Aerial of Foster Floodplain neighborhood flooding in 2009 (Bureau of Environmental Services/Flickr)
From helping with earthquake risk assessments to on-the-ground training in urban conservation and restoration efforts, 10 Portland State students are gaining hands-on experience and mentoring in the fields of climate and disaster resilience this year as part of an internship program geared toward students from historically excluded and underserved communities.
Since 2009, PSU's Institute for Sustainable Solutions has been pairing students with paid sustainability-focused internships, but this year's cohort marks a new partnership with Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP), which provides academic and social support to minoritized students in the STEM fields through community, mentorship and research opportunities.
"Disaster resilience for our region is so important as our forest fires are burning, our heat islands are cooking and we're flooding," said Mary Vance, a career counselor and ISS' internship coordinator. "This program was really a beautiful combination of taking an important issue and an amazing population of students that need access to professional experiences and bringing in the infrastructure of the internship program."
When Vance first began the program in 2009, she found that being able to offer nine-month paid internships was critical. Students often couldn't afford to work for free and too short of an internship wouldn't give them enough time to gain the level of skills, professional development and relationships with working professionals that's so key to their success after graduation.
The LSAMP students — whose majors include environmental science, biology, mathematics, physics, architecture and civil engineering — landed nine-month internships with the City of Portland's Bureaus of Development Services, Emergency Management, Environmental Services and Transportation; Centennial Neighborhood Emergency Team; Forest Park Conservancy; Outside In; and West Multnomah Soil & Water Conservation District.
"With the nature of the projects that the students are working on, there's opportunities for them to see the impact or significance of their work in action," said Joyce Pieretti, program manager for LSAMP. "This helps students see the bigger picture that gets a little fuzzy when their noses are in a textbook."
The internships also help plant a seed that they, too, can pursue careers in those fields.
"There's a recognition within the resilience field or emergency management work that there's not a lot of diversity," Pieretti said. "Oftentimes the communities that are most impacted by climate events are underrepresented or underserved in some way, so there's this longer term ideal goal of impacting the diversity of their workforce in order to better serve the needs of these communities."
Daisy Vargas, a senior majoring in environmental science with a minor in biology, is working on two projects with the Forest Park Conservancy to help advance their efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion. In one project, she's connecting with partner organizations to develop culturally specific programming for the park’s Discovery Hikes program to create space for communities not traditionally included in the outdoors.
"When I go hiking, I don't see a lot of people of color," she said. "I want to be part of the solution to bring more people of color into the environment."
In another more science-based project, Vargas is learning about traditional ecological knowledge and how to center Indigenous perspectives into the stewardship of the Ancient Forest Preserve, an area of old-growth forest just north of Forest Park that the conservancy owns. She says she's enjoying being able to engage in both outreach and science programs and is looking forward to seeing how the work might shape her future career plans.
"I want to create connections and I want to leave with more knowledge, more experience and more confidence in my skills," she said.
Just as important as the on-the-job experience is the mentorship the students will receive.
"We wanted them to be in a supportive environment with somebody that was really focused on helping them develop and not just making sure the GIS map of the floodplain is accurate," Vance said. "We really wanted it to be more than that."
The cohort will also be supported by a graduate student coordinator, who will mentor them, provide them with monthly professional development workshops and help them navigate any issues that might arise.
This program is supported by the Bullitt Foundation, donors to the Institute for Sustainable Solutions, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science.