Annual Survey

Environment Dominates Geo-Schools

Graphics courtesy of Barry Katz.

Download Complete Report: 2003 Report on the Status of Academic Geoscience Departments (PDF 50kb)

A strong emphasis in environmental geology and a "significant increase" in the number of international graduate geoscience students at North American institutions are revealed in the latest AAPG Status of Academic Geoscience Departments report.

The newest survey -- the tenth conducted by the AAPG Research Committee, all under the leadership of Barry Katz -- was limited to departments in the United States and Canada, and included departments without graduate programs.

As in past years, the survey was intended to help define academic trends for geoscience departments. Katz said that the emphasis on environmental geology at the university level is evident in two key areas, according to respondents:

• It was number one in the "department's academic strength" category, replacing last year's winner, stratigraphy.
• More students -- by far -- are finding jobs in environmental geology than in any other sector. Environmental jobs accounted for more than 55 percent of those responding.

Conversely, the petroleum sector job market showed a "significant decrease," Katz said, coming in at about 13 percent.

The report is distributed annually to AAPG's Executive and Research committees, and is available on the AAPG Web site.

Other findings include:

• There has been a decrease in geoscience department size as measured by both the number of faculty positions and students.
• Graduate students account for about 38 percent of the student population.
• International students account for about 29 percent of all graduate students (and 36 percent of all Ph.D. candidates).
• The top three reported academic strengths were environmental geology, stratigraphy and hydrogeology.
• Only six departments report petroleum geology as a strength.

Additional information can be found online at www.aapg.org.