Current time at conference location: 5:44 pm CT
Tuesday, January 9, 2024 | 10:00 AM CT - 11:30 AM CT
Session ID
150
Session Title
AAS CSMA Presents: Astronomy’s Poverty Problem
Session Type
Special Session
Room
237
Session Chair
Nicole Cabrera Salazar
Summary
The professional advancement pathways within the field of astronomy impede diversity by introducing enforced financial scarcity at various stages. This scarcity serves as a barrier-to-entry toward those most affected by poverty in the U.S. – most often people of color and first-generation college students. Working towards improved diversity in the field requires us to challenge these systemic barriers and find solutions that make astronomy a field that is accessible to all who want to contribute, free from the prospect of immediate financial hardship for them and their families. 
 
The prospect of choosing to go to graduate school is disproportionately challenging for students who come from impoverished backgrounds. It is likely that this ‘Graduate School Crossroads’ is a bottleneck to socioeconomic and racial diversity in astronomy. In recent decades, the cost of simply applying to graduate programs has ballooned and can easily cost students thousands of dollars. Once accepted, stipends for graduate students often equate to rates that are near minimum wage. This is exacerbated in high-cost-of-living areas, where many of the most prestigious institutions reside. Universities also often require graduate students to provide funds for tuition, and sometimes do not provide health insurance coverage for graduate students. Though some see graduate work as an investment, do we really want to restrict our community only to those who have sufficient existing funds to ‘invest’? 
 
Currently, there is a dearth of demographic data pertaining to the rates of professional astronomers that come from impoverished backgrounds. To help study this problem, a voluntary survey will be released concurrently with AAS 243 to assess the underrepresentation of astronomers along the axis of early-life impoverishment. 
 
In this session organized by the AAS Committee on the Status of Minorities in Astronomy, we will discuss personal accounts of enforced financial hardship in academia, the demographics of poverty in American society, and why every astronomer should care about this issue. We will also hold a panel discussion that includes astronomers that come from impoverished backgrounds to discuss pathways to improvement within the community.

Presentations