The Geological Sciences Program remains in limbo after a task force set up to determine its steps forward last academic year came to “no single decision,” according to the program’s director.
Catherine Forster, a professor emerita of biology and the program’s director, said the task force concluded its work at the end of 2023 and came to no conclusion about the future of the program. Faculty said those involved in the program are continuing to act as if it will exist “in perpetuity,” but uncertainty still looms over Columbian College of Arts & Sciences’ ultimate decision on the program’s outcome — including whether to hire a new faculty member or possibly dissolve the program — and when the verdict will be made.
Forster said she wrote up the task force’s report and submitted it to Kim Gross, the CCAS vice dean for programs and operations, but officials have not decided on any action regarding the program. She said the last time she had communication with CCAS officials was a couple of months ago about a separate issue.
“We have no idea on the future of the program,” Forster said.
Gross declined to say if the task force was dissolved, what actions CCAS was taking as a result of the task force, what factors the college was evaluating when determining the program’s future and if they plan on hiring an additional faculty member for the program.
She said last fall that officials charged the task force with determining how programs fit into the CCAS curriculum and the program’s future. The task force recommended a variety of options on the “best path forward,” which CCAS was evaluating, she said at the time.
The University eliminated the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences in 2004, moving the environmental studies program into the geography department and downgrading geology to a program within the biological sciences department. The move had come after CCAS had cut the program’s budget and moved faculty to other departments, which then-CCAS Dean William Frawley said were done to “better position” the sciences at GW.
Forster, who is in her second year continuing to manage the program after her retirement as the program’s only tenured professor in August 2023, said the program is at its “breaking point” and needs another tenure-track faculty member despite CCAS officials denying her repeated requests since spring 2022.
She said she is going to retire as program director in a “year or two,” which she said increases the program’s need for at least a full-time administrator to keep the program afloat.
Forster said in 2023 that the University had denied her request to hire a tenure-track faculty member to replace Richard Tollo, the program’s other full-time faculty member who retired in 2022 but approved her request to hire a “special service faculty” member.
She said the program last academic year hired James Kerr, an assistant professor of geology, as a full-time faculty member. He is in his second year of a three-year contract.
Forster said her “worry” is that CCAS’s decision about the future of the program will be solely based on finances. She said the program does a “huge service” to the University by teaching many general education requirement courses and the most credit hours for the least amount of money of all CCAS academic programs.
The program currently offers three GPAC courses, according to the GPAC course list. She said the program teaches 850 students for GPAC requirements every semester.
“I would certainly hope that any decision they make is not just financial, that it’s also the importance of diversity of STEM courses, and I hope that that plays into this ultimate decision they make as well,” Forster said.
She said if the program is cut, it would be more cost-effective to hire another faculty member to keep the program alive than to provide more resources to other STEM departments to teach GPAC courses to students who would have taken geology GPAC courses. Forster said the program is finding ways to attract students from other departments, like environmental science and anthropology, including a dean’s seminar course taught by the program’s other full-time faculty member James Kerr and potential “one-off” courses taught by adjuncts.
The Geological Sciences Program has five active majors in 2024, according to the enrollment dashboard.
“I just wonder if it’s more economical to keep geology because we don’t cost a lot of money,” Forster said. “We’ve got everything we need. We don’t have consumables. Our rocks exist from lab to lab, so there’s not that, we’re fully equipped.”
Kerr said he hopes to have a conversation with officials about renewing his three-year contract once it expires at the end of next academic year. He has not been approached by officials about becoming the program’s director, he said. Kerr said he proposed a dean’s seminar course for next fall that will revolve around earth science in cinema.
“This job has given me the opportunity to teach some of the courses that I had been hoping for my whole career to teach,” Kerr said. “This semester, I’m teaching paleontology, that’s one that I’d had my eye on for a long time.”
Richard Tollo, an emeritus professor of geology, said when he retired in spring 2022 due to a medical condition, officials set up a committee to find a faculty member to replace his position. Several people expressed interest in the position, but they all declined the role due to the heavy course load and administrative work he was doing, he said.
He said after nobody took the position, Forster had to replace his “enormous” amount of coursework with adjunct faculty members. Tollo taught three classes in each semester of his last academic year in 2021-2022, according to GWeb.
Tollo said that during his time at GW since 1983, there had been several committees developed to alter parts of the program, including when the program was absorbed into the biological sciences department. He said those discussions at the time were “worrying,” but he trusted the decision due to the faculty and officials involved in the process.
“The University acted with prudence and good people were involved on the committees,” Tollo said. “The discussions were open and forthright.”
Walter Guidroz, an adjunct geology professor, said students across the University would be harmed if officials make cuts to the program as most of his students in his Geology of Energy Resources class are from outside the geology program.
“There are similar courses across the University, but I’m not sure that they would get those types of courses with the perspective that the faculty can bring of just having deep backgrounds in geology and having worked in geology for decades, I think that might be difficult to obtain,” Guidroz said.
Senior Rita Skvortsova, a geology minor student and a teaching assistant in the program, said she’s heard about the program’s issues mostly from fellow students as faculty only discuss the issues when they “slip up” and mention it accidentally.
She said there are feelings of anger and frustration from students toward CCAS about its approach to the future of the program.
“We’re on this edge of a cliff where, if CCAS decides to actually expedite their decisions in any way sort of fashion, we are just going to be pushed over, and if they don’t, we’re just going to be standing at that cliff for quite some time,” Skvortsova said.
