Virus or no virus, the end of the school year — with all its deadlines — is coming up fast. 
 
Chances are you're wrapping up the most challenging semester of your academic career. The many adjustments that schools have made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have closed campuses, displaced residential students, and moved face-to-face classes online. Courses are continuing for most students, but all the disruption and uncertainty are only adding to normal anxieties that come with finishing the academic year. 

Wildfires are more intense than ever. In the past three years alone, hundreds of people lost their homes and many lost their lives due to massive blazes. There are mul- tiple reasons why fires are getting worse, but Laurel James, Yakama Nation, believes the fire suppression policy of the U.S. Forest Service is partly to blame.

All the companies on the Winds of Change Top 50 Workplaces for Indigenous STEM Professionals list are strong supporters of diversity. But what are these workplaces doing that sets them apart? Here, we’ve taken a closer look at three of these employers to highlight some of the ways they foster an inclusive climate at work and the initiatives they have put in place to support individual staff members.

By the age of six Joseph Peters had spent countless hours on his father’s salmon fishing boat and knew he was meant to follow in the footsteps of his ancestors. Members of his Squaxin Island Tribe are descendants of people who for millennia lived on the shores and watersheds of Puget Sound, and Peters wants to continue the family tradition of working on and with the water. Having recently graduated with a master’s degree in natural resources, Peters feels more prepared than ever to help his tribe in the conservation and sustainable management of their land and water. 

Dominque Pablito grew up in the small town of Aneth, Utah, on the Navajo Nation, and in New Mexico on the Zuni Reservation. She lived in a four-bedroom house with 13 family members, sharing a bedroom with her mother and brother, and visited relatives for extended stays. “I spent time with my great-grandmother, whose house had no running water or electricity,” she says. Because her grandparents did not speak English, Pablito learned the Zuni and Navajo languages. Pablito says that her father, an alcoholic, came in and out of her life.

Chris Greenstone's family moved around quite a lot when he was growing up — Sitka, Alaska; Gallup, N.M.; and Phoenix and Bitter Springs, Ariz.; among other places. But of all those moves, Greenstone calls Bitter Springs home. His family has lived in this small village on the Navajo Nation for many generations. 

Former high school dropout Christopher Villarruel is about to graduate with a BS in forest hydrology. He gives a lot of credit for his personal turnaround to the grandmother who raised him. “My grandmother, Lillian Lego, was a very strong woman,”hes ays.“She was Ajumawiand Atsuge on her mother’s side and Madesi on her father’s side. She raised many of us grandchildren, and some of my first cousins are just like my siblings.” 

The same month when Joe Akin was set to defend his PhD dissertation in Boston, his grandmother was to be honored on her 100th birthday in Oklahoma. Akin really wanted to be there, but didn’t see how he could manage the time or finances to make the trip possible. His brother wisely reminded him there was no way he was not coming, and together they managed to get Akin there to witness the ceremonial presentation of a Cherokee communal handsewn quilt to his grandmother.