Mark Billings
Mark teaches courses that incorporate studies about the Earth’s gifts (often called natural resources and ecosystem services in western science) and society. In his teaching, Mark addresses the intersection of race, gender, and our use of the Earth’s gifts, as well as introducing indigenous practices. Mark emphasizes the use of critical thinking by students in all of his courses and the benefits of questioning all social constructs and institutions in order to reveal potential inequities in those systems.
Scott Jess
Scott aims to support changes in geoscience to make it a more diverse, equitable and inclusive field. In his research, Scott has worked to collect demographic data from the geoscience field to better understand its makeup, highlight areas of concern and why they exist. Additionally, he looks at how the Earth’s surface has evolved over modern and geological timescales, attempting to understand how climate and tectonics shapes mountain belts. All of this research is completed in an environment promoting equity, inclusion, accessibility and a strong sense of belonging for student researchers, research colleagues and other stakeholders, under an Inclusive Physical Space framework. In teaching, Scott advocates for the accessible curriculums that suite all needs under the Universal Design for Learning framework and the reduction in the costs associated with assess to university education. As the field of geoscience adapts to a future focused on sustainability, efforts must be made to make the field more diverse, equitable and inclusive to help address these challenges.
Steve Henderson
Steve started teaching SOE Global classes because (based on nationwide statistics) he expected them to have a high proportion first-generation students (based on nationwide statistics). Through teaching Global courses, he also aims to increase education access to non-traditional students like those who are place bound, have caregiving responsibilities, or have work or family commitments that would prevent them from attending in-person courses.
Steve believes that the Global SOE Major, achieved by the work of many across SOE, is a significant macro-scale effort toward inclusion.
Kent Keller
Kent believes that pursuing sustainability as a society requires new understanding of and relationship with our indigenous sisters and brothers. Thus, he has developed a discussion thread related to this for SOE 501/Grad Intro Seminar, focusing on how scaling of sustaining ecosystem services relates to scaling of human communities using resources such as Robert Thayer’s Life Place (2003) and Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass (2016).
Marcia Ostrom
Marcia’s research focuses on social equity as an integral aspect of sustainable food systems, and this focus is reflected in her teaching and extension work. Her courses incorporate food justice and analyze social movements. Her extension courses are offered in multiple languages so that they are accessible to farmworkers, refugees, and immigrants. Marcia is also co-leading a national Extension initiative at WSU called Coming Together for Racial Understanding (CTRU) that teaches and employs dialogue strategies for addressing racism within our own institutions and in Washington communities.
Sarah Roley
Sarah aims to make her classroom inclusive by implementing equitable classroom policies. She also employs evidence-based teaching practices (learned in the LIFT program) that emphasize a growth mindset, foster social belonging, and affirm values. In research, Sarah aims to ask research questions that can advance our fundamental understanding of the natural world while directly addressing conservation and natural resources challenges. In doing so, Sarah works directly with agencies and tribes that can direct research to the most pressing local issues.
Gretchen Rollwagen-Bollens
Gretchen strives to make college classrooms equitable and accessible through research-based practices. These practices include growth mindset interventions, course-based undergraduate research, and course policies that reflect accessibility. She has published papers documenting the positive effects of these practices. Beyond her own courses, Gretchen works with WSU-Vancouver and local community colleges to create institutional changes that reduce barriers for BIPOC and first-generation college students. She is the Operational Leader of IMPACT STEM Transfer Network.
Deepti Singh
Deepti aims to advance climate justice through her research, teaching and outreach. She has developed a course on Climate and Environmental Justice (SOE 492/592) that explores the drivers of the climate inequities especially on low-income communities, communities of color and Indigenous Peoples around the world and frameworks for a socially-just transition. To bring diverse voices into the classroom, she invited local climate justice organizations and tribal members to the classroom to share their work.
In all her courses, she exposes students to the work of scholars from underrepresented backgrounds through guest lectures and including their research and perspectives in the curriculum. She also aims to create an inclusive learning environment for all students through using active learning strategies. Outside of WSU, she frequently engages with K-12 students and underrepresented communities through programs such as the Southwest Washington MESA for climate education to empower them with knowledge that could help them be more resilient to climate change.
Amanda Stahl
Amanda views her research as a path toward integrating multiple sources of knowledge, incorporating multiple ways of knowing (e.g., local or traditional ecological knowledge), facilitating communication among diverse groups, and identifying possible solutions to produce actionable science.
She is currently working with land managers in the inland Northwest to address the accessibility of science-based tools to inform recovery after wildfires in dry forests. Through her teaching and outreach activities, she aims to reach an audience with a broader range of backgrounds, experiences, cultures, identities, and ways of knowing than has historically been represented in earth, environmental, and natural resources sciences. She strives to create an inclusive learning environment in her courses to strengthen students’ sense of social belonging, promote a growth mindset, and consider the diversity of values and goals held by classmates.
To de-mystify working in the outdoors in her field methods course (SOE 204), which can be particularly challenging for students from underserved groups, she has discussions about physical and social-emotional safety and shares her own field research experiences as the only female on a field team. In her conservation biology course (SOE 450), she focuses on inclusion and environmental justice through discussing written works by authors from diverse backgrounds to consider a variety of perspectives on nature, sense of place, and the meaning of conservation to prepare her students to value diverse perspectives for more equitable and effective solutions to challenges in environmental conservation.
Outside of the classroom, she is also actively engaged with many groups through programs such as Skype-a-Scientist that reaches classrooms across the world and Geo for Good that provides access to research products and regularly writes current research for general audiences via blog such as the Agriculture Climate Network (www.agclimate.net). She has run workshops on the use of remote sensing data for environmental monitoring for several regional or statewide events involving Conservation District Staff and conservation practitioners.
Michelle Steen-Adams
In teaching, research, and outreach, Michelle aims to foster spaces that uplift a diversity of perspectives and traditions of Earth stewardship, uphold treaty rights, and that examine pathways toward land justice. She strives to create learning communities in which all students have a sense of belonging, based on their contributions to the body of knowledge about care-taking of Earth systems. In her courses (SOE 312, SOE 404), she has developed modules in which students explore how Indigenous and Traditional Knowledges and African American traditions can guide restoration of ecosystems and human connections to the land (a term called biocultural restoration). Students also explore the role of emerging land management concepts, such as co-stewardship and co-management, in honoring tribal treaties and other rights.
This teaching approach is based in Michelle’s research on tribal partnerships and environmental histories, conducted with Tribes and Peoples of Color in the Pacific Northwest, California, the Great Lakes region, and the Northeastern U.S. In 2021 – 2023, she led the Land Conservation, History, and Justice Working Group, an offshoot of trainings developed with the Land Trust Alliance and the Forest History Society.
Michelle is grateful to collaborators who have shared their knowledges and perspectives. She values opportunities to extend forward these insights with students, land managers, and colleagues.