Dear Alumni:
Welcome to this year’s edition of
the Upper Crust. Your responses to our newsletter continue to be overwhelming
and much of the copy for this issue has been supplied by you. Keep those
cards, letters, photos, and e-mails coming!
We’ve had a wonderful year, particularly in our graduate program.
I am pleased to report that in the latest rankings of graduate programs
published by U.S. News and World Report, our program in paleontology was
ranked seventh in the nation! And it can fairly be said that our Quaternary
Geology Program is now the equal of our paleontology/stratigraphy program,
in terms of the number and quality of our students. Lewis Owen, who is
completing his second year on the faculty since joining us from U. California
Riverside, has become fully integrated into our program and is working
with Tom Lowell, Dave Nash, and Craig Dietsch to build a highly synergistic
program with broad emphases on glacial geology, paleoclimatology, geomorphology,
and neotectonics. Renovations to his lab space have been completed, and
the new facilities that these labs provide for age dating are being used
actively by several students, as well as by Lewis and his collaborators.
Our graduate students continue to do us proud with their acquisition of
external funding (at least ten external grants just this Spring with several
applications still outstanding), their regular presentations at national
and international meetings, their continued publication of research results
in high-profile outlets, and their success in acquiring jobs when they
graduate. With respect to the latter, it is noteworthy that three of Carl
Brett’s soon-to-be completed Ph.D. students, Pat McLaughlin, Alex
Bartholomew, and Sean Cornell have landed academic positions at Bucknell,
New Paltz, and Shippensburg, respectively.
I am also happy to report that we will be hosting the 2009 North American
Paleontological Convention (NAPC) on campus during late June of that year.
NAPC is a quadrennial event that will likely be attended by some 700 paleontologists
from around the world. More about this in next year’s Upper Crust.
An ongoing concern for our Department is our relatively small pool of
undergraduate majors. We have come to appreciate that, for the number
of geology majors to grow significantly, we need to work proactively to
get more prospective majors in the door at very early stages of their
academic years (our many 100-level courses are well received and heavily
subscribed, but are taken mostly by upperclassmen) . To this end, we laid
the groundwork this year for a full-year freshman seminar sequence that
will offered for the first time starting this year, and will be geared
to students with an interest in the out-of-doors and a natural curiosity
for earth history. Importantly, we will be working proactively to recruit
students for these courses, starting with a mass mailing to all incoming
College freshmen later this spring, and continuing with recruitment efforts
at Freshman Orientation sessions this summer. We are confident that we
will be able to fill these courses, and we are hopeful that a large percentage
of the students who take these courses willbecome geology majors.The end
of this academic year marks a significant milestone in the Department:
the retirement of Sandi Cannell, who has ably supervised the front office
(and then some!) for 16 years. While Sandi had a knack for keeping the
complex business of the Department on track, we are especially grateful
for her selflessness and extraordinary contributions far beyond her formal
job description. Sandi has helped to ensure the well-being of our faculty,
staff, and students in so many different ways over the years, and she
will be deeply missed.
As most of you already know, 2007 will mark the centennial year of the
Department. We are planning to commemorate this milestone with a variety
of activities, highlighted by a grand celebration that will take place
April 25-April 28 (Wednesday through Saturday). Details of our planned
festivities, which are still being firmed up, are provided elsewhere in
the newsletter. As these plans are finalized, we will be communicating
with you regularly during the coming months in the hope that many of you
will want to come to Cincinnati to join in the festivities, and to see
firsthand the extraordinary changes in the Department and in the University
over the past several years.
Thanks once again to Warren Huff for his extraordinary efforts to maintain
contacts with all of you, for his role in organizing the centennial celebration,
and for working with Tim Phillips to produce The Upper Crust.
I am looking forward to seeing many of you at our celebration next April!
Warm regards,
Arnie Miller
Professor and Head
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Newsletter
Contents
• Faculty & Staff News
• Alumni/ae Reports
• Geology/Geography
• Geology - Geography Dept.
• Centennial Celebration
• Himalayan Field Trip
• Colloquim Lecture Series
• Spring Awards Banquet
• Student Presentations & Awards
• Student These Defended
• New Freshmen Seminar
• The Global Laboratory
• GSA Alumni Reception
• Rieveshal Geo Lecture
Departmental Fieldtrips
•Himalayan
Field Trip. September 2007, led by Lewis Owen and Craig Dietsch.
Contact: Lewis.Owen@uc.edu or
Craig. dietsch@uc.edu
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