Lauren Tremaine

Staff Writer

The Clackamas Print spoke to new geology instructor A.K. Kotash about their encouragement of diversity, their love for volcanoes and about rescuing pigeons.

The Clackamas Print: How did you get into the study of rocks?

AK Kotash: I was a psychology major for two years as an undergrad, and was studying psychology because I wanted to talk and interact with people. And I ended up fighting with my psychology professor during my freshman year. I just wasn’t vibing with psychology and some of the practices, and how they were collecting data. I was in a geology class and went to office hours consistently and constantly. My professor said that you should probably change your major. And I agreed. So, I switched to geology.

A.K. Kotash inspecting a sample in their classroom. Photo by Carlos Rodriguez-Picazo

I’m a very visual person, and reading data was a little hard. It’s not tangible. For me, I need to see visual things that inspire me. We watched a video of volcanoes erupting. I watched that video and said that’s what I need to be doing. 

The Clackamas Print: How do we make geosciences more equitable?

AK Kotash: We’re still grappling with accessibility out in the field. I’m teaching a Death Valley field trip coming up in March, and you don’t have to be a geology major for that. But it’s about camping and navigating, stereotypes within camping, outdoor accessibility, gender, all of that. It can’t just be like, let’s go out there and have fun and look at rocks. Like just in that sentence, there are so many barriers within that. So, my goal is to develop more equitable and accessible field trips and maybe have alternative options. There’s a hot topic in geology: field trip accessibility. 

The Clackamas Print: You’ve conducted seminars at other universities about making the geosciences more open to women, LGBTQ populations and people of color. Is CCC doing a good job creating a diverse learning environment? Is it relatively equitable?

A cabinet drawer full of mineral samples in A.K. Kotash’s class. Photo by Carlos Rodriguez-Picazo

Ak Kotash: I’ve only been here for a short amount of time, and in my interview, I was like, this is the change I want to see. And then they hired me. I’m here, and I’m going to push that and make sure that we show up like that in my classroom. So, it has to validate the fact that there were those committee members who very much wanted that, too. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have hired me. I know Clackamas wants a diverse student body. Also, we want to support the diverse student body. So I haven’t come across any barriers, though I know they obviously exist, but I’m on a faculty evaluation task force to make sure to make those changes. There are definitely places of power to make those changes. 

The Clackamas Print: Is there anything else we haven’t asked you that you wanted to tell us about? 

AK Kotash: Outside my science identity. I’m a teacher, an educator, a researcher. Also, I am part of a queer community. I am trans. Sometimes, we have to pretend we’re not those things, but I am those things, especially in my teaching spaces. So, some things I do outside of work is that I do a bird rescue, pigeons and doves. No one cares about them, and you could legally shoot them. So, I try to rescue the ones that need help.