FAQs
Refinement related
During Fall 2022, URGE will invite workplace leaders to a Zoom discussion where URGE leaders will advocate for compensation and/or recognition of pod members for their role in developing anti-racist policies and resources. We will also seek to understand the barriers to recognition and compensation of work done to increase belonging, accessibility, justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Pod leaders will share the contact information of their workplace leaders. URGE will then email and invite leaders to attend a live Zoom session with DEI experts to discuss and identify strategies that create active and effective anti-racist collaborations among groups of individuals at various professional levels and advocate for compensation and or recognition due to URGE commitment.
Once the leadership sessions end, registered pods will have a minimum of 8 weeks to refine their deliverable. URGE will offer some activities to help facilitate the refinement of deliverables. Pods can select the activities that best help them. Pods that want to participate in all activities can create podlets to distribute the workload, reducing the time commitment for each participant and ensuring that participants continue to focus on other professional roles/graduate courses.
Please sign by October 15, 2022.
We anticipate through Fall 2022. We will conduct the sessions and share findings so that pods can be aware of the information before attempting to refine their policies and resources. Additionally, we would also like to advocate for pods regarding recognition, compensation, and the potential to teach courses related to the URGE curriculum.
This is up to pods! Do what works best for yourselves and workplaces. Pods can continue working or take a break.
We need to conduct more research and recognize the potential roadblocks to implementing policies. While we have used research of others/personal experiences/ knowledge of our institutions to design the policies, we would like to also consult with leaders to understand potential roadblocks to implementation as well as consult others working in this area with more experience to ensure that these policies produce more solutions and positive actions as opposed to harm.
After the leadership session ends, we will provide a variety of activities to help pods improve their deliverables. Pods can choose which activities to participate in and when. We hope to provide as much flexibility so pods can design their engagement based on where they are in the process, what their pods needs, how many members are involved, etc. We suggest that pods do their best to produce the most robust sets of deliverables. We will ask for the finalized deliverables in Summer 2023.
Each pod that continues will receive a badge of recognition. We will also recognize pods that are not continuing through the official refinement process but are still making significant progress in designing, implementing, and assessing anti-racist policies and resources for their workplaces. New drafts of deliverables and any progress reports will also be included on the website.
Please update us with your progress, which we will post on your page. Share your updates here. We also suggest that you keep tabs on the program and the materials we put out, then identify which ones may be relevant to where you were. You might find that there are things that could have enriched a former step, which you may use to revise your current plans, or you may find that you have ideas for the program or can inform us of challenges that other pods, who have not progressed as far your pod, may expect to face. This way, the program remains flexible, and we learn from each other.
Yes. Provide all updates here.
The decision should be made by the pod members. If the pod decides to accept the member, share the updated list here.
Yes. Only members of the URGE team will have access to the questions.
Yes. At the end of the sessions, the URGE team will compose a report to be published and distributed.
Conference related
Yes!
URGE has a "Topical Session" at GSA and a Union Session at AGU.
At this time we do not have plans for sessions elsewhere (OSM, etc).
The number of abstracts received for AGU or GSA will determine if the sessions are posters or oral.
At AGU we are specifically planning for a 90 minute Union Session with broad participation across fields, disciplines, etc. We would really like to see a large poster session!
We do not yet know how the "hybrid" model of either conference will affect our session.
For GSA: T162 - Lessons learned from URGE 2021. Abstracts are due Tuesday, July 20
For AGU: Union Session. Abstracts are due Wednesday August 4
For GSA: Presenting authors can deliver two (2) abstracts during the meeting, which can consist of one (1) volunteered oral presentation and one (1) volunteered poster presentation, or two (2) poster presentations. The only exemption to this policy occurs when the presenter is also invited to give a presentation in either a Pardee Keynote Session or a Topical Session, as invited abstracts are not counted.
The URGE session is a 'Topical Session' at GSA
For AGU: AGU has recently changed their policy for all abstracts. You can now submit 2 as long as they are in different sessions or 3 abstracts if one or two are invited.
