Web Content Analysis of University Forestry and Related Natural Resources Landing Webpages in the United States in Relation to Student and Faculty Diversity

Abstract

Under-representation of minorities and women in natural resources (NR)-related fields is common, both as students and as professionals. The perception of a predominantly white, male student body and workforce is a potential barrier to recruiting women and minorities to Forestry and related-NR fields. The images of “forestry” and “natural resources-related” fields were examined as they would be from a potential student’s perspective looking at university and college websites with these degree program majors at the 80 National Association of University Forest Resource Programs member institutions during in 2016. Results suggest the percentage of women and minorities enrolled explains little variation in a program’s website image content, whereas there is significant image under-representation of minorities in all NR fields and of women on forestry-major webpages. In addition, women and minorities are more likely to be portrayed in a passive image, such as posing on campus, rather than in an active image, such as measuring a tree. Potential students are also less likely to see diverse faculty online. A lack of diversity image inclusion in Forestry and related NR will not help students see themselves in these fields or enhance society’s view of these critical fields for future employment and economic growth.

webpage images, content analysis, perceived fit, diversity, higher education, gender, minority

Management and Policy Implications

The 80 institutions of higher learning affiliated with the National Association of University Forest Resources Programs (NAUFRP) produce most of the forestry and related natural resources (NR) graduates in the United States. Under-representation and under-enrollment of women and minorities in NR programs are prevalent at these institutions, despite many admirable efforts to understand the issues. Our examination of these programs’ websites suggest that more mindful decisionmaking regarding diversity and the roles that people are perceived to fill in website image content may be one step these institutions and their program administrators can take to increase diversity and inclusion in these programs. The direct relation of website diversity portrayal to enrollment numbers includes many factors, but if women and minorities are missing from images of students measuring trees or sampling fish (“active” imagery) on these programs’ websites, it becomes harder for those under-represented groups to perceive themselves as fitting in and choosing a career in forestry or other NR fields.

It is well documented that there is lack of racial/ethnic and gender diversity in NR higher education institutions (Sharik et al. 2015). Although analysis suggests a slight increase in undergraduate enrollment diversity in recent years, there is still a significant under-representation of women and minorities across NR disciplines based on the demographics of the population (Sharik and Bal 2018). At the same time, it has become strategic for institutions of higher learning in the United States (abbreviated as “Universities” in this treatment) to highlight diversity on their websites, media, mission statements, hiring practices, programmatic offerings, and other reflections of the institution to promote diversity (Wilson and Meyer 2009, Wilson et al. 2012, Smith et al. 2016).

These strategies are not without merit. Emphasizing diversity on university websites increases the perceived fit, allowing potential students to visualize themselves at the institution and eventually enroll (Ihme et al. 2016). Racially diverse student viewers are more attracted to racially diverse media portrayals (Avery 2003), and spend more time on websites that include racially diverse cues (Walker et al. 2012). “Perceived fit” is the notion that you are more likely to be attracted to a place or product if you can see yourself fitting in (i.e., image theory, where image is everything), or successfully trying out the product (Wright and Lynch 1995, Beach 1998, Hartley and Morphew 2008). Individuals prefer or seek out environments (their job, neighborhood, college, etc.) where they feel safe, comfortable, and welcomed; and where they will not be pressured by discrimination—sometimes labeled as “identity affirmation” (Ashforth and Mael 1989, Saylor and Aries 1999). People apply for jobs based on their perceived fit (Chapman et al. 2005) and identity affirmation (Avery et al. 2013). Diversity representation in recruitment material and online images impacts minority students’ perceived fit when making a decision about a college, school, and even major or field of study (e.g., Smith et al. 2016). Institutional image can be one of the most important considerations in college selection, even more than interpersonal or informational sources for some students (Pampaloni 2010). A feeling of belonging to a community (fit) is important for recruitment and retention of students to college programs (Wolter et al. 2011), whereas cultural dissonance is a known barrier (Balcarczyk et al. 2015) or hesitancy factor (Rouleau et al. 2017).

Under-representation in NR

Under-representation in the NR (and Agriculture) profession exists at the national level, with gender diversity being second only to Engineering in the lowest percentage of females with B.S. degrees in the workforce and the very bottom with respect to minorities (Carnevale et al. 2011, Sharik et al. 2015). Sharik et al. (2015) point out that the ratio of percentage minorities enrolled in undergraduate NR programs to the percentage of 18–24-year-old minorities in an institution’s home state (the population pool) is less than a 1:1 ratio for most institutions. Out of 64 institutions in the National Association of University Forest Resources Programs for which 2012 undergraduate enrollment data were available, 56 of them had no discrepancies in the enrollment reporting codes to the USDA’s Food and Agricultural Education Information System. Of these, 87.5 percent (56/64) had fewer minorities enrolled than would be expected based on the state’s population pool, and this number increased to 96.4 percent (54/56) of programs having under-enrollment of minority students when 1890 institutions (historically black colleges and universities [HBCUs]) were not considered (Sharik et al. 2015, Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Ratio of percentage minorities enrolled in undergraduate natural resources programs at 56 NAUFRP-member institutions to percentage population of 18–24-year-old minorities in the institution’s home state, 2012. If enrollments equitably represented the college-aged minority population of a state, the ratio would be 1:1. Data from 2012 Food and Agricultural Education Information System Data, US Census Population (Sharik and Bal 2018).

Forestry as a field of NR is particularly low in regard to female and minorities choosing to enter the workforce. Undergraduate enrollment in Forestry and most of the other more traditional and specialized NR majors at NAUFRP institutions have been declining in recent decades, whereas enrollments have been increasing in the more general, interdisciplinary majors such as NR Conservation and Management (NRCM) and Environmental Science (Sharik et al. 2015). In 2012, Sharik et al. (2015) report that Forestry, out of all NR-related academic areas, had the lowest percentage of female undergraduate enrollees (17.9 percent) and the lowest percentage of women in the workforce (13 percent), as opposed to females in NRCM and Environmental Science, with significantly higher female undergraduate enrollments (53.8 percent versus 47.2 percent respectively) and a higher proportion of women in the workforce (29 percent versus 42 percent respectively). Forestry also has a very low minority student enrollment (10.5 percent in 2012 at NAUFRP institutions), compared to NRCM and Environmental Science majors (15.9 percent and 23.8 percent, respectively). A major goal of this analysis was to explore these differences in under-represented groups’ portrayals for these academic areas on institution websites.

