Wednesday, June 19, 2019
The demise of Geology
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
THE DEMISE OF GEOLOGY
What criteria do college administrators use when deciding to eliminate a program? Targeted programs are perceived as irrelevant or weak as indicated by relatively low number of majors, small classes, and most importantly, insufficient research production as measured by the size and number of external grants awarded. These metrics have little to nothing to do with the quality and value of the undergraduate education these programs provide their students.
An important metric used to evaluate the quality of offerings at a college or university is class size with smaller classes considered to be better. And yet, administrators punish programs for offering small classes and the faculty who teach them. Until recently I taught two upper level undergraduate geology courses that were required for geoscience majors. Their enrollments wavered in the lower double digits and upper single digits. They included labs and were, by design and necessity, low enrollment courses. There was continuing pressure from the dean's office to either increase their enrollments, an unlikely scenario, or cut them and replace them with large enrollment introductory courses adding to the glut of such courses already offered. Both courses have been cut. Other small enrollment upper level geology courses offered in the department were also no longer offered. As a result, our geoscience graduates are now deficient in what graduate schools and employers consider basic core courses. Local consulting firms that used to hire many of our graduates no longer do.
Most of the current and future environmental problems, many exacerbated by climate change, are wholly or in part geologic in nature. Increased flooding and erosion of coastlines and river banks, landslides induced by poor land-use planning, earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions are only a few examples of the clearly geology-based problems we face. To fully understand them and mitigate their impacts requires geologic research in the lab as well as on-the-ground investigations. Not only is the need for geologists ever more paramount, but a public with a basic understanding of the earth and earth processes will be required if it is to be convinced to support the difficult land use decisions to be made in the future. In addition, modern society is dependent on the discovery and exploitation of natural resources, minerals, water, and fossil fuels. If we are to find and utilize them in sustainable, environmentally sound ways, geologists will have to be deeply involved.
The need to continue to train professional geologists should be obvious to all, but it is not. Over recent decades colleges and universities have eliminated, weakened, or merged geology programs with other disciplines. Between 1989 and 2002, geological sciences and geoscience departments were reduced 16% according to a 2004 study by L.A. Rossbacker and D.D. Rhodes. Earth science departments were reduced 22% during this same period and nineteen colleges and universities stopped offering geology bachelors degrees. The American Geoscience Institute's 2014 Status of Workforce Report projected a shortage of 135,000 geoscientists in the U.S.A. by 2022.
Pressure and meddling imposed on programs by administrators without adequate input from the faculty involved is far too common. My own department, until recently a small undergraduate geology department, suffered through decades of counterproductive modifications initiated by provosts and deans concerned mainly with numbers of students and grant income. The department was always a very cost-effective operation with low overhead while bringing in substantial tuition dollars through teaching introductory service courses. Our students were very satisfied with the department and our graduates generally succeeded in landing good jobs in geology or related fields or going on to complete advanced degrees.
Deans and provosts have been whittling away at us for decades by not replacing retired faculty and sending our tenure track slots to other programs. There are now only two tenured geologists on the faculty, down from seven twenty years ago. A past provost, without consulting the department, imposed substantial changes on us that served no real purpose and diluted our offerings. A near fatal blow was delivered a decade later by a dean's decision to solve another department's internal squabbling by merging us with one of the warring factions to create a new department emphasizing marine biology while allowing geology to wither slowly as we tenured graybeards retire. This is in spite of the fact that Bureau of Labor Statistics data project that from 2016 through 2026 job growth in geology will increase at a rate 14% faster than the average for all other jobs in the U.S., far outpacing the performance of marine biology graduates.
As an undergraduate program with little institutional support, it was exceedingly difficult for faculty to land significant external funding for research. Faculty conducting unfunded research are rendered invisible in the eyes of administrators more interested in projects that draw major grants and the accompanying overhead income. Never mind that grants do not pay their own way in the long run and that undergraduate tuition income pays the lion's share of operating costs. Like many geologists, my research is curiosity driven. I have spent decades studying basaltic rocks in the Pacific Northwest and along the coast of Massachusetts because I am interested and love doing the work. To me, this is a pretty good model for my students to aspire to rather than selecting projects on the basis of how much grant money they can generate.
This history may be unique in detail but the end results should be sadly familiar to geoscience faculty nationally. Currently we are facing an anti-science epidemic that threatens to undermine effective understanding and mitigation of environmental problems that threaten our national and personal well being. Our current administration is led by a man who claims windmills cause cancer. The Environmental Protection Agency is rolling back important regulations enacted decades ago to protect precious resources, public lands, and public health. Climate change deniers, many of whom are in positions of authority, spread false claims that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by researchers who somehow are growing wealthy from their grants. Creationists are waging war against teaching evolution in high schools. Their museums and literature include displays and illustrations showing humans co-existing with dinosaurs. They claim the Earth was created in its present form by God 6000 years ago and support it with pseudoscience. A 2012 Gallup poll shows that nearly half of Americans believe this. Is this the time to be cutting back on the teaching geology and earth science?
A public uneducated in the earth sciences is not only susceptible to such fables, it is a passive witness to the wholesale undermining of science in general. Such a public is easier to manipulate with misinformation and more readily accepts the unsustainable corporate exploitation of the natural environment. Colleges and universities that eliminate or re-purpose successful geoscience programs are enabling these trends. How can any college or university consider its graduates to be well educated if they have had minimal or no exposure to curricula that provides a basic understanding of earth process and Earth itself?