Both GSA and AGU plan to have "hybrid" options, though we do not yet know how that will work.
We encourage you to submit an abstract anyway - and figure it out later!
In both GSA and AGU sessions, we hope to hear whatever you would like to share about your experience with URGE. We are interested in hearing the different experiences across types and sizes of institutions, pod demographics, etc.
- Success and types of challenges
- Vision for future of your pod/institution
For GSA: No, we will not have a booth
For AGU: We have been invited to have a booth, but have not yet determined if we will have enough people to manage it.
Yes!
We are currently working on setting up our online store for pod members to purchase URGE merchandise. We will encourage pod members to wear their URGE gear at these conferences!
We are also working on badges/ribbons for conference badges.
Using URGE branding
Please submit your request in writing here.
No. It is not permissible to adjust or modify the URGE logo.
Yes, as long as the URGE logo / creative commons license is followed!
Requests for URGE Leadership
Yes. URGE has a standard hourly rate for talks or presentations. Please submit your request in writing here.
No, but we can tweet a summary of the information or post it on the website.
Pod creation and management
In theory, the pods can be as large as is required for your department, affiliate group, or institution. We recommend a size of no more than 12 members involved in the discussion of the papers and interviews at a time. Anything larger may make the discussions less impactful and may dilute the conversations. If a pod attracts more attention, we recommend that you register as one pod, break up into 2 or more smaller groups (podlets) with separate discussions and then reconvene as a larger group when needed for discussion of deliverables. A pod can handle this as they want, by either having different times or one time to meet and using breakout sessions.
It is okay to update your participant list. Pods should submit updates to their members here. Please do not accept new members after February 5, 2021. The update page will no longer be available after that date.
Adding new members might require pods to start new podlets for discussions of papers and interviews (if the size becomes larger than 12 members).
Pod leaders are the main points of contact between URGE and the pods. Pod leaders submit files to the URGE website (e.g., sign up form, updates to pod membership, and deliverables). It would work best if there is a designated person from the pod who submits files to URGE to avoid sending duplicate deliverables files.
Apart from this, you may organize pods in whatever ways work best for your members. You may have multiple pod members leading discussions or developing the deliverables, a different one for each session, for example. This spreads out the job of facilitating Zoom meetings, moderating discussions, and finalizing edits, in addition to engaging all pod members and leveling any power dynamics.
The first week of each session is dedicated to the independent reading of the sessions' paper(s). This time will vary from person to person, depending on how long they need to finish the article. The second week will consist of a 1-hour interview with the author of the article and related professionals to supplement the reading and discussions. The remainder of the week should be dedicated to group discussions and the development of deliverables. We suggest that pods put aside 1-2 hours for this portion and this meeting time will be decided by the pod.
We are no longer accepting requests from individuals wishing to be assigned to a pod. Those interested in participating should email pod leaders to join. The names and email addresses of the pod leaders for already formed pods will be on the webpage for each pod. These webpages are hosted on the URGE website. Pods should stop accepting new members after February 05, 2021. See the answer to the question 'Can I join or form a pod in the middle of URGE?'
Pod discussions are entirely up to pod leaders and members; there is no required or designated time slot. Pod discussions should be scheduled for the second week of each session. We recommend anywhere between 1-1.5 hours.
Yes. You may form pods between groups of friends.
Pod sign-ups will end Friday, January 22, 2021.
We will match people with similar institution types, locations, considering a diversity of genders, races, and career stages.
Please finalize and submit any updates to pods on February 5, 2021 - i.e., the half-way point in the second session. URGE designed a curriculum that is most effective if the sessions and readings follow a specific order. To be actively anti-racist, one first needs to know what racism is, understand their place in a racist society, and be aware of how society got to its current place. Joining URGE in the middle program may cause a participant to miss some of the building blocks for the sessions that come later.
One of URGE's goal is to rally the entire community around this cause while discussing the issues in a dynamic online environment. Participating synchronously with the program will allow for potentially richer conversations online and near real-time crowdsourcing of information. We thus believe that it is best to do the URGE curriculum synchronously.