Diversity in Web and Media as Content Analysis

Content analysis is a common research technique to review and quantify online material using methodical codes and replicable systems (Neuendorf 2011). Diversity-specific content analysis has been conducted with both online and in-print materials for universities, various industry fields, social media (e.g., Adams and Harte 1998, Biddell et al. 2007, Hum et al. 2011, Smith et al. 2016), and other media, particularly those related to advertising and marketing (Neuendorf 2011). Image analysis works very well for content and message coding, as it is one of the first things we notice and something that visually portrays what the text may not be saying. For example, Duff (2011) examined photos in corporate review reports and found inequality in the portrayal of gender and race in terms of job roles and dress. Making cognizant pictorial choices purposefully inclusive of gender and race in multiple roles and behaviors for image selection is considered socially responsible marketing; it is advertising that helps improve the public image and public relations of the field (Goffman 1979, Sirakaya and Sonmez 2012).

Other studies in higher education generally have examined visual and textual representation of gender and race using content analysis, often with simple metrics for counting images on websites, viewbooks, and other recruiting material. Overall, visual representations of diversity on university websites are more common than wording or text related to diversity (Boyer et al. 2006). “Diversity” of students, faculty, and activities is highlighted as a marketable trait to attract students (Aléman and Salkever 2001). The printed college viewbook (still commonly used, even in our Internet society) is a primary marketing tool for programs to attract potential students. Content analysis of viewbooks is more often race/ethnicity-focused, rather than gender-focused, but there are examples of morally questionable practices, such as digitization (photo-shopped images) to portray interracial interactions when more desirable photos were apparently unavailable (Roediger 2005). Racial representation is also often portrayed as exotic or inferior, displaying a very Euro-centric or Western narrative, e.g., “tour Europe” but “explore Africa,” or with token or stereotypical presentations, e.g., one minority student in a large group, or only including African-American males as athletes (Saichaie 2011, Osei-Kofi et al. 2013). Overall, a majority of institutions do not portray an accurate representation of the student body, as they often tend to over-represent racial diversity on general recruitment materials for prospective students (Pippert et al. 2013, Del Vecchio 2017).

An Image Is a Powerful Thing

Under-representation of minorities and women on NR websites will likely not help recruitment efforts to increase the critical national shortage in the field. Strategies for increasing minority diversity in NR include efforts to convince them that NR majors are culturally relevant and exposing them to key role models in the form of minority faculty and practicing NR professionals (Sharik 2015). One of the simplest ways to do this is to include web media imagery that allows potential students to imagine themselves practicing NR or in a NR field, in essence normalizing and accepting of their belonging in this field.

Finney (2006) discusses the lack of or essential nonexistence of visual and textual representation of individuals of color in the context of environmental or nature-based media as being a very “exclusionary practice.” In her review of Outside Magazine, which one could portray as being a “viewbook” for outdoor recreation and NR more broadly, over a 10-year period from 1991 to 2001 in 44 issues, only 2.2 percent of people in photos were African-American; that is, only 103 pictures out of 4602. Relatedly, a study of data from the US Forest Service National Visitor Use Monitoring Program from 2010 to 2014 found a large mean inequity gap across national forests; racial minorities were not using Forest Service lands or recreation areas in the same numbers as whites (Flores et al. 2018).

If the environmental/outdoor adventure/nature-related marketing and media are comparable to NR fields in academia (more so than perhaps sports media or other types of marketing), there is a serious history of lack of diversity (Peterman 2011, Finney 2016). “When I look at the majority of environmental and outdoor media these days, I don’t see me” (Finney 2016). “It’s hard to see yourself in the outdoor community if you don’t physically see others like you, and you definitely aren’t seeing it in (outdoors) advertising” (Berger 2016). Similar to academic institutions, the outdoor industry is catching on to the idea that there is a market they have been underserving and missing out on connecting with, as some companies have made efforts to visually diversify, engage with youth communities, and promote programing to the effect of increasing minorities interest in the outdoors (Peterman 2011, Mills 2016, 2017). In the age of social media, there are several popular hashtags, some promoted by companies or community groups, for people to share their stories that are not usually seen in other types of media, pushing back against racial and gender archetypes such as #womeninthewoods, #brownpeoplecamping, #femalearborists, #unlikelyhikers, #latinooutdoors, #nativesoutdoors, and many others that are rarely seen in outdoor media interacting with NR.

Website Users Are Savvy

Students trust a professionally designed website more than outdated or unprofessional looking sites for accessing information (Youngblood 2013). Aesthetics and the use of enhanced visual elements (i.e., well-designed use of color, graphics, photos, texture, text formatting, lines, and icons) increase the credibility of a website (Alsudani and Casey 2009). In essence, online images are important. Images increase the length of time people spend looking at a website, viewing more options, and more details within a site (e.g., Pan and Zhang 2016).

While there is no defined rule of thumb for how long a person looks at a college website, the industry standard suggests the first 10 seconds of a page view (sometimes as little as 3 seconds) will determine whether a visitor is going to leave or stay on the site (Liu et al. 2010, Nielsen 2011). Users can tell a difference between a stock photo (a posed or still image) and a genuine, action shot, which means users ignore “passive” or posed imagery (Alford et al. 2014). Users also tend to ignore banners and scrolling images and look longer at larger images than smaller ones, and the bottom one-third of a page is most often ignored, as 75 percent or more of page visits come from mobile users (smartphones) (Noel-Levitz 2014). For web designers, the lesson is that you must clearly communicate your message within 10 seconds if you want users’ attention, and to use active, action shots if possible. If students are “consumers” of colleges, this business model applies to university sites or anyone with a message or brand they want to promote (Pampaloni 2010).

