Earth Science Articulation Meeting – May 13 th 2008

Malaspina University-College

Minutes

Present:

The meeting was called to order at 9:15 AM

Dr. Ralph Nilson, President of Malaspina University-College welcomed the delegates.

MOTION : Adopt the agenda: (Tark/Steve) – carried

MOTION: Approve minutes from 2007 meeting: (Mary Lou/Mark) – carried

Matters arising from the minutes:

Robbie has updated and posted the transfer grid

There was a request to submit departmental grading schemes (some have)

Robbie has added a section to the website for course outlines and job postings

Chair's report: In February Robbie was asked to let her name stand for nomination to the BC Council on Admissions and Transfer as a university representative. She put in the necessary convoluted government documents and hasn't heard back since. Robbie reported that she is on sabbatical as of December 2008. She invited anyone who would like to take over the chair duties during that time to talk to her later.

Institutional reports: Most of the reports are posted on the website. The following notes were taken by Robbie during the oral reporting part:

UVic (Stan Dosso) A total of 90 students were enrolled in EOS undergraduate degree programs in 2007/08, representing a significant increase over an enrollment of about 70 over the past three years. There have been no new faculty hires although there have been some spousal positions filled. Increasing overall student enrollment. SEOS has been identified as having one of the lowest student/faculty ratios at UVic, which puts us under increased pressure.

UBC-Vancouver (Mary Lou Bevier) New courses: EOSC 270 Marine Biodiversity (3 cr.); EOSC 355 The Planets (3 cr.); EOSC 356 The Planets - Laboratory (1 cr.). The Planets course is a 3 rd year course that requires Math as a prerequisite. The department would like to identify additional Sessional Lecturers who are interested in teaching one or more summer courses an on-going basis. Dileep Athaide may teach for one more summer.

UBC-Okanagan (John Greenough) There should also be an advertisement for the LAM ICP MS technician position coming out soon.

Action Item: Robbie will make a link to this on the Job Postings section of the Articulation webpage.

Robert Young and I are organizing the Western GSA Meeting to be held at UBC Okanagan in the Spring/Summer of 2009. We added Environmental Sciences (EESc 101) to the calendar this year. It will be first offered this (2008) fall with no lab component in an effort to up enrolments. We seem to have somewhere around 10 to 15 students in each of year 3 and year 4. Everyone is getting summer jobs and making big money.

Selkirk College (Frank Fowler) The Geology enrolments are stable, but geography enrolments are in a 2 fluctuating cycle.

Douglas College (Dave Waddington) I looked at enrolments over a six year period and found that the biggest drop was in 2005. It appears that there is an erosion of about 20 students per year. We are having great difficulty in hiring a technician. We have been advertising for 3 months and have only had one application from Montreal. We don't want to fly one person in for an interview. We would hope to get someone with a Master's degree but would settle for a person with a Bachelor's degree as long as they knew something about rocks. It is not designed to be a part time position.

Trinity Western University (Terry Neufeldt) There have been no course changes. There were 8 students in Physical Geology in the fall. It should have been cancelled but the Dean failed to notice the low enrolment until it was too late. He felt bad cancelling the class when the students had already bought the textbook. There were 24 students in the 2 nd year regional geology course.

Camosun College (Tark Hamilton) Enrolments are stable and growing. There are 18 students who are transfer students that are doing fieldwork and researching. I'm going to offer a mineralogy course for them this fall. I need to articulate the mineralogy course with UVic and UBC. I've been forced to adopt UVic's grading scheme. I find the elementary school teacher student crowd to be not very smart. Issues include a $2.6 million budget shortfall. I need used petrographic microscopes (John G suggested contacting U of Calgary or U of Alberta). I also need advice on what new second year course to develop to be most useful to students (general oceanography, structure, geophysics, groundwater, paleontology). (John G suggested looking at the APEGBC website for what courses are required in second year).

Capilano College (Jenny Getsinger) I am sending students on to Douglas College because their facilities are much better. Although Historical Geology has been cancelled I may put a fossil and geological time component into Physical Geology. The GSC is having a barbeque on Tuesday May 27 th at noon for anyone who has worked for them.

Action Item: Steve to put barbeque RSVP information in the minutes.

Question: Should geology join with geography at Capilano to survive or should it disappear?

Okanagan College (Terence Day) The Department of Earth and Environmental Science and the Department of Geography were both decimated by the transition from Okanagan University College to Okanagan College in 2005. We joined Arts and Social Sciences because there was more money there. There will be sessional positions available at the Penticton campus in Earth and Environmental Science and Physical Geology.

