M. Moldwin AGU Education Section President, 2018-2020
Happy New Year! It has been an honor and quite the learning experience for me to serve as the inaugural AGU Education Section President the last 2+ years (October of 2018 through 2020 spanning three Fall meetings) alongside Tanya Furman and Vincent Tong. Over the last two decades, the Education community has advocated for a voice at the table as more and more Earth and Space Science educators shared our work at the Fall meeting. Participation in the AGU Fall Meeting has grown from 133 education abstracts in 12 sessions in the year 2000 to about 700 abstracts in over 50 sessions in each of the last three years.
The work for developing the Section began in earnest with the new Affiliation Task Force, enabling an Education Pilot in 2016 that I helped convene. The Education Pilot brought together an Education Advisory Committee in 2017 that I co-chaired with Cathy Manduca. The tireless energy, enthusiasm and collaborative spirit that these groups contained produced a proposal to the AGU Board and Council in 2018 that
culminated with the creation of the new Section. The support of Cheryl Enderlein, who led the AGU Affiliations and Engagement Task Force and worked with us for years as AGU moved through the process of figuring out how to rethink the governance structure, was vital in the success of the creation of the Section.
Pranoti Asher, the AGU Education manager within Talent Pool, has been a champion of the Education Section, has become a close colleague and friend, and worked with us every step of the way. The Education Section owes her our deep gratitude and thanks for her patience, vision, and ability to bring the broader community together.
In the first two years, our Section has grown to over 1200 members and developed our first Section Award (the
Dottie Stout Lecture that will highlight an early career colleague for their education and education research work). This year also saw the first Education Section elected AGU Fellow – Cathy Manduca. Cathy’s ability to bring people together to do important work is a hallmark of her efforts and the AGU Section itself is a legacy of her career.
I look forward to working with Tanya (President) and Kristen St. John (President-Elect) in my role as immediate Past-President in 2021. I am excited to see how our community comes together to support faculty, students, and early career colleagues as we develop new and inclusive communities, where all voices can lead, contribute and be heard. See you in
New Orleans in December 2021.
Mark Moldwin
Past-President, AGU Education Section