Study Objectives

Given the critically low numbers of under-represented groups in traditional NR-related fields, particularly Forestry, we wanted to examine college recruiting material (websites) to determine “perceived” representation of gender and race/ethnicity on the NR-related school, department (programmatic), and major web pages. Do university websites in the NR fields portray mixed gender and race/ethnicity diversity in their marketing images? We also wanted to examine if this portrayal is reflective of a university’s actual enrollment statistics or minority population demographics. Another specific objective was to compare the imagery used on “Forestry” major webpages to Other-NR-major webpages for institutions of higher education with NR programs. Lastly, we wanted to systematically understand the context for imagery inclusion of under-represented groups by analyzing what setting and roles are portrayed, such as faculty (teacher) or student, and passive or active imagery that could influence viewer perceptions of NR fields.

Methods

Web Sites Used for Analysis

As the focus of this research was primarily to consider postsecondary education programs with an NR-related degree, we analyzed the website contents of the 80 NAUFRP-member institutions (listed at www.naufrp.org). For comparison with demographic enrollment numbers, data from 64 NAUFRP Institutions were used (based on availability of 2012 Food and Agricultural Education Information System and US Census Population data acquired in 2015; Sharik et al. 2015).

In order to efficiently collect meaningful data from potentially sprawling websites, a total of three pages per institution were searched for content analysis: (1) the landing web page of the program (usually a college, school, or department) within the institution that houses Forestry and related NR academics, (2) the landing web page of the “Forestry” undergraduate major or a closely related major by title, and (3) the landing page of one other-NR-major (selected randomly from “Natural Resources and Conservation Management,” “Wildlife,” “Environmental Science,” or a closely related degree the program offers). Only one major was analyzed in addition to the landing page if “Forestry” or a “Forest Management” type major was not offered by the institution.

For diversity content analysis, we felt that a student might, in addition to seeing images, do a quick search for “diversity.” Inquiring within the institution’s own search engine, it would be readily apparent if it had a campus Diversity and Inclusion Office or similar charge (separate from a Student Affairs type office). Other search possibilities within the NR program could include diversity commitment language in a programmatic strategic plan. Any search for other diversity-related, inclusive language within the program was limited to three to four clicks (i.e., it had to be easily found by a potential student and prominent). In addition, role models were considered as being the programmatic-specific faculty (quantified by gender and race/ethnicity) if online images were available on faculty listings.

Web Content Quantification

The quantity content of images on the three pages per institution was the primary focus of the content analysis. For each landing page, the total number of photos was counted; however, only the first six photos from the top of the page down were analyzed for content. Some pages had scrolling images, in which case the first six images with people were analyzed.

An example web content analysis is included for Michigan Technological University, www.mtu.edu/forest (accessed May 5, 2016) (Figure 2). The header photo of the programmatic landing page is scrolling through five photos with two more photos (not seen) on the bottom of the page. The first image shows three women students and one male faculty, in the field, all of whom are white; this would be the main header photo (people). Each subsequent photo on the page would also be numbered, with the number of people in each category (Table 1) categorized. The Michigan Tech Forestry-major landing page had one photo, with one man, one women, both apparently white, students, in an indoors lab setting (a greenhouse). The Wildlife Ecology and Management major landing page, as the randomly selected “other-NR-major,” contained one photo of one white female student in a lab setting. This type of data collection allows for perceived numerical representation of gender and race/ethnicity, faculty or teacher/student roles, and locality in pictures that incoming students see and associate with a major or future career.

Table 1.

Perceived image data collected per each web page for content analysis of 80 NAUFRP-member university Forestry and Related Natural Resources (NR) Programmatic main landing webpage, Forestry-major, and one other NR major (all three websites accessed 2016).

Total number of photos per landing page (first six analyzed from top screen down)

Description of header photo (banner image on top of page if present) (people, animals, landscape, plants, water, etc.)

Data per photo, number of people in each category:

Perceived gender: men/women

Perceived race: white/black/Asian/other minority group*

Role: student/faculty (teacher)

Location or dress setting: field/campus/laboratory/classroom

*Other Minority Groups may include American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Hispanic or Latino, multiracial, or racially ambiguous individuals. As the image content analysis involves perceived data, the authors recognize that categorizing individuals by their image alone is subject to unconscious bias, which we attempted to limit as much as possible.

Figure 2.

Example websites to be analyzed for diversity content. Shown are the three web pages viewed for Michigan Technological University, with the main programmatic landing page, Forestry-major landing page, and one other Natural Resources (Other-NR-major) landing page, in this case Wildlife Ecology and Management (accessed May 5, 2016).

A similar approach was used to quantify programmatic faculty (those from the NR-related program within the Institution). Faculty images (if provided in an online list format) were counted and quantified by perceived gender and race/ethnicity. These numbers may be different from what the actual programmatic faculty numbers report, as some institutions allow faculty to choose not to show an image in the faculty list if they prefer, but it is important as these lists are who students see reflected as their potential instructors and mentors. Only programmatic teaching/advising faculty and program leaders were included as being those with whom students would most frequently be working (administrative staff were not counted if titles were included with photos, but some large group photos in smaller programs were not distinguished).

Web Content Coding

To measure the strength of perceived diversity in an NAUFRP Institution’s NR-specific webpages that a potential student might see, all web content was quantified, and coded rankings were assigned to score the institution. Coding was dichotomous (yes/no) for some factors but was most often frequency-based (Table 2). The highest possible code score for institutions was 10. Higher weight was given to the programmatic faculty images (as student mentors), diversity-related language content, and the overall institution having a dedicated Diversity and Inclusion office or related charge. By programmatic, we are referring to the department, college, or school that houses the forestry and NR-related degrees only (not the institution as a whole). For the image content on the programmatic and two majors landing pages, the total number of people shown was quantified as well as the total number of images with at least one perceived female or minority. To score the institution, the mean percentage of females and minorities shown and the mean percentage images with at least one under-represented person for all 80 landing pages and major pages was used as a cut-off (Table 2). For example, if women made up 50 percent of the people shown on a programmatic landing page, that institution would score 0.5 points for that category (50 percent > 39 percent). This method of using the mean percentage, rather than 50 percent, compares these institutions more relatively to each other. If a 50/50 cutoff was used, very few institutions would have a comparable diversity score. Linear regression was used to test relations between coding scores and institutional undergraduate enrollment data with respect to gender and race/ethnicity representation.

