Association of Zoos and Aquariums

Resource Center

Diversity Programs in Zoos and Aquariums

One of the AZA Diversity Committee's objectives is to identify successful programs that support diversity and are providing positive results for their organizations. Below we have listed various programs we have discovered within our industry.

Want to contribute?

Does your zoo or aquarium have an interesting diversity program or initiative that you'd like to share with your colleagues? Please contact Angela Peterson with the details.

Chattanooga Zoo at Warner Park

Promoting Ethnic Diversity in Zoos (PEDZ ) Program

The PEDZ Program at the Chattanooga Zoo is a work program for minority teens designed to address the lack of staff diversity at the Chattanooga Zoo and in the zoological field in general. In cooperation with Inner City Ministries of Chattanooga, the PEDZ program offers promising minority teens a paid work experience during the fall, spring, or summer.

The teens receive hands-on training as zookeepers and discuss all aspects of zoo operations including biology, animal behavior, educational programming, and management. Students who excel in their work are invited to remain employed at the zoo for another session. Funding is provided by our support organization, Friends of the Zoo, as well as through grants.

Here's an article (in PDF) about the PEDZ program from the January 2005 issue of Communiqué Magazine.

For more information contact:
Miranda Cagle
Director Community Partnership Department
Chattanooga, TN 37404
(423) 697-1319

National Aquarium in Baltimore

Diversity Committee
The N.A.I.B. Diversity Committee is made up of staff from various departments, backgrounds andlevels of the organization. The committee meets monthly to discuss activities, issues and projects related to diversity. The group has a rotating guest resource person for each meeting from the Senior Management Committee (our Executive Director and his direct reports) who is there to assist in any way possible and offer feedback. The group is currently surveying departments programs and activities that relate to diversity to benchmark what is presently underway, provide an internal resource, and map out where efforts can be coordinated.

Diversity training
Initially outsourced through a consultant, training for level one (all full and part time staff) and level two (managers level and above) are now handled internally by our Manager of Staff Training.

The Minority Serving Institutes Program
The Director of Conservation and Ocean Health Manager lead an effort partnering with a number of Colleges that traditional serve predominately minority populations to provide internships and opportunities for minorities pursuing Conservation andEnvironmental Stewardship career tracts.

The Cultural Heritage Series
The Community Affairs Department leads an outreach effort that involves several of our communities in a evening or multi-evening event celebrating afeatured culture, highlighting cultural connections to exhibits and offering a window of information into a variety of employment, educational and volunteer opportunities with the Aquarium. A variety of keynote speakers, performance groups and artists have continually made these evenings a must see. Past events have included Hispanic Heritage Night, Asian PacificIsland Heritage Night and Black History Month.

For more information contact:
Bert Hall, Jr.
Diversity and Human Resources Specialist
Human Resources Department
(410) 576-1078

Shedd Aquarium

Mentoring Program

This program is a long-term undertaking designed to grow future employees for the Shedd Aquarium and the zoo and aquarium field in general. The Aquarium has had two on-going programs involving local teens for over 25 years:

An Aquatic Science course with the city high schools where students spend a semester studying biology at the Aquarium, and;
A summer program for teens where they learn about corals reefs at the Aquarium and then do one week of fieldwork on the Aquarium's research vessel in the Caribbean.

Three years ago these programs and others were connected to form a ladder of involvement within a "Mentoring Program". The purpose of this new division of the Education Department is to attract and keep our local teens (who reflect the diverse demographics of the Chicagoland area) involved with the Aquarium throughout high school and college.

The success of these programs is becoming apparent because about 30 participants have become employees at the institution. Also, several participants who are minority college students have been selected for intern programs in the animal care areas and are now close to graduating from college and applying for regular positions in those departments.

For Employees

Newsletter, movie night, celebration events, brown bag lunches on provocative subjects;
Awareness training for al new employees, skills building workshops for all supervisors and managers;
Staff council to address employees' issues.