Action Item: Robbie will make a link to this on the Job Postings section of the Articulation webpage.

Kwantlen Polytechnical University (John Martin) There were only 10 students in Historical Geology, which has a field trip. It was great taking only 10 students. There has been a name change, but no money to go with it. Students have left some courses during the term because of a good job market.

Thompson Rivers University (Ed Frey) There are no major changes. Courses have a full complement with 35 in Physical and 15 in Historical. We are in the recruitment and retention game. There is supplemental learning where peers in 3 rd and 4 th year are paid $16/hour to do pre-exam tutoring.

Langara College (Mark Smith) There are no course changes. The Natural Hazards course is oversubscribed. Enrolments are good. Usually there are 2 sections of geology offered in the fall and one in January, but this January we offered 2 sections. We have started a “risk management” manual for outdoor activities. The Advanced Education branch of the government has PDF versions of a manual. Carleton University also has a good one.

Action Item: Mark will send the government link to Robbie who will put it on the webpage.

Action Item: Robbie will put Mark on the Agenda for next year's meeting to discuss Langara's risk management manual.

Northwest Community College (Ken Shaw) Gordon Weary developed the Associate of Science degree in Environmental Geosciences Specialization (handout) and we hope to offer Geology 157 (Introduction to Northwest Geology) in the spring. A sessional may be needed.

Action Item: Robbie will make a link to this on the Job Postings section of the Articulation webpage.

College of the Rockies (Gary Clohan) We recently hosted the Geography Articulation meeting and they enjoyed a 2 day field trip. Bruce Dawson at Teck Cominco did a great tour of the reclamation projects at Sullivan Mine in Kimberly. We visited a pulp mill and the Elkview coal mine as well. We dropped a physical geography course. There is an issue with the UVic teachers program allowing student teachers to do a 1 year fast track to UVic. There are changing requirements for the elementary school teachers. The College wanted me to develop an online geology course in which Remote Web Based Science Lab technology was used. I would like to talk to those who are involved in online course delivery.

Malaspina (Tim Stokes/Steve Earle) We are continuing with the Earth Sciences minor despite a 33% cut in faculty (to 2.5 people). Physical geology had 28 students and Historical had 16 students. There are less than 10 students in the 2 nd and 3 rd year courses. We are at the bottom of the cycle right now but are going up. We have split lecture and lab components. Students have the choice of either taking the lab component or not. We are teaching lab and non-lab students in the same class. The course is worth 4 credits (3 lecture, 1 lab). The lab is a prerequisite to 2 nd year courses (Mary Lou Bevier and Brett Gilley - not so at UBC).

Question: Where the lab is separate, are they marked separately (like 40% lab and 60% lecture)? If a student fails 1 part, can they pass the whole course?

Mark Smith – At Langara, if they don't pass the lab, they don't pass the course.

Dave Waddington – we've noticed that if students fail the lab, they usually fail the whole thing.

John Greenough –Labs are more work and cost more, therefore should be worth 4 credits and lectures should be 3 credits to get government money.

Tark Hamilton – At Camosun, labs are required and in Science course syllabi it states that you have to pass the lab component to pass the course. The % given for labs differs for each science course. I typically have very long labs with lots of work.

Steve (report continued) I will be offering a Climate Change interdisciplinary course and bringing in other science instructors to help teach it. This course is for 3 rd year or higher science students. APEGBC has approved the Environmental Geoscience stream minus Quaternary and Geophysics which are not taught here.

TRU-Open Learning Division (Steven Earle) In TRU's Open Learning online geology courses there are 116 students in 2 courses. Many are future teachers and Business Administration students. A rock kit is sent to them, they do field work and send samples to me. They also still have a video component. Students can start anytime of the year and are in BC and other parts of Canada.

SFU (Robbie Dunlop) There's not much to report other than what's on the webpage. There are a lot of things happening at SFU, coming from the president's office down (like whether we join the new “Faculty of the Environment” or not, course scheduling, etc.), but they are all in the works and we don't know what's going to happen. I'll be sending out emails about the transfer grid issue and the updating of the Geology/Geography report.

BCCAT (Jennifer Orum)

U. of Phoenix has joined as a receiving institution.

An Educational Planner resource for students has been created on the BCCAT website. Please go and check that it is accurate.

BCCAT is changing to a multi-lateral system. “Sending” institutions will have the option to become receiving institutions as well. The system is getting so large that it is becoming unwieldy.

New Business: there was no new business

Next Year's Meeting: Next year's meeting will be held in May (date to be determined) as a collaboration between UVic and Camosun.

Adjournment: 12:05 PM