CULTURE CHANGE IN DEPARTMENTS FOR THE FUTURE OF GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION

Geoscience departments are facing major culture changes that must be made to meet the challenges of education in the future. Research and education are increasingly interdisciplinary requiring different skill sets. It is no longer how much information students know, but knowing how to use it. The careers of today will not be those of the next decade. Thus, departments need to prepare students for a significantly different future than today.

Undergraduate education should allow a diversity of students to broaden their horizons while exploring multiple future career options. The types of employment for geoscientists are expanding and changing. Graduate students are commonly opting for non-academic careers. All students need transferable skills, ones that translate to many different fields, and geoscience specific skills so that they have the option of becoming professional geoscientists. We live in a world where most information can be looked up; thus knowing where to find it and how to verify its accuracy is critical. Having the ability to continue to learn and apply new concepts and skills to different situations will be necessary for future success.

The Vision and Change document for the Future of Undergraduate (and Graduate) Geoscience Education is designed to be used as a departmental road map, providing the academic and employer consensus view of skills and concepts needed by students, best practices in developing these, and case studies of how to implement change.

A cultural change from the administration down to the student level will be needed to overcome roadblocks to implementation of the community’s collective vision. The department of the future will need to help students see how courses build on one another, what skills and concepts are gained in each class and increase experiential and skill building activities. The student of the future will need to be proactive in building and documenting (using e-portfolios) a set of skills and knowledge that will allow them to meet their future career goals. Use of professional development plans for upperclassmen and graduate students will become more important in mapping out what they need for a desired career. Higher education administrations of the future will need to recognize the importance of these efforts and reward faculty and departments for making major cultural changes.