As a current undergraduate student, OPS research assistant and future applicant to graduate school at the University of Florida's Department of Geological Sciences, I urge Dean Paul D'Anieri, Provost Joe Glover, the Board of Trustees and President Bernie Machen to reconsider the taking a cleaver to the geological sciences department.
It is obvious that I am biased, but even when I try to put my bias aside, I cannot fathom how one of the largest universities in the country can maintain its prestige without a Department of Geological Sciences.
The proposed "worst case scenario" budget cuts to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences would, among other things, cut the departments of geological sciences and religion by about 50 percent.
It seems (and has been suggested by various faculty members who will remain unnamed) that this would be to slowly phase out the departments.
What needs to be done is to carefully remove certain positions at every department college-wide, rather than focusing the blunt force of the red pen on a few departments.
I cannot speak for the Department of Religion, but the Department of Geological Sciences is performing cutting-edge research that is important to the state and the nation.
In the past few years, the Department of Geological Sciences has brought in approximately $7 million from external sources to fund some of this research.
These research topics range from groundwater flow to possible carbon sinks, reconstructing supercontinent breakup and ocean sediment isotopes, among many other research topics.
Such components would not only add to the prestige of the very well-known department but also help better our understanding of current world problems, such as global climate change, environmental issues and energy solutions.
The faculty of the Department of Geological Sciences is comprised of many very well-known scientists who are molding us budding scientists to follow in their footsteps.
These faculty members are comprised of tenured as well as nontenured faculty who are all important for the department to function.
Cutting nontenure-track and tenure-track faculty members would greatly diminish the amount of research our department could perform, slash the number of students (undergraduate and graduate alike) that the department could take in, greatly diminish the quality of education of any remaining students and almost surely lead to the phasing out of the department.
Especially with the current growing concern over our environment, the energy crisis and quickly diminishing potable water supply, not having a thriving geological sciences department would be absurd.
The Department of Geological Sciences is crucial to the success of The Gator Nation, and the proposed budget cuts would handicap our program to the point of no recovery.