All materials will be available on the website including recordings of the webinars. By the end of the sessions, pod pages will also be populated with deliverables. Groups can then run independent URGE pods. There is the possibility of another coordinated "second wave" of URGE over Summer or Fall 2021, but this is to be determined and conditional on additional support.
General questions
Each session will consist of 2 weeks. The first week is dedicated to the independent reading of the session's paper(s). The Monday of the second week will be the interview with the author(s) or expert(s) in the field. This interview will always be 5:30-6:30 pm EST. The interview will be live-streamed and available for viewing after the live stream ends. The rest of the week will be dedicated to discussions. The discussion meeting times should be decided by each pod.
Note: Week 6 interview will be held on Tuesday, April 6 to observe Easter Monday on April 5.
Interviews will be conducted live via Zoom on the second Monday of each session from 5:30 - 6:30 pm EST. The URGE team will conduct the interviews. URGE will email the live interview links closer to the interview dates. These interviews are to supplement pod discussions and provide expert opinion in making steps and creating policies to combating bias and racism in geoscience.
Note: Week 6 interview will be held on Tuesday, April 6 to observe Easter Monday on April 5.
Education is essential but action is also imperative for achieving the objectives of URGE. Each topic is paired with concrete deliverables for pods to develop, draft, and share. The deliverables are policies that the pod designs based on information from the readings and interviews with the experts. A list of deliverables is posted here, and more information about each deliverable will be posted on each session's page. Pods are expected to provide all deliverables.
Each pod can choose how it wants to organize the development of its deliverables. One suggested method is to assign 2-3 different members per session the task of drafting deliverables (based on readings and interviews) and presenting the deliverables at the pod meetings for discussion with the entire groups. This pod's discussions would then help to supplement the drafts created by the 2-3 members. We provide optional supplemental readings to help pods create deliverables here and on each session's page.
Pods should treat these deliverables as first-drafts that they will later refine after seeing the drafts and ideas of other groups and engaging in online discussions of the deliverables. We suggest that pods take its draft deliverables and develop them into final drafts over the summer, followed by having meetings with university or organization leadership in early fall. We will provide a place for pods to post their final drafts on the URGE website.
Some pods are making demographics information optional on their spreadsheet. At the very minimum, we prefer having the information seen on this pod example page: https://urgeoscience.
Yes. When signing up to be added to a pod, please indicate 'no current affiliation' where it asks for an affiliation.
If you'd like URGE to email your department chair, dean, university or company president, or other forms of organizational leadership asking them to support URGE, please email us at info.urgeoscience [at] gmail.com asking to do so. Please include the name and email of the leader(s) within your email.
Education is essential but action is also imperative for achieving the objectives of URGE. Each topic is paired with concrete deliverables for the individual pods to develop, draft, and share. Pods are expected to provide all deliverables.
Pods should treat these deliverables as first-drafts that they will later refine after seeing the drafts and ideas of other groups and engaging in online discussions of the deliverables. We suggest that pods take the draft deliverables and develop them into final drafts over the summer, then schedule a meeting with your university or organization leadership in early fall.
All materials will be available on the URGE website, including recordings of the live interviews. Consider that your Black, Brown, Indigenous, Latinx, and other colleagues of color do not have the choice to only learn about racism, but to live it. Racism and Anti-Racism education without action does not create change.
Requests to be assigned a pod ended Tuesday, January 19th at 11:59 PM EST.
New pod registration ends Friday, January 22nd at 11:59 PM EST.
Pods can accept new members and update their pod membership until February 5th at 11:59 PM EST.
URGE was supported by the National Science Foundation under grants EAR-1714909 and EAR-2126109, with programmatic activities operating between September 2020 and June 2023. During that period, additional support was provided by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. All URGE programs were designed and implemented in full compliance with California Proposition 209, the University of California Anti-Discrimination Policy, and applicable federal and state laws. The University of California does not discriminate or grant preferences on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, or other protected categories. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed on this website are those of the URGE leadership team and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.