Table 2.

Scores possible for web content analysis of diversity content in imagery and prominent wording of 80 NAUFRP-member university programmatic webpages in Forestry and Natural Resources, 2016 (main program landing page, Forestry-major page, and Other-NR-major page randomly selected).

Score*	Content description
Overall institution web pages
1	Is there a campus diversity and inclusion, or similar, office (separate from student affairs)?
Programmatic web pages
1	Does the programmatic strategic plan or mission have diversity language, easily found?
1	Percentage of female faculty >26 percent (mean female faculty percentage of 80 NAURFP-member institutions with photos online)
1	Percentage of minority faculty >17 percent (mean minority faculty percentage of 80 NAURFP-member institutions with photos online)
Main programmatic landing page
0.5	Percentage of females of all people shown >39 percent
0.5	Percentage of minority of all people shown >23 percent
0.5	Percentage of images on main with at least one female >26 percent
0.5	Percentage of images on main with at least one minority >17 percent
Forestry-major landing page
0.5	Percentage of females of all people shown >39 percent
0.5	Percentage of minority of all people shown >23 percent
0.5	Percentage of images on forestry with at least one female >26 percent
0.5	Percentage of images on forestry with at least one minority >17 percent
Other-NR-major (NR-related) landing page
0.5	Percentage of females of all people shown >39 percent
0.5	Percentage of minority of all people shown >23 percent
0.5	Percentage of images on NR with at least one female >45 percent
0.5	Percentage of images on NR with at least one minority >13 percent

Note: NAUFRP, National Association of University Forest Resources Programs; NR, natural resources. The “>” percentage of females and minorities in images (as the cut-off for scoring) represents the mean percentage of females or minorities shown in the coded images for all webpages (calculated separately for the main landing page and each major evaluated). This number was used to score institutions relative to the actual mean, rather than a 50 percent cutoff, which would skew the scores lower for most institutions.

* The first two possible rankings listed are dichotomous (1 = yes, 0 = no), whereas the remaining scores are based on frequency.

Results

The 80 NAUFRP-member institutions represent a wide range of website designs and types of academic institutions, from smaller community colleges and private colleges, small to midsized research universities, and large research universities with over 30,000 students enrolled. Most are large public land-grant institutions serving the agriculture and NR programs for their state. The programmatic landing page of the school, department, or college housing the Forestry and related Other-NR-major degree programs may have had 0 to over 30 scrolling images, although there were a mean of 7.7 (±0.7 SE) photos for the main landing page. In total, 483 images were analyzed, containing 1,685 people. The main landing page was more often the place to house images (55 percent of all photos) than the major pages (20 percent on the Forestry-major page, 25 percent for the Other-NR-major). Some institutions did not have a secondary landing page for majors or a separate page for each of them, in which case either the coding was left blank or the images were counted twice for both majors, respectively.

All 80 institutions had a programmatic page to analyze, but fewer had major pages (57 Forestry and 74 Other-NR-Majors) (Table 3). The “Forestry major” was most often titled Forestry, but some variation was found such as Forest Resource Management, Forest Technology, Sustainable Forest Resources, Forest Resources and Conservation, or Urban Forestry (in cases where Forestry itself was not offered). A wildlife-related degree was analyzed 29 times, NRCM 19 times, and Environmental Science 17 times, and nine additional majors were analyzed if one of the first three was not offered (e.g., Environmental Geology, Rangeland Management, Park Management, etc.). The mean percentage of perceived females and minorities in images shows, at a glance, that women and minorities are under-represented on these webpages (Table 3). Forestry majors, in particular, are less likely to include women (26.0 percent) than men (74 percent) in web images compared to Other-NR-majors, as the Other-NR-major webpage is more likely to include women (54.0 percent) than men (46.0 percent). The likelihood of minorities being represented visually on these websites is low (17.0 or 17.1 percent) for any major (Table 3).

Table 3.

Perceived representation of gender and race/ethnicity on Forestry and Other-NR-Related programmatic home webpages for 80 NAUFRP institutions, 2016.

			Percentage of people shown in images
	Number of webpages	Total number of images	Number of people in images*	Male	Female	White	Minorities
Programmatic home	80	422	1,335	60.9	39.1	75.5	24.5
Forestry major	57	143	422	74.0	26.0	83.0	17.0
Other-NR major	74	744	2,107	46.0	54.0	82.9	17.1

Note: NAUFRP, National Association of University Forest Resources Programs; NR, natural resources.

* Not including programmatic faculty listing images, analyzed separately.

Coding Results and Comparison with Enrollment Data

The perceived diversity rankings overall include scores for gender and race/ethnicity. Calculating the diversity scores based on race/ethnicity alone allows us to more closely compare the relations with the ratio of student enrollment data based on geography and demographics. This means that overall, diversity scores may have a positive relation with undergraduate student enrollment data, but when looking at minority representation in visual imagery alone, the relations to the perceived diversity score are less strong for all institutions combined.

Coding scores for all 80 NAUFRP institutions ranged from 0.5 to 9.5, based on potential scores in Table 2 (Figure 3). Score totals based on images only ranged from 0 to 7.5 (not including diversity-related wording, presence/absence of diversity issues-related office, or faculty photos). The 1890 (HBCU) and 1994 (Tribal College) land-grant institutions did not always score higher for perceived diversity representation than other institutions. Visual images (no wording or faculty photos) for the 80 institutions averaged 1.99 out of a total score possible of 6, including both women and minorities. Considering race/ethnicity inclusion in visual images alone, the 80 institutions mean score was 0.81 out of 3.

