The only department offering graduate degrees in geology in the District of
Columbia is closing its doors at the end of the academic year. The fates of
the geology faculty and students at George Washington University remain unknown
at press time, but the reasons for closing the department echo past geoscience
losses in other academic institutions: a volatile mix of tight budgets, low
student enrollments and other, often complex, factors.
Generally, faculty members have been folded into geography or other academic
departments, in an effort to save money spent on maintenance and support costs.
But more nebulous issues that include anecdotal tales of students’ slacking
interest in pure geology and the ephemeral status of geology as a science are
more difficult to pin down and may in part be responsible for the degree and
departmental losses across the United States.
In the case of George Washington University, faculty may be moved into the biology,
geography, chemistry and physics departments while the administration attempts
to maintain a geosciences program. “The danger is we will become a service
group without having an academic presence,” says George Stephens, a structural
geologist on the faculty there who may soon be a member of the geography department.
Naomi Lubick
Link:
"University losses at home and abroad,"
Geotimes, March 2004
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