Assessing the experiences, abilities, and challenges that mentoring programs in environmental science and ecology have in serving deaf and hard of hearing students

Authors: FAIR, HEATHER - University Of Minnesota; Smiley, Peter - Rocky

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/14/2021
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Underrepresentation of individuals with disabilities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM ) disciplines has been a longstanding issue. Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) individuals are disproportionately underrepresented in STEM careers and likely even more so within environmental science and ecology fields that are less diverse than other science fields. Many of the larger environmental science and ecology organizations have mentoring programs that support the participation of students from underrepresented groups at their annual conferences . These mentoring programs serve students from all underrepresented groups and may lack the experience in serving DHH individuals to ensure a rewarding experience in both in-person and virtual conference environments. Scientific conferences are a challenge for DHH individuals as numerous language barriers occur during formal and informal meeting activities and effectively designed mentoring programs would be a valuable experience for DHH individuals in STEM careers. We conducted a survey of mentoring programs for underrepresented groups in environmental science and ecology organizations with the following objectives: 1) identify organizational experience in serving DHH students; 2) understand the ability of organizations to pair DHH students with DHH role models; and 3) describe challenges faced while serving DHH students. Our presentation will summarize our survey results and will use these results to develop key recommendations on how mentoring programs can improve their ability to serve DHH students.