THE RISE OF TWO-YEAR COLLEGES IN GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION (Invited Presentation)

Geoscience instruction in the United States began in 1756 at what today is the University of Pennsylvania (Corgan, 1987, JGE). This instruction was limited to 4-year colleges and universities (4YCs) until the 1920’s, when 2-year “junior”colleges (2YCs) such as Pasadena City College, began offering geoscience courses. Geoscience faculty at liberal arts colleges in the Midwest formed the first geoscience education society, the Association of College Geology Teachers, in 1939. National leadership in this society, which became the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT), was dominated by 4YC faculty until Dorothy “Dottie” LaLonde Stout became a NAGT Councilor-at-Large in 1986 and President in 1990. Dottie Stout taught at Cypress College, a 2YC. She also advocated for 2YC geoscience education as a co-founder of the Geological Society of America (GSA) Geoscience Education Division (1991), a GSA Councilor (1997-1999), and as a National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Undergraduate Education Geoscience Program Director (1999-2000). Heather Macdonald, College of William and Mary, and others have continued Dottie Stout’s work by convening NSF-funded and NAGT-sponsored 2YC geoscience education planning workshops at NSF Headquarters in 2000 and at Northern Virginia Community College-Annandale in 2010. Attendees at the 2010 workshop formed a 13-member committee whose goal was to establish a national 2YC geoscience organization. In 2011, this committee proposed and organized the NAGT Geo2YC Division, the first national organization devoted to 2YC geoscience education and the first special-interest division of the NAGT.