DEI Strategies

We recognize the necessity to adapt our strategies as priorities and community dialogues evolve. Therefore, the following strategies comprise a “living document.”

In development and execution of our programmatic activities, we commit to the following specific strategies to implement these values:

1. All meetings, symposiums, and webinars will follow the Sea Grant Association’s Events Code of Conduct and be welcoming and inclusive.
2. All work will be conducted in safe work environments free from explicit and implicit sexual harassment/assault and racial bias.
3. Facilitation techniques are designed and implemented to ensure balanced input.
4. Funding opportunities are distributed to a wide variety of audiences within our network, and we actively seek diverse partners for research, extension, education, communication, and professional development projects to create pathways for success.
5. Engage organizations that support underserved communities to enhance their access to coastal science, outreach, grant funding, and sustainable economic development opportunities.
6. Our program will intentionally advertise to recruit staff from diverse sources so that our team reflects the many communities that we serve in South Carolina.
7. We will continuously provide communications, trainings, and resources to all staff in order to ensure the retention of a diverse workforce.
8. We recognize our responsibility to strengthen the STEM pipeline to college and professional life for students of all backgrounds and abilities.

These efforts will help ensure the Consortium adheres to the principles in NOAA’s Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan 2020-2024, especially with respect to effectively recruiting individuals from diverse backgrounds, actively seeking out diverse partners, actively engaging diverse stakeholders, developing practices for managing diversity and inclusion for program implementation, and convening safe work environments free from any harassment/assault and racial bias.