PROJECT OVERVIEW:
In 2020, the Southeastern Environmental Education Alliance (SEEA) launched a regional Landscape Analysis to identify gaps and barriers to access in environmental education. This analysis confirmed what many of us working in environmental education already know: there are inequities in pay and benefits. We found that the average entry-level salary for environmental educators is 15-25% lower than in comparable fields (Stakeholder Report).
To address this, SEEA is gathering a team to develop an eeGuidance for Equitable Hiring. This white paper will provide concrete tools and suggestions for designing and posting positions, serve as a tool for individuals and organizations to advocate for increasing EE salaries, and help establish industry standards for pay and hiring. Once released, we hope this document will help improve employee retention, attract and sustain more diverse talent, establish our field as a viable profession, and ultimately make environmental education more equitable.
Want to be a part of this? Will you help us make this happen?
WAYS TO ENGAGE:
There are three main ways to be a part of this project. They are listed below from lowest to highest levels of commitment.
Share resources and recommendations. Do you have a tool, article, or reference you think our team should look at or link to in this document? Do you have any ideas for specific recommendations you’d like to see this document include? Please share those any time via email to Lauren Pyle
Join the Advisory Team. We hope to identify 30-50 people to serve as advisors on this project. This group will ideally represent the depth and breadth of our field from across the region and hold a variety of identities. Advisors do not have to be currently based in the SEEA Affiliate states nor be currently working in environmental education, but ideally have experience in at least one of these and are passionate about this topic. We anticipate the total commitment of this role to be 3-5 hours in total. We ask advisors to:
attend one of the two listening sessions held, helping us shape the big picture of what should be included. These sessions are 1-hour each and will be held virtually through Zoom on Friday, July 15 at 2 pm ET and Thursday, July 28 at 4 pm ET.
answer questions via email from the writing team as requested (August-October)
provide feedback on the final draft (October-November)
Join the Writing Team. A small 5-7 person volunteer writing team will compile the feedback and ideas from the Google Form and Advisory team to draft the document. The writing team members do not need grammatical expertise but must be skilled in crafting written communications that can be understood by a variety of stakeholders within and outside of environmental education. Writing team members must be able to attend the bulk of the meetings outlined below and should be excited about bringing this project to life. We anticipate the total volunteer commitment for this role to be 12-15 hours. We ask writers to:
attend 6 1-hour meetings every other week via Zoom at a mutually determined time approximately from August through September
work between meetings through Google docs and email
read provided resources and do additional research as needed
Meet 1-3 times in late October-November to revise the document based on feedback
If you are interested in being a part of the advisory team or the writing team, please complete this Google Form to let us know.
If you have any questions about this project, its goals, or the volunteer roles - or if you would like to submit any information or interest in a format outside of Google Forms - please contact Lauren Pyle.
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