CAMRY DEAN
Staff Writer
Starting this semester, it was announced that the former Department of Geosciences and the Environmental Studies Program would be merging together to form the new Department of Geology and Environmental Sciences.
Dr. Sherri A. Mason, a professor of chemistry and the new chair for the department, explained what she hopes the new merger will do for the program.
“I took over the Environmental Sciences Program, which is an interdisciplinary program in 2006, and from that moment, I’ve been kind of trying to work to grow the program,” she said. “One of those issues is the fact that it’s a program, not a major, plus it’s interdisciplinary so it doesn’t really have a home.
“It’s always been a matter of trying to find [the program] a place, or a proper location,” she said.
Although the two departments are merging, there isn’t a new major just yet.
In a year or two, Mason explained, she plans on proposing a new major in environmental geology to mirror the way geology is moving away from fossil fuels.
“Geology originally focused on fossil fuel production,” she said. “I’m not sure if the word is out, but fossil fuels are going away. So there’s a change in that whole energy sector, and geologists are being used more and more for environmental geology, as opposed to the fossil fuel generation.”
“It’s a natural progression where, now, it especially makes sense that we would merge because of how those fields are merging together anyways,” she said.
Now that the interdisciplinary program has found itself a home, Mason hopes to start focusing on getting the new department heard by prospective and current students.
Mason described a run-in she had with a high school student who was interested in attending college for environmental studies, but her parents wouldn’t allow it.
“Oddly enough, her parents wouldn’t let her major in what she wanted to major in,” she said. “She wanted to major in environmental science, but her parents said, ‘No, you have to major in something that has possibility of employment.’”
Mason worries that this happens more than often with incoming students when STEM fields are expecting an increase in new jobs.
The new job market for geology and environmental sciences will experience a 50 percent faster growth rate than any other occupation by 2020, and Mason stresses that there are opportunities for those willing to seek them.
“STEM fields are not graduating,” she said. “Nationwide, we are not graduating enough people. If you want a job, this is where you should be looking.
“We really have to work more on advertising our department. Whatever we can do, we need to make ourselves more apparent that we’re here and that we have statistics like that.”
Although the new department’s web presence is currently undergoing the migration as well, students who are interested in the new program are encouraged to check out some of the scholarships that are available through Fredonia.
“We have such a need for people, and we need to be selling that more and doing more to get that information out there,” she said.