Partnering with Art Museums to Address Diversity and Inclusion in the Cryospheric Sciences

One of the challenges of addressing issues of diversity and inclusion in the crysopheric sciences is a general lack of recognition that cryospheric scientists, and in fact all scientists, are human beings who bring subjectivity to their discipline. Our partnership, between the Princeton University Art Museum and the Princeton Council on Science and Technology, provides an opportunity for students to discuss the similarities and differences between subjectivity in art and science through deep conversations around the museum's encyclopedic collection of artwork. These works include landscapes that document the disappearing cryosphere and others that show the changing understanding of how humans interact with the environment. An exercise of particular relevance to the cryospheric sciences is a discussion of daguerreotypes of African-American slaves commissioned in the mid-19^thcentury by Louis Agassiz, the scientist credited with founding glaciology. His goal was to collect scientific evidence that slaves were a different species. These images have more recently been reclaimed by modern artist Carrie Mae Weems in works that re-humanize the daguerreotype subjects. In the case study, students recognize the inherent nature of subjectivity, both in topics scientists choose to study and in the methodologies they employ. We call for a greater recognition of Agassiz's problematic scientific work, and argue that similar discussions as parts of courses or educational outreach programs may attract a broader group of students than have traditionally studied cryospheric sciences, or Earth sciences more generally, helping to bring more diverse voices and talents to the discipline.