These are exciting times for the College of Geosciences. Fascinating research is being done by our students, faculty and research scientists spanning the globe, from Belize to India, from Normandy to New Zealand, and in Antarctica. And the research by Dr. Mark Lemmon, Associate Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, focuses on Mars. Other studies are conducted closer to home. For example, a collaborative ATMO student project was carried out during spring semester 2006, taking advantage of the opportunity presented by Hurricane Rita to study the response by the public to weather forecasts. Also, two GEOG undergraduate students and two faculty members spent time this past summer in the lower Rio Grande Valley, studying land use change, water resources, and the environmental history.

By educating students in the Atmospheric Sciences, Geography, Geology & Geophysics, and Oceanography, the College is producing scientists, teachers, policymakers, and business and industry leaders who will shape our future. By continuing the scientific exploration of our globe together with the human dimension, we are developing a new understanding of the dynamics that have shaped our planet and will determine its future. The three College institutes – the Geochemical and Environmental Research Group, Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, and Texas Sea Grant – are essential elements of this exploration. Discovery truly begins here.

Very exciting, as a consequence of two faculty hiring programs − the Reinvestment program, initiated by former President Gates, and the IODP-related Ocean Drilling and Sustainable Earth Sciences (ODASES) program − the College has hired 30 new tenure-track faculty members and grown by 37% during the past few years. The College of Geosciences now has 108 tenured or tenure-track faculty positions, the largest number in the history of the College. This investment in faculty is significant, as the most precious resource of any university is the quality, capacity, and diversity of its faculty.

University-wide, the Reinvestment program has dramatically improved the student/faculty ratio, from 22:1 in 2002 to 19.7:1 in 2006, helping boost the ranking of Texas A&M University among the nation’s very best public universities. In the College of Geosciences the faculty/student ratio has always been excellent and far better than the university average. It is my expectation that the recent hiring of new faculty will soon lead to significantly increased research impact and new scholarship.

While the numbers are impressive, quality is what really counts. The excellence of the College of Geosciences can be exemplified by the numerous honors bestowed upon its faculty members. Although we hate to have lost our Executive Associate Dean, we were honored by the appointment of Dr. Luis Cifuentes to Interim Vice Provost of Texas A&M University on 1 July. We are now looking forward to great leadership from Dr. Ethan Grossman, Professor of Geology & Geophysics, who has replaced Dr. Cifuentes as Acting Executive Associate Dean and Associate Dean for Research.

As of this fall, we have new department heads in three of the four academic departments: Dr. Andreas Kronenberg in Geology & Geophysics; Dr Piers Chapman in Oceanography; and Dr. Kenneth Bowman in Atmospheric Sciences. With our talented faculty and staff and new inspired leadership, the College of Geosciences is well poised to continue to contribute to growth in excellence at Texas A&M University.

There have been many physical changes around the College of Geosciences during the past year. The facade of the O&M building received a facelift by being cleaned and sealed, and the addition of many new faculty members has forced renovations of offices and labs on several floors. Extensive work has been done in the Halbouty Building to deal with structural building issues, and the first phase of the construction of a new radiogenic isotope facility on the third floor is under way. The College was allocated 4,000 square feet of new space in the Teague complex, which now houses Geography student computer labs and offices.

The College is proud to be a partner in having brought a new super-computer to TAMU – “Hydra,” an IBM 5-575+ cluster 640-node 4 tera-flop system. Under a Southeastern Universities Research Association-IBM arrangement, the supercomputer was purchased in a partnership between the CIS/Supercomputing Facility, the Office of the Vice President for Research, the Department of Computer Science, and the College of Geosciences. This acquisition represents a 12-fold increase in the facility's computational capacity.

Increasing student enrollment is a top priority for the College. We started this fall semester 2007 with 266 graduate students earning degrees from the four departments in the College of Geosciences. It is essential that we stay competitive in recruiting more highly qualified grad students. Thanks to additional funding from the university, we were able to enhance financial incentives this fall by increasing teaching assistant stipends to help attract the best graduate students. At the undergraduate level, we are excited to see enrollment increasing to 489, primarily due to a rise in the number of freshmen in the Department of Geology & Geophysics.

For Texas A&M University to achieve top 10 status nationally, and as we move towards accomplishing the strategic goals of the College, we need to focus on excellence in both research and teaching, in the classroom and in mentoring our students. We want to ensure that our undergraduate and graduate students have a relevant first-rate learning experience. At the same time we must aggressively pursue research funding and scholarship to do our part in ensuring Texas A&M University’s greatness as one of the best Very Research Intensive Universities in the Nation.

Björn Kjerfve
Dean

Dean Björn Kjerfve