THE DEMISE OF GEOLOGY
What criteria do college administrators use when deciding to eliminate a program? Targeted programs are perceived as irrelevant or weak as indicated by relatively low number of majors, small classes, and most importantly, insufficient research production as measured by the size and number of external grants awarded. These metrics have little to nothing to do with the quality and value of the undergraduate education these programs provide their students.
An important metric used to evaluate the quality of offerings at a college or university is class size with smaller classes considered to be better. And yet, administrators punish programs for offering small classes and the faculty who teach them. Until recently I taught two upper level undergraduate geology courses that were required for geoscience majors. Their enrollments wavered in the lower double digits and upper single digits. They included labs and were, by design and necessity, low enrollment courses. There was continuing pressure from the dean's office to either increase their enrollments, an unlikely scenario, or cut them and replace them with large enrollment introductory courses adding to the glut of such courses already offered. Both courses have been cut. Other small enrollment upper level geology courses offered in the department were also no longer offered. As a result, our geoscience graduates are now deficient in what graduate schools and employers consider basic core courses. Local consulting firms that used to hire many of our graduates no longer do.
Most of the current and future environmental problems, many exacerbated by climate change, are wholly or in part geologic in nature. Increased flooding and erosion of coastlines and river banks, landslides induced by poor land-use planning, earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions are only a few examples of the clearly geology-based problems we face. To fully understand them and mitigate their impacts requires geologic research in the lab as well as on-the-ground investigations. Not only is the need for geologists ever more paramount, but a public with a basic understanding of the earth and earth processes will be required if it is to be convinced to support the difficult land use decisions to be made in the future. In addition, modern society is dependent on the discovery and exploitation of natural resources, minerals, water, and fossil fuels. If we are to find and utilize them in sustainable, environmentally sound ways, geologists will have to be deeply involved.
The need to continue to train professional geologists should be obvious to all, but it is not. Over recent decades colleges and universities have eliminated, weakened, or merged geology programs with other disciplines. Between 1989 and 2002, geological sciences and geoscience departments were reduced 16% according to a 2004 study by L.A. Rossbacker and D.D. Rhodes. Earth science departments were reduced 22% during this same period and nineteen colleges and universities stopped offering geology bachelors degrees. The American Geoscience Institute's 2014 Status of Workforce Report projected a shortage of 135,000 geoscientists in the U.S.A. by 2022.
Pressure and meddling imposed on programs by administrators without adequate input from the faculty involved is far too common. My own department, until recently a small undergraduate geology department, suffered through decades of counterproductive modifications initiated by provosts and deans concerned mainly with numbers of students and grant income. The department was always a very cost-effective operation with low overhead while bringing in substantial tuition dollars through teaching introductory service courses. Our students were very satisfied with the department and our graduates generally succeeded in landing good jobs in geology or related fields or going on to complete advanced degrees.
Deans and provosts have been whittling away at us for decades by not replacing retired faculty and sending our tenure track slots to other programs. There are now only two tenured geologists on the faculty, down from seven twenty years ago. A past provost, without consulting the department, imposed substantial changes on us that served no real purpose and diluted our offerings. A near fatal blow was delivered a decade later by a dean's decision to solve another department's internal squabbling by merging us with one of the warring factions to create a new department emphasizing marine biology while allowing geology to wither slowly as we tenured graybeards retire. This is in spite of the fact that Bureau of Labor Statistics data project that from 2016 through 2026 job growth in geology will increase at a rate 14% faster than the average for all other jobs in the U.S., far outpacing the performance of marine biology graduates.
As an undergraduate program with little institutional support, it was exceedingly difficult for faculty to land significant external funding for research. Faculty conducting unfunded research are rendered invisible in the eyes of administrators more interested in projects that draw major grants and the accompanying overhead income. Never mind that grants do not pay their own way in the long run and that undergraduate tuition income pays the lion's share of operating costs. Like many geologists, my research is curiosity driven. I have spent decades studying basaltic rocks in the Pacific Northwest and along the coast of Massachusetts because I am interested and love doing the work. To me, this is a pretty good model for my students to aspire to rather than selecting projects on the basis of how much grant money they can generate.
This history may be unique in detail but the end results should be sadly familiar to geoscience faculty nationally. Currently we are facing an anti-science epidemic that threatens to undermine effective understanding and mitigation of environmental problems that threaten our national and personal well being. Our current administration is led by a man who claims windmills cause cancer. The Environmental Protection Agency is rolling back important regulations enacted decades ago to protect precious resources, public lands, and public health. Climate change deniers, many of whom are in positions of authority, spread false claims that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by researchers who somehow are growing wealthy from their grants. Creationists are waging war against teaching evolution in high schools. Their museums and literature include displays and illustrations showing humans co-existing with dinosaurs. They claim the Earth was created in its present form by God 6000 years ago and support it with pseudoscience. A 2012 Gallup poll shows that nearly half of Americans believe this. Is this the time to be cutting back on the teaching geology and earth science?
A public uneducated in the earth sciences is not only susceptible to such fables, it is a passive witness to the wholesale undermining of science in general. Such a public is easier to manipulate with misinformation and more readily accepts the unsustainable corporate exploitation of the natural environment. Colleges and universities that eliminate or re-purpose successful geoscience programs are enabling these trends. How can any college or university consider its graduates to be well educated if they have had minimal or no exposure to curricula that provides a basic understanding of earth process and Earth itself?
