History of the Geological
Sciences in the University at
Albany
"Progress, far from consisting in
change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the
past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana (in The Life of Reason (1905-1906) Vol. I, Reason
in Common Sense)
The Geological Sciences at Albany consisted of one staff member
(Peter Benedict) in the years prior to the promotion of the
institution in the early 1960's from a teachers college to one of
the four University Centers of the State University of New York. In
the years after the creation of the Department of Earth and
Atmospheric Sciences in 1962, several faculty were gradually added
in the Geological Sciences (Jack Bird, Win Means, George Putman, and
Paul Williams). In 1968, these faculty became the founders of the
separate Department of Geological Sciences, soon to be joined by
John Dewey, Akiho Miyashiro and Jeff Fox and the establishment of
the PhD program. Jack Bird left for Cornell in 1972, and Paul
Williams for UNB in 1973; Kevin Burke, Steve Delong, and Bill Kidd
arrived in 1973-4. With the pioneering publications of Dewey, Bird,
and Burke on the geological consequences of plate tectonics, and the
wide visibility of the Structural Geology text of Hobbs, Means and
Williams, the Department, while small relative to most others,
rapidly achieved international visibility and distinction.
1983 - Ranked by the National Academy of Sciences in the
top 25 PhD-granting graduate programs in Geological Sciences
- External review of the graduate and
undergraduate programs in Geological Sciences [pdf scan
documents]
Dewey departed for Durham (UK) in 1981, Fox for Rhode Island in
1982, and in 1983 Burke left for the directorship of the LPI in
Houston, and Peter Benedict retired. Mark Harrison arrived in 1982,
John Delano in 1983, and Greg Harper in 1984, so while the
Department had a net loss of one faculty position, it rapidly
developed strength in geochemistry and maintained a strong presence
in the structural and tectonic fields.
1985 - The Department brochure
for graduate programs (9MB pdf)
Harrison left for UCLA in 1989, and shortly after that the
Department was the victim of a devastation in the failure to replace
departing (Harrison), redeployed (Delong), or retiring (Miyashiro,
Putman) faculty. This failure to replace 50% of the total Department
faculty, some of international distinction, was ultimately a
consequence of substantial state-imposed budget cuts, but
nonetheless was a deliberate choice of the President and Academic VP
of that time. No responses were received to requests for external
program review, that being past due after 1990. A plan to recover
vitality with three new hires in Environmental Geochemistry, and to
maintain strength in Structure/Tectonics, was approved by those
administrators in 1993-4, and lead to the arrival of Brad Linsley in
1995. A forced merger with the Atmospheric Science Department in
1996 resurrected the Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences,
but further progress under the previously approved plan for renewal
of the Geological Sciences did not happen. Means retired in 1998,
leaving four permanent faculty to try to continue to run a PhD-level
program. John Arnason's transfer to a tenure-track position in 2004
appeared a welcome improvement, but on Harper's resignation in
December 2004, and the refusal of the administration to authorise a
replacement in structure/tectonics, the Department then requested
that the BS in Geology be closed to future enrollment. The last
undergraduate students majoring in Geological Sciences at Albany
graduated in 2009. A few courses containing some geological science
occurred in the confines of a track of the Environmental Sciences BS
degree until Bill Kidd retired (end of 2010), and Brad Linsley
resigned (May 2011), and John Delano retired (2012).
On January 22nd 2007, the faculty of the Department of Earth and
Atmospheric Sciences voted 10-1 to recommend immediate suspension of
admission to the Geology graduate program. On 7 December 2007 the Interim President
signed Senate
Bill 0708-09 [as
preserved by the Internet Archive] formalising the
suspension of admission to the Geology graduate program.
The last students graduated from this program in 2009.
Memorandum from SUNY Office
of the Provost 5 May 2008
Honours and
awards to former members of the Geological Sciences at Albany
Former and emeritus faculty and staff
listing for Geological Sciences
Photos of Department of Geological
Sciences groups
Seminars presented by visiting speakers - a continuous series from 1975, started
by Kevin Burke
- 1975-1994 at Albany - 1995-2008 joint series with RPI Earth
Sciences
PhD
dissertation and MSc thesis listings
PhD degree recipients graduated from the
Albany Geological Sciences Program and dissertation titles
MSc degree recipients graduated from the
Albany Geological Sciences Program and thesis titles
both lists contain links for each recipient to a page containing the
dissertation/thesis abstract, and links to scans of all map-type
illustrations,
and to the full thesis text and illustrations for the MSc listings;
a link to a file of scanned photos is provided in the PhD pages.
PhD dissertation listing ordered by
supervising faculty member
MSc thesis listing ordered by supervising
faculty member
Geological Sciences
Department and Program courses and teaching
listings as tabloid page size pdf files:
undergraduate and graduate
courses offered 1975 - 2011
Faculty course teaching
assignments listed by semester 1975 - 2011; summer session 1975 - 2008
all data in .ods spreadsheet
file
Return to Geological Sciences index page