Securing equitable access to healthy environment, open space, and sustainably harvested natural resources, ensuring all voices are heard, and protecting the natural environment for future generations are among the core values that inform and motivate SMEA research, teaching, and outreach. SMEA faculty, staff, and students have all been interrogating ways in which the School might become more effective agents of change to answer the calls for social justice.

In terms of recruitment of diverse applicants to SMEA’s MMA program, the Graduate Program Advisor, Tiffany Dion alongside the Chair of the 2019/20 Admissions Committee, Dr. Sunny Jardine, drafted a proposal to the Graduate Opportunities and Minority Achievement Program (GO-MAP) to secure funding for an incoming student, which was ultimately awarded. Recruiting a diverse body of students is a priority for SMEA. If you have any suggestions on how we can do better, please contact the Director.

The Diversity Forum, a group of committed SMEA students, and now recent alums, has been working actively to enhance the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within the School and also in the field of marine affairs. “The role of the Diversity Forum has evolved quite a bit. It started as a space for students to build community- practically forming overnight. In May 2019, we created the Forum because we realized that SMEA lacked a space – one where BIPOC and LGBTQ+ students and allies who wanted to be in community around issues of social justice could build community”, write Sallie Lau and Bridget Harding, the co-facilitators of the Diversity Forum during the past academic year. What started as an unofficial student organization within SMEA, the Diversity Forum, has undergone  a summer of intense research and work to envision how it may grow to include faculty and staff and inform SMEA student recruitment, admissions, retention, curriculum development, and outreach.

One way to increase visibility and the impact of DEI work is to form a DEI Committee within SMEA. This is the path several other schools in the College of the Environment have taken. “The need for it (the Committee) grew organically through increased dialogue with other departmental DEI committees in the College of the Environment; seeing what other departments were doing was eye opening, and meeting other students who were doing this work inspired us”, offered members of the Diversity Forum. “It really solidified for us that some institutional changes that needed to be made couldn’t be addressed through informal student effort. The growing emphasis on environmental justice at SMEA has encouraged us to walk the talk”.

As stated by members of the Diversity Forum: “We are the most diverse department in the College of the Environment, but that becomes less meaningful when we consider how white and patriarchal the environmental field and academia are. When we pay attention to what current and former BIPOC and LGBTQ+ students and faculty are saying about inclusion, we need to not only hear those voices, but to take their advice. We need to be accountable to BIPOC and LGBTQ+ community members, and we need to be accountable to the communities we do research and education with. A Diversity Committee is a long-term commitment, a way to show those who will be part of the SMEA community someday, who will be affected by the actions of all other SMEA committees, that they will be welcomed and cared for. That being said, a diversity committee is not a solution in itself to DEI issues. It is a long-term conduit for solutions to happen.”

The Diversity Forum also collaborated with SMEA faculty and staff to draft a Diversity Statement, which is now displayed on the SMEA website. In a sense, the statement helped to solidify the Diversity Forum’s push for a more formal committee, “The statement was the thing that changed what the Diversity Forum meant for some of us. We started thinking of new ways to advocate for DEI at SMEA. The necessity of this work wasn’t visible to us when we first started the Diversity Forum. But you know, a lot of us were drawn to the Diversity Forum because we knew we needed change, somehow.” Additionally, the SMEA community gathered virtually for a Town Hall following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and subsequent protests to provide a space for reflection, processing, and strategizing about potential courses of action, which was thoughtfully led by members of the Diversity Forum.

Another student-led initiative stems from the SMEA student blog, Currents. “The editorial board is focusing nearly all of our attention on the work and the voices of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), as well as of LGBTQ+ people, in the world of marine and environmental affairs”, writes James Lee, this year’s editor-in-chief. “We’re doing this because we’ve been thinking a lot about the ways in which issues of race, gender, white supremacy, public health, and environmental justice are an integral part of marine and environmental affairs.” Knowing that the SMEA cohort demographics have a majority of white students, Currents students are looking beyond their own circles and networks to generate content. They, too, are working on a mission statement that will guide the editorial board, as well as updating submission guidelines that “will provide more detail on best practices in incorporating and elevating underrepresented perspectives”.

Before the most recent deaths of Black Americans at the hands of police, and the resulting outcry for social justice, SMEA had instituted a requirement for all students to complete coursework in “Environmental Equity & Justice” (or EEJ courses), which can be satisfied through a number of Special Topics courses offered at different points throughout the academic year. The Diversity Forum is leading an effort to add to the pool of EEJ courses available to students. In addition, SMEA faculty decided to focus 2020/21 SMEA Speakers Series on Environmental Equity and Justice. In sum, SMEA students, staff, and faculty are working hard to enhance our capacity to make environmental and marine governance, management, and education more inclusive and just.