Figure 3.

Strength of perceived diversity recruitment strategies on program webpages in 2016 for 80 NAUFRP-member university Natural Resources (NR) academic programs, in rank order of total score. “Images Only” scoring criteria includes perceived frequency representation of female and minorities from main programmatic landing pages, Forestry-major and one Other-NR-major. Total score includes rankings for image content diversity, programmatic faculty image diversity, prominent relevant programmatic wording, and/or presence of a campus diversity and inclusion office.

The ratio of percentage minorities enrolled in an NR program to its state’s percentage minorities in the traditional college-age population was not specifically tied to diversity content online. For example, the University of Nevada is ranked in the top three (Figure 3) institutions with the highest diversity ranking scores overall, but is ranked 44th for the ratio of percentage minority enrollment to percentage state minority population of 18–24-year-olds (Figure 1). However, there was a positive relation (R² = .036, P = .002) between the ratio of percentage of undergraduate minorities enrolled by state population of 18–24-year-olds and the perceived diversity representation coding scores for visuals representing minorities. When textual and visual coding scores are considered together, the relation is not as significant (R² = .024, P = .045).

Only 14/62 Institutions with people on the Main, Forestry and Other-NR-major landing pages in imagery had 50 percent or a greater percentage of women. Only one institution had no women identified on those pages (all people in the images were males), whereas two had only women featured in the imagery.

Female undergraduate enrollment in Forestry is much lower than Other-NR- Majors, making up only 18.0 percent of Forestry students (2.7 percent of all NR undergraduate students), compared to 44.0 percent on average of Other-NR-majors (37.3 percent of all NR undergraduate students) (Sharik et al. 2015). The “leaky pipe” is visible with the total female student enrollment in all NR programs 40.1 percent (although this number increased to 46 percent in 2016 [Sharik and Bal 2018]), yet the apparent percentage of female faculty in all NR-related programs is only 27.1 percent (Table 4).

Table 4.

Undergraduate enrollment in NR programs at 67 NAUFRP-member institutions by race/ethnicity and gender, in 2012 (excluding unknown gender) from Food and Agricultural Education Information System (Sharik et al. 2015) compared to overall perceived diversity representation in NR program website analysis at 80 NAUFRP institutions by race/ethnicity (excluding two or more races, unknown, unspecified minorities) and gender, 2016.

							From web image analysis
Race/ethnicity	Total number of males and females enrolled in NR program	Percentage of females in total enrolled	Total number of females enrolled in Forestry*	Percentage of females enrolled in Forestry* out of 3,565 Forestry (percentage out of 23,240 NR totals)	Total number of females enrolled in other-NR majors†	Percentage of females enrolled in other NR majors† out of 19,677 (percentage out of 23,240 NR totals)	Total percentage of faculty who are female	Mean percentage of females shown: main page	Mean percentage of females shown: Forestry	Mean percentage of females shown: other NR majors
Asian	812	2.1	12	0.3 (<0.1)	476	2.4 (2.0)	1.6	1.7	0.0	3.2
Hispanic/ other‡	1,804	3.9	54	1.5 (0.2)	859	4.4 (3.6)	1.1	2.1	0.9	2.1
Black	529	1.1	13	0.3 (<0.1)	234	1.2 (1.0)	1.2	6.6	4.8	3.4
Caucasian	20,095	32.9	564	15.8 (2.4)	7,098	36.1 (30.5)	23.8	28.6	20.2	45.3
Total	23,240	40.1	644	18.0 (2.7)	8,667	44.0 (37.3)	27.7	39.1	26.0	54.0

Note: NAUFRP, National Association of University Forest Resources Programs; NR, natural resources.

*Includes majors related to Forestry, Forest Technology, Forest Engineering, and Urban Forestry.

†Includes majors related to Natural Resources, Conservation Biology, Environmental Science, Wildlife, Fisheries, Forest Hydrology, NR Recreation and Tourism, NR Policy, NR Economics, and Wood Science.

‡Ethnicity as reported to Food and Agricultural Education Information System database (2012) was combined for Hispanic, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and American Indian or Alaskan Native.

The mean percentage of female students overall on the main NR program webpages (39.1 percent; Table 4) closely follows the total percentage of females enrolled (40.1 percent), suggesting a fairly equal and accurate portrayal of students based on enrollments. However, there is still an overall inequality of women, and especially minorities, in imagery on NR program websites. Examining more closely a breakdown of race/ethnicity and gender on the landing pages for the two different majors indicates both under- and over-representation (Table 5). On Forestry and Other-NR-Major landing pages, both black and white female students are over-represented compared to the actual number enrolled in Forestry, yet women still constituted only 26.0 percent of people shown in forestry images, and 54 percent of NR images (Table 3). Female Asian, Hispanic, and Other race/ethnicities are under-represented on Forestry-major webpages, whereas only the Hispanic/and Other race/ethnicity group is under-represented for Other-NR-major webpages compared to actual enrollment numbers (Table 4).

Table 5.

Setting and role of people in photos on natural resources programmatic web pages (main landing page, Forestry-major landing page, and one other NR-related major landing page) for 80 National Association of University Forest Resources Programs-member institutions by perceived gender and race/ethnicity.

