HR: 1330h
AN: ED12A-0124    [PDF]
TI: New Challenges Facing Small Undergraduate Departments And The Role Of Faculty And Administrators.
AU: * El-Shazly, A K
EM: aelshazly@utm.edu
AF: Department of Geology, Geography and Physics, University of Tennessee, Martin, TN 38238
AB: Small geoscience departments with 5 faculty members or less in undergraduate institutions are facing serious challenges that will have a profound impact on their future, as well as the future of geoscience education. In addition to past and future budget cuts that affect all departments, small departments are more vulnerable to such problems as (i) decreased enrollments in introductory level classes, (ii) small number of geology majors, (iii) small number of graduates per year (iv) lack or paucity of equipment necessary for faculty and student research, (v) limited opportunities for external funding, (vi) need to offer upper division classes on an alternate year basis, (vii) difficulty in recruiting and retaining students, (viii) high teaching loads for faculty, and (ix) designing rigorous curricula based on 120 credit hours with a significant component of liberal art classes. These problems pose new challenges for faculty, department chairs and administrators. Faculty need to design curricula tailored to the need of the job market, without compromising rigor or the quality of the program. New classes/ concentrations in environmental science, hydrogeology and geographical information systems should be offered, and traditional classes in petrology, geophysics and tectonics should be maintained. Classes in Physics, Chemistry and Math should be core requirements. Student involvement in research should be encouraged at an early stage (sophomore/ junior levels). Department chairs need to assign duties in their department carefully to capitalize on the strengths of their faculty: faculty with strong research backgrounds should be helped in their efforts to pursue external funding opportunities, whereas those with strong teaching abilities should be evaluated primarily on their performance in the classroom. Student credit hour production should not be used as a criterion for evaluating faculty. Administrators should evaluate programs and departments based on the success of their graduates in the workplace/ graduate school, not their numbers, and the quality of faculty research and its impact on attracting new majors and acquisition of funds.
DE: 6309 Decision making under uncertainty
DE: 6319 Institutions
DE: 6699 General or miscellaneous
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting