Thomas Easley

Worried some of his natural resources students were falling behind, Thomas RaShad Easley searched for an incentive to encourage them to improve their grades. “Why did you sign up for this class here?” he asked. “They said, ‘Well, we heard you rapped.’” Easley found his incentive: Get your grades up, he told students, and he’d get them studio time so they could perform hip-hop like him. With that in mind, the students’ grades quickly recovered. It’s a lesson that has served him well today as the assistant dean of diversity and inclusion at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. …Recently he spoke at Michigan State University about what works and doesn’t work when recruiting youth and how everyone can promote inclusion in natural resources management.