APPROACHES OF A LAND-GRANT UNIVERSITY IN SERVING THE NEEDS OF STUDENTS AND INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS

What do students and industry professionals need from academia most? To receive and utilize feedback on what is needed for their careers. In the face of changing energy-water systems and resources that are becoming scarcer and more difficult to extract, academic programs need to be dynamically responsive to industry and societal needs. The Earth and Spatial Sciences Department at the University of Idaho has created five new programs in the last three years in response to requests and feedback from students and industry professionals. These programs include BS degrees in Climate Change and Solutions, Sustainable Mining and Earth Resource Management, Energy Resiliency, Engineering Geology, and an online MS in Geographic Information Systems with seven options to choose from such as Remote Sensing, Natural Hazards and Emergency Planning, Geotechnical Skills, and Geospatial Intelligence. Each of our BS geology degrees meet the requirements for ASBOG Fundamentals of Geology licensing exam and we provide a Geology Licensing and Workforce Preparation course for our undergraduates as well. In serving as a mentor at GSA for over ten years, frequently asked questions from students have been incorporated into this preparation course. Further, our classes are focused on assessing real-world scenarios using leading industry software such as Schlumberger’s Petrel E & P Platform for hydrocarbon studies, Seequent Leapfrog Geo for mining exploration, ESRI ArcGIS and QGIS for geographic information science and spatial imaging. Here I provide 1) examples of applicable class projects using these programs to prepare students for jobs outside of academia, 2) how key learnings from industry professionals have been incorporated into our programs, and 3) other ways we further prepare our students for the workforce.