Increasing Students' Sense of Belonging to Improve Atmospheric Science Departments Culture and Climate

Sense of belonging especially during undergraduate studies can play a significant role in students’ desire to remain in STEM. Improving atmospheric science students’ sense of belonging is an important step towards developing a broader field that represents an increased diversity in its membership. This project used a phenomenological qualitative approach to better understand the experiences of belonging during participants’ undergraduate studies in atmospheric science. The study dove into understanding respondent’s sense of belonging and the ways students increased their belonging during their undergraduate studies, if applicable. Interviewees were asked about possible suggestions departments can make to improve diversity and culture within departments. Thirty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted over Zoom with individuals from varying career levels and demographic backgrounds within atmospheric science. During analysis of interview responses, both deductive and inductive thematic coding approaches were utilized. Additionally, to identify the themes amongst the responses, coding frequency percentages were calculated. With the results from this study, recommendations can be made to the larger atmospheric science community on ways to increase sense of belonging amongst their students, in order to attract, retain, and sustain a more diverse group of atmospheric scientists through improved undergraduate department cultures and climates.