Fundamental change
The Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences is heading
in a new direction.
It's rare that an academic department gets a chance
to literally remake itself.
It's an opportunity that the Department of Geological
and Atmospheric Sciences had this year and they have made the most of
it with four new faculty hires.
Actually Carl Jacobson, professor and chair of
the department, says that the fundamental change in the strategy began
several years ago.
"In the early to mid '80s, the vast majority
of the students that graduated from the geology program wound up working
for the oil and mining industries," he said.
A major downturn in energy prices, particularly
oil, changed all that beginning in 1993.
"Basically for the last 20 years oil prices
have been pretty low," Jacobson said. "Oil and mining companies
haven't been doing a lot of hiring."
But as those companies started to downsize, other
areas in geological and atmospheric sciences opened up for graduates in
those fields. Environmental geology and hydrogeology became a more viable
alternative for job searches.
Changes were also occurring in the meteorology
program. Interest started to change from students solely interested in
weather forecasting.
"A larger group of students came to campus
wanting to look at environmental issues and large scale climate changes,"
Jacobson said. "These are areas where the two programs (geology and
meteorology) can interact."
Those factors and Iowa State's location on the
continent gave departmental faculty cause to sit back and reflect on the
direction of the department's curriculum.
"We don't have earthquakes or volcanoes in
the Midwest and with the energy companies' downturn, it became harder
to attract students to the classical areas of geology," Jacobson
said.
While those classical areas are still a part of
the curriculum, new faculty hires have expertise in such areas as groundwater
contaminants, climate changes, environmental geochemistry, biogeochemistry,
and stable isotope geochemistry.
This retooling with geology, combined with existing
strengths in meteorology, has led the department to a relatively new field
referred to as Earth Systems Science.
"It's a hot area right now," Jacobson
said. "It applies all the natural sciences to studying the Earth
and how these areas impact society as well as society's impact on the
Earth. We're gradually changing the makeup of the faculty. It's something
that takes time however."
With four faculty retirements in the past year
the change is coming more rapidly. In the last four years, seven new faculty
members have been hired in the Department of Geological and Atmospheric
Sciences.
That's significant when you consider that there
are only 11 faculty lines in the geology area and five more in meteorology.
With the new hires, the department also hopes the two programs will work
closer together.
"We're trying to blur the distinctions between
the two," Jacobson said. "In the past we have operated as two
separate programs. Now we hope to interact as one."
"Our new hires will create an interdisciplinary
department that will present wonderful opportunities for collaborations
with other departments, not only in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences,
but elsewhere on campus," said Paul Spry, professor and former chair
of the department.
One of those collaborations is Bill Simpkins',
associate professor of geological and atmospheric sciences, work with
a riparian buffer project near Roland. Simpkins, who is a hydrogeologist,
is working with researchers from several departments within the College
of Agriculture on the project.
"The unique thing about this project is that
we may be talking about water quality and buffers, but we're (his hydrogeology
research team) an integral part of it," Simpkins said. "It's
truly an interdisciplinary project."
Jacobson said Simpkins' hiring 12 years ago started
the department in its new direction of Earth Systems Science.
"Bill was the first push in this area,"
he said. "Since then we've added several faculty in non-traditional
areas, faculty like Neal Iverson, Igor Beresnev, Bill Gallus."
The change to Earth Systems Science is unusual
for a traditional geology department to make according to Jacobson.
"One thing that has helped us is that other
similar departments across the country have been unwilling to change,"
he said. "At Iowa State we have people in the classical areas of
geology and meteorology that knew we had to move in this direction. That
this was the best for both this department and this University.
"We realized we had to undergo drastic changes."
