FROM GEN ED TO HIGHER ED: REGENERATING A SUCCESSFUL COMMUNITY COLLEGE GEOLOGY PROGRAM

In its beginning in 1913, Bakersfield College (BC) had an active partnership with the local San Joaquin Valley oil industry. BC, a minority-serving institution, had a Geo Tech program that produced industry workers, and the industry supplied BC with funds and tools for use in education. At its prime, BC’s geology program included courses in petroleum geology, biostratigraphy, and mineralogy among the standard curriculum. By 1980 the program had all but disappeared, and over the next 35 years only Physical Geology remained. In 2005, the effort to rebuild this program began in a very different economic climate.

Physical Geology alone can hardly be a magnet for potential future geologists, but was the only venue to generate a spark of interest in the field. Bringing in guest lecturers from the community, partnering with local geologists to develop field trips, creating a broader curriculum that can draw in students with various geological interests, forging a strong relationship with faculty and feeding students into summer research programs at the local 4-year university, and generating community interest through continuing education are all ventures that have successfully built up the program at BC.

Activities that most effectively draw students into geosciences are overnight field trips where the students generate memories for life and develop strong bonds. This type of field trip is becoming increasingly difficult to run with no funding in the community college system, no college-supported transportation, and administrative hurdles. Field trips are such a fundamental tool for hands-on geoscience education that other strategies must be developed in the classroom to generate excitement and passion for learning, and loopholes must be found to make field trips possible. The students present a solution here. When given responsibility over their own success, they rally and persevere. Outlets such as tutoring, learning communities, and clubs provide the students with leadership-building self-esteem and a means to recruit other potential geoscience peers. A few motivated students can successfully run fundraising efforts so that they can explore the natural world (e.g. a 10-day SW USA trip) and establish themselves within the community, drawing in more driven peers and contributing to a self-sustaining program.