	Male				Total male	Female				Total female	Total minority
	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic/other		White	Black	Asian	Hispanic/other
Main programmatic pages
In the field: active	28.4	2.4	1.9	2.4	35.1	20.2	2.2	0.5	1.4	24.3	10.8
Campus/classroom	0.5	0.5	0.2	0.0	1.2	0.5	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.5	0.7
Laboratory/greenhouse	1.2	1.2	0.2	0.2	2.9	2.2	1.2	0.2	0.0	3.6	3.1
Other urban/city	10.8	4.3	2.2	1.0	18.3	7.9	3.8	1.2	1.2	14.2	13.7
Sum: passive	12.5	6.0	2.6	1.2	22.4	10.6	5.0	1.4	1.2	18.3	17.5
Forestry-Major web pages
In the field: active	25.5	0.5	0.5	2.1	28.7	12.2	1.1	0.0	0.5	13.8	4.8
Campus/classroom	20.2	2.1	0.0	0.0	22.3	5.9	0.5	0.0	0.0	6.4	2.7
Laboratory/greenhouse	1.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.1	0.5	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.5	0.0
Other urban/city	11.2	4.3	0.5	0.5	16.5	7.4	2.7	0.0	0.5	10.6	8.5
Sum: passive	32.4	6.4	0.5	0.5	39.9	13.8	3.2	0.0	0.5	17.6	11.2
Other-NR-major (NR-related) web page
In the field: active	24.6	0.0	1.2	0.6	26.3	23.4	0.0	1.8	1.8	26.9	5.4
Campus/classroom	1.2	0.6	0.0	0.0	1.8	1.2	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.2	0.6
Laboratory/greenhouse	4.2	0.6	0.6	0.0	5.4	4.2	2.4	1.2	0.0	7.8	4.8
Other urban/city	9.0	3.0	1.8	0.6	14.4	10.8	2.4	1.2	1.8	16.2	10.8
Sum: passive	14.4	4.2	2.4	0.6	21.6	16.2	4.8	2.4	1.8	25.1	16.2
Means
Active imagery	26.1	1.0	1.2	1.7	30.1	18.6	1.1	0.8	1.3	21.7	7.0
Passive imagery	19.8	5.5	1.9	0.8	27.9	13.5	4.3	1.3	1.2	20.3	15.0

Note: NR, natural resources. Settings are categorized as “Active” and “Passive.” Active in the field photos are images of people outside, dressed for professional fieldwork, such as wearing hardhats looking at trees or working a prescribed fire line. Examples of passive photos include those with people on a traditional college campus or classroom, generic laboratory or greenhouse, or other urban setting wearing casual clothes or sitting at a computer. Units are percentages calculated independently based on number of occurrences in the images, and so the values to do not add up to 100 for male and female in a single row, but do add up with male and female sum of active and passive imagery for each of the three webpage categories.

Although some programs are apparently inclusive of gender and racial diversity in the online marketing imagery, we also wanted to compare how they are portrayed, i.e., are they inclusive on the same level? To attract a student to an NR/Forestry program, an “in the field” image is much more “active,” versus a photo of students in a generic classroom or hallway as “passive” imagery (Figure 4). “In the field” imagery normalizes and makes acceptable NR and Forestry-specific activities, whereas passive photos of people in hallways or portraits are more generic to university roles. People more likely to be shown in active imagery are males (30.1 percent overall) and nonminorities (white males = 26.1 percent, white females = 18.6 percent, overall 44.7 percent) (Table 5). Active images with women and minorities comprise only 21.7 percent and 7 percent respectively overall, with these numbers being even smaller for active images of women and minorities on Forestry-major webpages at 13.8 percent and 4.8 percent respectively (Table 5). Overall, photos with males and with white people are more likely to be active, placed in field settings. When minorities are included on programmatic pages, they are more likely to be in passive imagery, taking place in urban, classroom, or generic campus settings (Table 5).

Figure 4.

Students actively engaging in their space. Being “in the field” (left) makes it much more obvious that these are students studying natural resources, rather than photos of people in hallways or classroom setting (right). By including women and minorities in “field” photos, it is much more likely they are able to picture themselves actually in the career field of Forestry or related NR fields. Photos by Michigan Tech (2017).

Landing Page Photo Descriptions: What Types of Photos Are Used?

Does looking at an NR-related college website grab a student’s interest or look different at a glance from any other STEM-related college website? The answer is, apparently, sometimes. As a field, NR programs tend to focus on similar types of imagery. On the programmatic main landing pages, photos including people are the most common (n = 262), whereas photos of landscapes with trees (n = 37), animals (n = 29), or campus facilities without people shown (n = 17) are less frequently included. Interestingly, photos of animals most often were charismatic mammal species (n = 17), presumably to grab viewer interest (six deer, four bears, bison, elk, bobcat, etc.), and occasionally exotic animals such as tigers and orangutans or domesticated animals (two goats) were featured. Large fish (n = 5) and large birds (n = 6) were shown, usually with people in the photos, whereas the least frequent animals were photos with insects or amphibians. Landscapes most often featured trees or other plants, with water/wetlands being a common theme or mountains/terrain. Facilities included photos of the outside of buildings, empty classrooms, or lab equipment that was featured on a main page.

On Forestry-major pages, photos most frequently included people (n = 97) in a forest setting. Photos with trees or other plants alone were less frequent (n = 33), along with campus or cityscapes (n = 7, usually for urban forestry programs). People shown in photos were more often collecting data or standing still; very few photos of forest management in action were found (i.e., cutting trees), but occasionally people were highlighted running fire lines, engaging in recreational activities (e.g., climbing waterfalls), or working with animals (i.e., elk, llamas, and donkeys were found).

For the Other-NR-related major pages, photos also most frequently included people (n = 141), but in more varied settings. Treed landscapes were shown with the same frequency as those with smaller herbaceous plants (n = 7 each), whereas campus or buildings alone were less likely to be shown (n = 6). Photos with wildlife (with and without people) were common, with mammals most often shown (n = 17, four of them with moose), followed by birds (n = 11), herptiles (n = 3), and a single fish and crayfish. Wildlife photos typically included people in the photos, indicating that some types of experiential, hands-on activities are possible, across a range of Other-NR-majors, not just “wildlife.”

Faculty Photos: Who Are the Role Models in These Programs?

Out of 80 universities, only four did not have any faculty photos available online. Even if a program specifically had faculty photos, not all faculty may have had a profile picture included in the list; therefore, our evaluation here represents faculty photos and their perceived metrics that students actually see online when searching for professors or mentors, not necessarily all the faculty the program reports.

