HR: 10:20h
AN: ED12A-01    [Abstracts]
TI: Building Strong Geoscience Departments: A Workshop Report
AU: * Manduca, C A
EM: cmanduca@carleton.edu
AF: Science Education Resource Center, Carleton College, Northfiled, MN 55057
AU: Macdonald, R H
EM: rhmacd@wm.edu
AF: College of William and Mary, P.O. Box 8795, Williamsburg, VA 23187
AU: Richardson, R
EM: rmr@u.arizona.edu
AF: Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721
AU: Feiss, P G
EM: pgfeis@wm.edu
AF: College of William and Mary, P.O. Box 8795, Williamsburg, VA 23187
AB: The strength of Geoscience departments and their programs lies at the heart of developing a strong geoscience workforce capable of meeting the wide variety of challenges facing our society. In February 2005, 28 geoscience faculty, department chairs, and senior administrators from Ph.D. granting institutions, comprehensive and regional institutions, liberal arts colleges, and community colleges met to share information on strategies that had strengthened their own departments and to brainstorm ideas for collective action that would strengthen departments across the United States. Participants in the NSF funded workshop recognized that these are challenging times for geoscience departments and that a number of departments have been closed or are facing reorganization. However, they concluded that departments across the full spectrum of institutional types have more in common than was previously realized and that there are many best practices and successful innovations for meeting challenges that departments can learn from one another. As a step toward promoting this sharing, workshop participants created a document describing characteristics of thriving geoscience departments. This document, as well as: essays describing the variety of ways in which participants' departments have met challenges and opportunities; a bibliography of papers, reports and websites of use to departmental leaders; and resources for departmental leadership and planning, can be found at the 'Building Strong Geoscience Departments' website (serc.carleton.edu/departments). The workshop agenda, powerpoint slides and posters presented at the workshop, discussion summaries, and participant list can also be found at the website. Workshop participants have invited all departments engaged in teaching geoscience to participate in further discussion and sharing beginning with sessions at professional society meetings this fall. An advisory board has been formed to move forward in implementing the recommendations from the workshop and developing further opportunities for geoscience departments to work collectively to strengthen their programs.
UR: http://serc.carleton.edu/departments/index.html
DE: 0810 Post-secondary education
DE: 0820 Curriculum and laboratory design
DE: 0840 Evaluation and assessment
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005