Improving Atmospheric Science Undergraduate Departments' Culture and Climate by Increasing Students' Sense of Belonging

Sense of belonging during undergraduate studies can play a significant role in students’ retention in STEM. Improving atmospheric science students’ sense of belonging is an important initial step towards developing a stronger field and increasing representation. This project will use a phenomenological qualitative approach to better understand the experiences of belonging during participants’ undergraduate studies in atmospheric science. The study will examine respondent’s sense of belonging and the ways students increased their belonging during their undergraduate studies, if applicable. Interviewees will be asked about possible suggestions departments can make to increase diversity and culture within undergraduate departments. Thirty-six semi-structured interviews will be conducted over Zoom with individuals from varying career levels and fields within atmospheric science and diverse demographic backgrounds. In order to analyze the interview responses, deductive and inductive approaches to thematic coding will be used. Additionally, in order to identify the themes amongst the responses, coding frequency percentages will be calculated. With the results from this study, a first step can be made towards providing feedback to the larger community of undergraduate atmospheric science departments on ways to increase sense of belonging amongst their students, in order to attract, retain, and sustain a more diverse group of atmospheric scientists.