Current time at conference location: 5:44 pm CT
Thursday, January 11, 2024 | 10:00 AM CT - 11:30 AM CT
Session Title
The Post-2023 Landscape for Graduate Admissions in Astronomy
Session Type
Splinters
Room
235/236
Summary
With recent Supreme Court decisions (Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellos of Harvard College; Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina) having struck down the use of race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions, changes are likely in the demographics of student bodies of many U.S. colleges and universities – including those with active astronomy research programs, which have traditionally contributed a significant share of the astronomy graduate student applicant pool. Ensuring that astronomy as a profession is welcoming to students from all groups (including those currently underrepresented in the field) may therefore face new challenges. This session will examine the new landscape for graduate admissions that is emerging in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decisions, with a focus on identifying what is possible and what is effective for individual departments and the AAS as a whole to do in support of the long-term goal of broadening participation in the field. A diverse group of discussants will contribute complementary perspectives to this session, guided by the principle (as articulated by the Panel on the State of the Profession and Societal Impacts of the Astro2020 Decadal Survey) that "the pursuit of science, and scientific excellence, is inseparable from the humans who animate it."

Presentations