Significantly fewer women and minorities (and women minorities) were found in online NR programmatic faculty profiles than white males (Table 6). Historically, HBCUs have a higher total mean percentage of black faculty, although the gender disparity is still present (Table 6). Hispanic or Other race/ethnicities (such as Native Alaskan/American Indian) are least likely to be represented in faculty photos, regardless of gender.

Table 6.

Perceived gender and race/ethnicity representation of programmatic faculty (from the college, department, or school housing the forestry/NR-related degrees) in 80 National Association of University Forest Resources Programs-member institutions (www.naufrp.org), with faculty photos available online (July 2016) as a faculty listing.

	Male				Total male	Female				Total female	Total minority
	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic/other		White	Black	Asian	Hispanic/other
All 80 institutions (with faculty photos)
Mean n	19.9	3.0	2.6	1.4	21.4	7.9	1.9	1.5	1.3	8.2	4.1
Percentage of faculty	62.1	3.0	5.7	1.6	72.3	23.8	1.2	1.6	1.1	27.7	13.9
Maximum n	63	18	7	3	74	34	9	3	4	37	39
Totals without 12, 1890/1994 institutions (historically black colleges and universities, tribal colleges)*
Mean n	21.5	1.1	2.4	1.3	23.1	8.4	1.2	1.4	1.3	9.0	1.7
Percentage of faculty	64.7	0.7	5.0	1.4	71.9	25.0	0.6	1.6	1.0	28.1	1.4
Maximum n	63	2	3	4	74	34	2	3	4	37	7
Totals of 12, 1890/1994 institutions (historically black colleges and universitiess, tribal colleges)*
Mean n	6.5	6	3.1	1.5	11.4	2.5	3.7	2	1.2	3.2	3.5
Percentage of faculty	29.5	30.7	14.2	3.4	77.8	8.5	8.5	2.3	2.8	22.2	61.9
Maximum n	19	18	7	2	37	5	9	2	2	15	18

* 1890/1994 institutions analyzed separately include Alabama A & M, Alcorn State, Delaware State, Florida A & M, Kentucky State, Lincoln, Maryland Eastern Shore, Tennessee State, Tuskegee, Salish Kootenai, Southern, and West Virginia University.

Another way that faculty were evaluated was in the mix of students and faculty in photos on landing pages (Table 7). Some photos are just large mixed groups of people, or the people in the photo could be posing or of undeterminable age where it is unclear if they are students or faculty. In many cases, though, it is more obvious that there is a “teacher/student” relation in an image, either because of the instructional setting or because of perceived age difference. In those cases, where students, students/faculty, or faculty images were counted on landing pages, images with students alone were most frequent on the main landing page (48 percent of images with people), but varied between the two majors. Faculty shown or highlighted on main programmatic landing pages are racially/ethnically more diverse than the percentage of faculty seen on faculty listings (Tables 6 and 7). White males are not as prominent on main pages as in faculty listings, but still make up the majority of faculty shown, with or without students in the image. Black male faculty and black female faculty are three times and 1.5 times respectively, more likely to be included in an image on the landing page than is seen in the mean percentage of faculty listings for programs (Table 7). Other female minority faculty are represented less in images on main landing pages than their mean percentage of faculty suggests (Table 7).

Table 7.

Breakdown of the perceived faculty and student roles of people in photos on NR programmatic web pages (main landing page, Forestry-major landing page, and one other NR-related major landing page) for 80 National Association of University Forest Resources Programs-member Institutions by gender and race/ethnicity.

	Male				Percentage total male	Female				Percentage total female	Percentage total minority
	White	Black	Asian	Hispanic/ other		White	Black	Asian	Hispanic/ other
Main program landing page
Percentage with faculty only	5.7	1.0	0.5	0.7	7.9	5.0	0.2	0.5	1.2	6.9	4.1
Percentage with students only	19.8	3.3	2.1	1.7	27.0	15.5	3.1	1.2	1.4	21.2	12.9
Percentage with faculty and students	15.0	4.1	1.9	1.2	22.2	10.3	3.8	0.5	0.2	14.8	11.7
					57.0					43.0	28.6
Forestry Major
Percentage with faculty only	6.5	0.0	0.0	1.1	7.5	3.2	0.0	0.0	0.0	3.2	1.1
Percentage with students only	6.5	2.2	3.2	22.6	34.4	3.2	0.0	2.2	0.0	5.4	30.1
Percentage with faculty and students	21.5	5.4	0.0	1.1	28.0	16.1	5.4	0.0	0.0	21.5	11.8
					69.9					30.1	43.0
Other-NR Major (NR-related)
Percentage with faculty only	20.6	2.4	1.8	1.2	26.1	24.8	3.0	1.8	2.4	32.1	12.7
Percentage with students only	3.6	0.6	0.0	0.0	4.2	2.4	0.6	0.0	0.0	3.0	1.2
Percentage with faculty and students	14.5	1.2	1.8	0.0	17.6	12.1	1.2	2.4	1.2	17.0	7.9
					47.9					52.1	21.8

Note: NR, natural resources. Numbers are percentages of photos with people in the categories and roles, not total numbers of people in photos. Percentages differ from overall totals, being from photos where a faculty/student role was able to be perceived.

Discussion

Our results indicate that there is an uneven distribution between representation of gender and race/ethnicity on college websites, especially when clicking anywhere further after the programmatic home pages (Table 5). Images on Forestry-major webpages, in particular, are very rarely represented by women (or minorities), as compared to any Other-NR- major at NAUFRP institutions, possibly perpetuating the suggestion to students less of a perceived fit for females (and minorities) in forestry (e.g., Leatherberry and Wellman 1988, Sharik and Frisk 2011, Sharik 2015). All program pages and majors were more likely to have images with white males, except for a higher number of white females found on the Other-NR-Major webpages, which somewhat follows the enrollment trends in forestry and NR (Sharik et al. 2015, Sharik and Bal 2018). In NR-related fields (including Forestry), female students, and especially female minority students, are not translating into an equal proportion of female faculty. Although the numbers of minority female faculty are small to make weighty comparisons, the message is still meaningful. This has significant implications for increased demand and expectations on those (female and/or minority) students who do become faculty (e.g., Hirshfield and Joseph 2012).

