CHANGES IN THE GEOLOGIC CURRICULA LANDSCAPE: IS YOUR UNIVERSITY PROGRAM A LICENSURE QUALIFYING PROGRAM?

The landscape of traditional geology programs has been changing over the past decade. Due to declining enrollment and other financial pressures, geology programs have begun to change their course offerings and descriptions to attract more students to the program. Many programs are combining traditional geology courses into less traditional course names that appeal to new generations of students, thereby increasing enrollment and allowing the department to survive. For example, Earth Materials is a common “new” course in many geology programs. Earth Materials is a combination of Mineralogy, Petrology, and Economic Geology. This traditional combination of courses is commonly 12-hour of lecture and lab. The new course combines these disciplines into a single 4-hour course. To cover the required content of the three courses in a single course, degreed majors are graduating their undergraduate program with less content than a traditional geology program.

This course compression is designed to allow geology majors more flexibility and provides a mechanism for additional elective hours. However, the lack of traditional geology courses is causing a disconnect between State licensing boards and degreed students applying for licensure. Most state geology licensing boards require a degree in geology, engineering geology or geological engineering. This is in direct conflict with the newly named degree programs with compressed course content. Many undergraduate degrees are not commonly named per state statutes. For example, degree programs include Environmental Geology, Environmental Science, Geosciences, Hydrogeology etc. These new programs names have triggered geology state licensing boards to evaluate students’ transcripts for traditional geology courses.

An evaluation of more than 60 undergraduate programs in geology reveals seven common geology core courses. These include physical and historical geology, mineralogy, structural geology, igneous and metamorphic petrology, stratigraphy and sedimentation, and field geology. These seven core courses are very closely aligned with Geosciences Canada’s knowledge requirements for geosciences education. Students in degree programs should be sure that they take core geology courses so that they are eligible for professional licensure in the US and Canada.