For more information contact:
Nanette Schonberg
Director Staff Training and Development
312-692-3207

Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

Diversity Improvement Initiative (D-II )

This zoo has a detailed diversity improvement program recently renamed D-II (Diversity Improvement Initiative), which is the result of their goal to establish an approach for increasing and managing employment diversity. The program's purpose is to recruit and train qualified candidates through proactive strategies to assure a self-sustained diverse workforce at all levels.

The length of the program is one to three years depending on the position. The program only includes positions in departments where the anticipation is that vacancies will occur for the participants to be hired full-time. Both the department and Human Resources identify recruitment sources and there is a brochure available to both employees and community sources outlining the program. Employees are regularly informed of the program's status.

Each department prepares a written plan to assist in incorporating D-II participants into existing training programs. These plans include:

Knowledge required to perform job duties
Goals of training and experience
Length of time needed for each area of learning and training
Materials and equipment needed
Responsibilities of trainee participant
Managers' responsibilities
Feedback and evaluation process

Also, assisting the program's success is a mentoring program for the participants. The mentors are trained to offer participants support, counseling and camaraderie. The Cleveland Metroparks Diversity Advisory Council oversees implementation of the D-II program and helps continue to govern its success.

For more information contact:
Tina Bates
Employment Manager
216-635-3226

Brookfield Zoo

Brookfield Zoo launched a comprehensive Diversity Program in 1998 to foster an organizational culture where diversity is managed, valued, celebrated, and respected by all. The initiative is aimed at increasing workplace diversity, fostering the desired organizational culture, and better serving its 2 million + guests each year.

Although this program is aimed at on-going, long-term results, since implementing the program, they have seen an increase in minority representation among their full-time and seasonal workforce and improvements in their availability to serve an increasingly diverse audience. Some of the many actions taken since inception of the program are:

Created a diversity team to serve as role models and assist in identifying and developing diversity initiatives.
Conducted organization-wide diversity awareness training to educate staff.
Incorporated the topic of diversity into other training topics, including new hire orientations and training in professional development courses like, communications skills, conflict management, and management topics.
Created a full-time position of Diversity Program.
Coordinator to implement and coordinate diversity-related activities; these duties have since been incorporated into multiple zoo positions.
Proactively work to increase the diversity of the workforce through a growing network of over 150 recruitment and referral sources.
Targeted marketing promotions and advertising including air, TV, and print advertising in ethnic media and other media.
Special events such as "Rhythm and Roots" and "Fiesta Para Todos" and outreach education programs designed to reach diverse audiences.

For more information contact:
Sandi Dornhecker
Director, Human Resources
708-485-0263 x 334

Folsom Children's Zoo and Botanical Gardens

In April 2002 the Zoo began planning evening guided tours for non-English speaking visitors. Working with Hilde Dale, leader of the English Language Learner team at Lincoln High School, volunteers were recruited from her classes who spoke Vietnamese, Spanish, Russian, Serbian, Arabic, Ogoni, and Nuhr.. These young people would act as interpreter-guides for the scheduled evening tours of the Zoo.

A training session for the guides was held, dates for the evening tours were chosen, and information was sent to cultural community centers, ELL classes at all Lincoln Public Schools, and churches with significant refugee numbers.

First Presbyterian Church and the Lincoln Action Program provided transportation for Sudanese refugees. Free admission and train rides were provided by grants from The Sowers Club of Lincoln, Inc. and The Keno Human Services Prevention Fund. On June 19th nineteen Vietnamese visitors toured with Binh An Ta and Ha Cu. On July 17th tours were offered in Spanish, Albanian, Russian and Serbian. Forty-seven people toured that night. July 31st eighty-six Sudanese and Arabic visitors enjoyed tours.

Folsom Children's Zoo plans on continuing these evenings at the Zoo with specified language tours throughout the summer of 2003. For each language tour, we will set up a schedule, identify a night(s), hire a guide(s), and inform the various audiences. We plan on offering tours in Arabic, Serbian, Dinka, Nuhr, Ogoni, Afgan, Vietnamese, Chinese, Spanish, and Russian. The job of guiding the tours will be offered to Lincoln Public School students in the English Language Learner classes.

For more information contact:
John Chapo
Executive Director
402-475-6741