Gharis et al. (2017) reported that male students (45 percent) in non-NR-related fields were more likely to respond positively to being interested in becoming a forester than females (35 percent). In that survey, females tended to write that they were not interested in forestry because they were more interested in a career involving people—which is interesting given the recent curriculum efforts at many universities to increase communication skills in foresters (Sample et al. 1999). By articulating or visually showing connections between multicultural and multiple genders, we may be able to make these connections more clearly for forestry and its importance to society, and communicate a culture of acceptance.

In a survey of students already committed to a forestry or related NR program in the United States, Rouleau et al. (2017) reported that female students, even those already committed to a program, were significantly more likely to be “hesitant” to matriculate in a Forestry or related NR program than males. Their survey also found that female students preferred related NR programs focusing on human dimensions, conservation, climate change, or public policy, whereas males were more attracted to strictly forestry programs such as silviculture, fire science, and GIS-related management degrees. The image of Forestry specifically as a “rough-hewn,” male-dominated field is persistent. Universities that have attracted a higher percentage of females and minorities to forestry and related fields of NR may have a combination of a more inclusive recruitment and retention strategy, and a more diverse population pool.

We are not suggesting that changing out a few photos online will have an immediate impact on increasing the gender and racial/ethnic diversity in an NR program. However, being more aware and making careful choices about more accurate representative inclusion on an NR-related website are part of social responsibility. A combination of targeted recruitment and retention strategies is going to be needed to increase diversity (Balcarczyk et al. 2015). In other words, having a diverse body of faculty role models and seeing representative images is good, but students need additional support. Highly successful models to increase enrollment of female and minority students include practices to build self-confidence, supportive communities, and mentoring relations (Smoot Taylor et al. 2001, Sharik 2015). Systemic cultural shifts within institutions and organizations take time, innovation, concerted efforts, and continuing research to make progress (Roberts 2015).

Institutions can take a lead in making simple changes to incoming student websites by consciously reviewing the diversity and inclusivity in imagery and wording to increase the familiarity, framing, and perceived diversity acceptance. For example, not all institutions have their faculty photos easily visible or searchable to scroll through. A web presence is more than just a website, so also being cognizant of diverse content in social media is important. Further considerations include the accessibility and replacement rate of imagery; since all the university websites in this study were coded in 2016, Michigan Tech (and likely many other institutions) redesigned and updated its website format and style mainly for platform accessibility. Recoding the image content for the home page for Forestry and Other-NR-Major pages in June 2018, the total number of photos per page was reduced compared to 2016, which slightly lowered the diversity score using this metric for the same three webpages. However, the imagery is now more accessible for screen readers, responsive to screen size, and updates more frequently than previously, so it is likely that bringing this issue to the attention of web managers will improve representation and attractiveness to users. Having many administrators and faculty aware of a program’s web presence and its potential impacts can help make more relevant and representative content available over time.

Acknowledging Limitations

The data collected per photo were quantitative, but somewhat subjective in that the photos were perceived by the reviewer. As reviewers looking at over 200 web pages, we do not know who the people actually are in photos, whether they are students or instructors, or what their actual preferred gender or race/ethnicity is. The perceived data quantified per photo include gender, race/ethnicity, the role people are playing, and the photo location (Table 1). For this study, the content coder (the senior author) purposefully was not familiar with and did not evaluate specific university diversity-related enrollment data prior to viewing the 80 institution websites. Ideally, a diverse team of reviewers would do a content analysis training together, each coding the same sites and averaging scores, but we were limited by funding for such a study. Each NR program may also have more than three websites that students would view or click through, including additional majors and minors not evaluated here, but that can be highly variable among institutions. Other factors, including a university’s overall reputation, family influence, location, etc., may rank higher in a student’s decision to attend a program or major in a Forestry or related NR field, but not feeling able to fit in or able to envision learning with those students could make a potential student hesitate. In addition, web image selection may not be under control of the specific program. Moreover, there may be a lack of diversity in the student body available for images, in which case, it may be undesirable to show the same students in multiple photos, or it is obvious to students that the images are stock photos. Thus, there are considerations from a web management side as well. Examples of further diversity scoring or ratings that we were not able to include here could be measures such as: a general feeling of inclusion (types of student groups prominent), current student demographic data, classes or minors focusing on diversity or under-represented groups, financial or scholarship information for diverse applicants, faculty research interest in diversity or cultural issues, or general ease of use and number of clicks to find diversity-related information (Smith et al. 2016).

Conclusions

The strategic importance of multiple types of diversity leading to increased innovative competitive advantages has been recognized across education and the workforce (Forbes Insights 2011). “Diverse scientific communities foster innovation and problem-solving more effectively than communities with a narrow range of knowledge, skills, and experience” (Kern et al. 2015, p. 1165). Diversity representation is related to other factors such as organizational structure, geographical region, reputation, funding resources, and other student decisionmaking considerations (e.g., Sharik et al. 2015). Making decisions about recruitment and informational imagery becomes a balancing point between overcompensation or giving students a false impression of a program, and being inclusive and attractive enough to many types of students. Being cognizant of imagery impressions is important.

For the first time in the United States, the demographics of the population are going to be more diverse with a majority–minority nation by the 2040s (Colby and Ortman 2015, Frey 2018). Having a diversity of minorities and genders of students and employees represented in NR fields is key to keeping these fields relevant to society. Multiple studies have shown inequities in the students, employees, and visitors to NR arenas, and multiple studies have suggested ways in which to help bridge this inequity gap. Making simple changes to the imagery we use to promote Forestry and NR fields in general would be a good step toward updating the social imagery of the “rough-hewn” forester and continuing relevance of natural resource fields.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Michigan Tech University Marketing and Communications Team for assisting with image collection. Funding for this project was provided by the Richard and Bonnie Robbins Chair in Sustainability to T. L. Sharik.