Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (JEDI-B) Committee:

2024-25 AY

Tim Bowles (Co-Chair & Organisms and Environment)
Alexis Flores (DEI Student Coordinator and Graduate Diversity Council)
Christy Getz (Cooperative Extension & Society and Environment)
Ted Grantham (Co-Chair and Ecosystem Sciences)
Kelly Redfearn Kinder (Staff, ESPM Events Specialist)
Peter Nelson (Society and Environment)
Chris Schell (Ecosystem Sciences)
Deibi Sibrian (Graduate Student Associate Equity and Inclusion Officer)

Graduate Diversity Council (GDC)

The ESPM Graduate Diversity Council (GDC) is a graduate student group with a vested interest in the continued diversification of the students and faculty of the department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. We work to increase the presence of underrepresented groups in environmental fields through recruitment and retention efforts including workshops, speakers, special presentations, and mentoring. We are committed to creating and maintaining a community among underrepresented groups in ESPM, while actively promoting and engaging in diversity initiatives in the campus community.

Visit the Graduate Diversity Council page for more information.

2024-25 GDC Leadership 

Alder Wheeler
Alexis Flores
Ameen Lotfi
Benji Reade-Malagueño
Claire McCoy
Daniela Rodríguez-Chávez
Daniel Rodrigues Oliveira
Deibi Sibrian
Francis Commercon
Katherine Wolf
Margot Cohen
Natasha Shannon

Visit the Past GDC Leadership page for a full list of graduate student leaders.

Community Statements and Announcements

Response to Collective Statement on Elizabeth Hoover — February 7, 2023
ESPM Graduate Diversity Council Letter regarding the UCPD Police Chief of Police Search — February 22, 2022
ESPM Council asks Berkeley campus to make DEI an essential component of merits and promotions — July 1, 2020
ESPM Faculty Response to Letter to Faculty — June 29, 2020
ESPM Graduate Diversity Council Letter to Faculty regarding anti-Black racism — June 8, 2020 
ESPM Council's statement on recent horrific events — June 1, 2020

Critical Engagements In Anti-Racist Environmental Scholarship

In Fall 2020 the department began a semester-long course to create a space for the Environmental Science, Policy, and Management community to discuss anti-racism in environmental scholarship in the age of a growing Black Lives Matter movement. The first portion of the course focused on relevant works by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) scholars (e.g. academics, activists, naturalists, and cultural critics) because it is crucial to center BIPOC voices when addressing equity and inclusivity in the environmental sciences. The second part of the course critically engaged with strategies for developing active anti-racist labs, classrooms, and a broader environmental science, policy, and management research community. 45 ESPM graduate students, faculty, postdocs, and staff participated in the course. 

Teaching Team 2020: Aidee Guzman, Kenzo Esquivel, Phoebe Parker-Shames, Rosalie Z. Fanshel, Whitney Mgbara, and Alastair Iles (instructor of record). Read the article "How 5 Graduate Students Are Advancing Anti-Racist Scholarship in Their Department" to gain insight into the course and the teaching team. Request access to the ESPM 290: Critical Engagements in Anti-Racist Environmental Scholarship Syllabus

Teaching Team 2021: Damian Elias, Kenzo Esquivel, and Phoebe Parker-Shames (fall teaching) and Whitney Mgbara, Natasha Shannon, and Lorenzo Washington (summer prep).

Teaching Team Spring 2023: Kenzo Esquivel, Rosalie Zdzienicka Fanshel, Yesenia Valverde (spring teaching), Natasha Shannon and Lorenzo Washington (fall prep), and Kathryn De Master (instructor of record). 

Teaching Team  Fall 2023: Alexis Flores, Leke Hutchins, Jaye Mejia-Duwan (fall teaching) Yesenia Valverde and Natasha Shannon (prep), and Kathryn De Master (instructor of record). 

HBCU-Berkeley Environmental Scholars for Change Program 

Since 2021, ESPM has partnered with Tuskegee University and Spelman College to launch an intensive two-month summer research internship and mentoring experience. The HBCU-Berkeley Environmental Scholars for Change Program facilitates two-way learning among UC Berkeley and Historically Black College and University (HBCU) students and faculty while fostering preparedness and belonging for HBCU students interested in environmental science graduate work at Berkeley. These objectives work toward a larger goal of increasing the recruitment and retention of Black graduate students in Berkeley’s environmental science programs by addressing some of the many barriers that exist for Black students at historically white colleges and universities. To learn more, visit the HBCU-Berkeley Environmental Scholars for Change Program webpage.

Featured News

9/26/2022: Ten UC Berkeley courses revamped to incorporate inclusive and anti-racist approaches
1/25/2022: New Tool: Advancing Inclusion and Anti-Racism in the College Classroom
7/1/2020: ESPM Council asks the Berkeley campus to make DEI an essential component of merits and promotions
6/29/2020: ESPM faculty respond to students with action plan 
6/15/2020:  ESPM graduate students call for anti-racist actions 
6/1/2020: ESPM Council statement on injustice and racism
1/16/2020: Prof. Isha Ray named the inaugural Associate Dean of Equity and Inclusion for Rausser College!
3/2019: Head Grad Advisor Damian Elias joins the California Consortium for Inclusive Doctoral Education (C-CIDE) effort as a UC Berkeley representative.     
12/2018: ESPM's professor Rachel Morello-Frosch receives the 2018 Chancellor's Award for Advancing Institutional Excellence and Equity (CAAIEE)!

ESPM DEI Plan

ESPM Department DEI plan (approved 4/2018)

Major updates to the DEI plan:

       7/2019: ESPM will no longer require the GRE as part of graduate admissions!
       7/2018: ESPM Equity Advisor was added as a voting member to the ESPM Council 
       7/2018: DEI Committee established as a formal standing committee in ESPM

Campus Resources and Tools

Affinity Groups and Alliances

Land Acknowledgement

UC Berkeley sits on the territory of xučyun (Huichin), the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone people, the successors of the sovereign Verona Band. This land was and continues to be of great importance to the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe and other familial descendants of the Verona Band of Alameda County.

We recognize that every member of the Berkeley community has, and continues to benefit from, the use and occupation of this land, since the institution’s founding in 1868. Consistent with our values of community, inclusion and diversity, we have a responsibility to acknowledge and make visible the university’s relationship to Native peoples. As members of the Berkeley community, it is vitally important that we not only recognize the history of the land on which we stand, but also, we recognize that the Muwekma Ohlone people are alive and flourishing members of the Berkeley and broader Bay Area communities today.

 This acknowledgment is from the Centers for Educational Justice & Community Engagement. It was co-created with the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe and Native American Student Development and is a living document.