina
• Duke Superfund Research Center Community Engagement Core
• Duke Talent Identification Program (Duke TIP)
• Duke University Marine Lab (DUML)
• DUML Alliance of LGBTQIAA
• DUML’s Inclusivity Initiative
• Durham PROUD Program
• O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation
• Emily Krzyzewski Center
• Eno River Association
• Environmental Science Summer Program at Duke
• FEMMES (Females Engaging More in Math, Engineering, and Science)
• Girls Exploring Science & Technology (GEST)
• Girls on outdoor Adventure for Leadership and Science (GALS)
• IDEA 2.0 Geoscience Intership Program
• iWalk the Eno and the Eno Environmental Experience
• Morehead Planetarium and Science Center
• Nicholas PhD Advisory Council (NPAC)
• DUML Ocean Filmmaking Camp
• Office of the Duke Forest
• Orange County Partnership for Young Children
• Park Institute of America
• Piedmont Wildlife Center
• Project Uplift
• DUML Research Experience for Undergraduates
• Schoolhouse of Wonder
• SEEDS
• Student Association of Wetland Scientist
• Summer Accelerator at North Carolina School of Science and Math
• The Scientific Research and Education Network (SciREN)
• Transplanting Traditions Community Farm
• Triangle Land Conservancy
• Trillium Sustainability Fellows
• Young Scholars Summer Research Institute

 

In November, 2017, Dr. Nicolette Cagle of the Nicholas School of the Environment, hosted the first DEEP Meeting. Thirty-five community leaders gathered to explore best practices and ignite synergies in their efforts around diversity and inclusion in environmental fields, especially at the K-12 level.

By the end of the meeting, we had explored our joint goals (see image below).

We also discussed our joint measures of success (see below):