AUTHORS: Shaley Valentine, Aquatic Ecology Lab, Ohio State University
ABSTRACT: Recruitment and retention of students and early career professionals (ECPs) is an ongoing issue throughout all levels of AFS. Engaging students and ECPs is critical to their recruitment and retention, but AFS activities may need to adapt to engage students and ECPs. To garner ideas on how to best engage students and ECPs, I administered a survey throughout the North Central Division. A total of 176 respondents ranked their perception of current and proposed benefits of AFS and provided written open-ended feedback on activities that would benefit rising professionals. Students and ECPs called for more tangible and monetary benefits that would allow them to network and gain technical and soft skills to kickstart their future careers. From the inclusivity side of the survey, marginalized individuals almost always stated a greater benefit or need for proposed workshops and benefits than majority identifying individuals. Write-in responses repeatedly stated a need for more diversity and inclusion initiatives. Poignantly, women and women of ethnic minorities reported feeling lower levels of acceptance in the fisheries community compared to men. Combined, these results suggest the needs of students and ECPs are not met within the Division, and there is a clear need for more volunteers to create and offer tangible benefits. Results also highlight a clear need for diversity initiatives throughout the NCD but beginning and maintaining these diversity initiatives may be an ongoing challenge.
