A SOON TO BE FULLY RETIRED PROFESSOR THINKS HE HAS SOME ANSWERS TO WHY THE DECLINE IN U.S. UNDERGRADUATE GEOSCIENCES ENROLLMENTS

In my opinion, the recent decrease in U.S. undergraduate geoscience enrollment is a function of several factors conspiring against the geosciences. A recent conversation with a faculty colleague at my former institution who is soon to retire began with a remark that they had taught an undergraduate core geoscience class for 26 years; I replied that I taught a core class for 44 years. Our conversation then centered on what changed with undergraduate geoscience students over decades. Much has changed regarding the character of undergraduate students and their experiences; some changes may just be key contributors to the decline in numbers. My musings, not necessarily in order of importance, involve jobs, human sustainability, and higher education in general. There may be a perception that jobs in the geosciences are in decline with the “assumed” impending demise of the oil and gas (and mineral extraction) industries as, globally, we try rapidly to transition to non-carbon based energy. Perhaps students do not in any way want to be associated with anthropogenic actions dramatically altering our home. Maybe it is because they know that we have discovered sufficient quantities of carbon-based resources to elevate CO2 to well beyond 600 ppm by 2100, and that there is thus no need to explore for more, and thus no jobs in the geosciences. Another contributor is higher education. Many geoscience departments have lost faculty over recent past, triggered in part by the economic crisis of 2008 but also, simply, by the need for administrators to find ways to cut costs (more part-time instructors). Exacerbating this is the aging of the geoscience faculty across the country. How stimulated can undergraduates be when they walk into a classroom with a 68+ year old faculty who is way past intellectual curiosity prime and just burned out? I doubt that this is a positive message to bright, inquisitive minds. Retirement for many such individuals is not imminent (!!) and some reasons for this are very selfish. Just how do we attempt to educate those who, in my opinion, represent the last great hope to solve our global crisis, before it is definitely too late? All of this said, I firmly believe that it will be the near-future geoscientists, in the so many forms that geoscientists take today, who will solve our challenges, and undergraduates of today much hear this!