Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant and unprecedented impact on social, economic, and educational systems worldwide, including within the United States. The prolonged duration of the pandemic, coupled with frequent surges in virus cases and the emergence of new variants, resulted in repeated disruptions and restarts in educational and business operations. To cope with this rapidly changing landscape, campuses and businesses adopted flexible working and learning arrangements. Educational systems shifted to online and hybrid teaching methods, while organizations implemented various responses, including temporary closures, layoffs, and work-from-home arrangements. Additionally, different state regulations and supply chain constraints had variety of effects across industries.

In 2020, AGI began this research project to examine the effects of the pandemic on the geoscience workforce and academic programs. The project aimed to capture the changes in workplace and instructional environments in response to the pandemic, as well as to identify which changes would persist beyond the immediate crisis. Initially, it was expected that in-person interactions and a return to normalcy would resume by Spring 2021.

The project began by following five primary cohorts: geoscience employers, geoscience workers (prior to the crisis), academic faculty, geoscience college and university students, and recent geoscience graduates from 2014–2022. These study participants were asked to complete bi-monthly online surveys, providing information on changes in their workplace and instructional environments, employment and enrollment status, geoscience-related activities, and other pandemic-related impacts. Employers, organizational leaders, and academic departments were also surveyed to gather information on the impacts to their work or instructional environments, business operations, and other pandemic-related effects.

Due to the ongoing intensity of the pandemic, including the emergence of multiple waves and variants, the project received a grant supplement to continue monitoring the impacts until March 2022. The expectation was that a transition to post-pandemic conditions would occur by the end of 2021. During this extended period, the project focused on tracking how instructional modes from the pandemic were being incorporated by faculty into teaching and curriculum, and how employers were incorporating pandemic policies related to hiring, adoption of flexible work arrangements. The project also assessed skills and knowledge gaps of students and graduates that resulted from the pandemic's impacts on higher education. Furthermore, the study examined the effects on student academic achievement, career trajectories of new graduates, and strategies implemented by faculty, departments, and employers to address any gaps in skills, knowledge, or achievement.

Unfortunately, by Fall 2021, the nation was still grappling with the surge in infections from the Delta variant, followed by a sharp rise in infections from the Omicron variant starting in December 2021. Although COVID cases and hospitalizations began to decline in early 2022, pandemic-related impacts on higher education and workplaces persisted. Most geoscience academic departments continued to teach in-person but with pandemic-related restrictions, offering hybrid and fully-online instructional methods, and with the expectation that the next academic term would continue with in-person instruction and restrictions. Geoscience employers also experienced ongoing pandemic-related impacts, but there were signs of recovery, such as improved expectations for financial performance and reduced staffing impacts.

However, challenges related to excess workloads and supply shortages persisted. Employers started re-evaluating the incorporation of remote work policies into their long-term strategies and exploring virtual hiring and onboarding of new employees.

With the easing of restrictions and mandates in February 2022, a substantial change in pandemic response became evident. The focus shifted from regulatory measures imposed by the government to choices made by individuals and organizations. As society adopted post-pandemic behaviors, the integration of pandemic-induced changes and lasting impacts on the geoscience workforce and academic programs began to emerge.

The study continued to monitor until December 2022 the integration of pandemic-related changes into work and learning practices in the geosciences. During the final phase of the study, oral history interviews and a webinar series were conducted to gather narratives from individuals and representatives of geoscience employers and academic departments as they reflected on the challenges they faced during the pandemic and the strategies they employed to navigate those challenges. These narratives provided depth and context to the longitudinal survey data and elucidated how pandemic-related methods of teaching, learning, and work had become integrated into day-to-day workflows and operations, and how research methods and opportunities evolved in response to this crisis.

The U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly at the state and local levels, has provided a unique opportunity to understand the short and long-term effects of events that necessitate rapid structural changes in the workforce. The pandemic has left a lasting imprint on the geosciences, but also has provided new opportunities for the geosciences in support of society, shaping the future trajectory of the geosciences discipline. Examining how the geoscience discipline has adapted and evolved during the pandemic provides valuable insights on how to better prepare for similar crises in the future, ensuring greater resilience and adaptability for our country and workforce in the face of such structural disruptions.