General Information
About KU
The University of Kansas is a major educational and research institution with some 29,000 students and more than 1,900 faculty members who are dedicated to serving the State of Kansas and the nation. The University includes the main campus in Lawrence; the Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas; the Regents Center in Overland Park, Kansas; a clinical campus of the School of Medicine in Wichita, and educational and research facilities throughout the state. The University has 14 major academic divisions: the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School, and the schools of Allied Health, Architecture and Urban Design, Business, Education, Engineering, Fine Arts, Journalism and Mass Communication, Law, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Social Welfare.
About KU Geology
The KU Department of Geology has 23 regular faculty members; 15 courtesy faculty members; 3 post-doctoral research associates; 11 research staff, research-support staff, or lab managers; and 8 emeriti. The graduate program has more than 100 graduate students from all parts of the U.S.A. and several foreign countries. M.S. and Ph.D. degrees are awarded. The Department has been very successful in placing its graduates in academia, industry, and government.
The Department has close ties with a number of research units at KU, including the Kansas Geological Survey, the Paleontological Institute, the Natural History Museum, the University Energy Counsel, the Tertiary Oil Recovery Project, and the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets. In addition, some students and faculty work closely with the Water Resources Division of the U. S. Geological Survey, a branch of which is located in Lawrence, Kansas.
There are almost 100 undergraduate geology majors working toward earning a B.S. in geology with emphasis in general geology, environmental geology, engineering geology, or geophysics, or a B.A. in geology.
KU Department of Geology is the home of the alpha chapter of Sigma Gamma Epsilon, the earth sciences national honor society, founded in 1915. It also hosts student-run chapters of the national or international organizations AWG, AAPG, and SEG, as well as the KU Geology Club. As one example of intradepartmental interaction, geology graduate students run a geology-undergraduate-student mentoring program, providing a way for undergraduates to learn from graduate students.
Mission Statement
approved August 30, 2000
The mission of the Department of Geology is:
- to educate undergraduate and graduate students in the fundamentals of theoretical and applied geological sciences so that they will have the knowledge and skills to adapt as the science and their personal and professional situations change,
- to provide education in the geological sciences to other parts of the The University and its cooperating institutions,
- to do exemplary basic and applied research in the geological sciences, to collaborate with other segments of the University and its cooperating institutions, and to provide professional service to society.