Sea Grant’s Community Engaged Internship: expanding participation and cultivating belonging in coastal and ocean sciences

Providing hands-on experiences to undergraduates is a common strategy to recruit and retain diverse students in geosciences. And yet, without equal attention to science identity cultivation and culturally responsive mentoring, a lack of diversity plagues scientific fields. Sea Grant’s Community Engaged Internship (CEI) program is a unique initiative that engages undergraduate students in place-based coastal and ocean science research, outreach, education, law and policy, and communication projects. Students are recruited from communities that are historically underrepresented and underserved, including local, Tribal, and Indigenous communities, into a multiple-month paid internship. Recruitment and selection strategies draw applicants from diverse cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds with unique lived experiences, skills, abilities, and interests. Interns work on community-focused projects that integrate traditional and local knowledge with Western ways of doing science. The program includes mentorship education and training for all participants, multi-level mentoring for students, a vibrant learning community, and extensive professional development and networking opportunities. Program evaluation results demonstrate that CEI has achieved its primary goal of increasing the recruitment and participation of students from underserved communities in coastal and ocean sciences. The evaluation also sheds light on attributes of the internship that are essential for its success, namely, engagement in community-based projects, culturally inclusive mentorship education, peer-to-peer and near-peer mentoring, and cohort-building. Competitive wages and stipends, professional development and training, network-building, and institutional support are also critical. Participants report numerous benefits including personal and professional gains from their participation in the program. To date, 183 students from all 34 Sea Grant programs have graduated from the Community Engaged Internship program.