Alumni Information

I am very happy to greet you once again on behalf of the KU Department of Geology. The Department has been very successful over the past year, and many of you have played a significant part in helping us achieve so much. We have grown to 23 faculty members, close to 120 undergraduate majors, and 90 graduate students. Our students continue to prove that they are champions. For the second year in a row, they have won more GSA and AAPG research grants than any other program worldwide. In large part, this success has been facilitated by generous donations made by G-hawks such as yourselves, and we welcome your continued support.

As we all know, these are challenging times financially, and the Department is feeling the budget crunch as it endeavors to support programs for the largest group of graduate students and undergraduate majors it has seen in years. At the same time, we are necessarily expanding our field offerings and lab equipment for students, to give them the highest quality educational experience possible. I am sure you can remember your days as a student; perhaps a particular field experience made a strong impression; a lab experience might have helped you learn a particularly difficult concept; or a scholarship might have helped you buy textbooks or pay tuition. As you think about those experiences, please consider how you might help us help our students during these challenging financial times and times of high enrollments. You might consider supporting the Geology Associates Equipment Fund to help with purchase and replacement of lab equipment. Another opportunity would be student support; there are scholarship and student support funds that put financial support directly in the hands of deserving students. The Laudon fund is an example of a fund that can be used to help the Department expand its field trip offerings. General support to the Department's Geology Associates Fund gives the Department the greatest flexibility in using your donation where it is most needed.

With the Department's rapid growth, you may be wondering, where are we putting all of those new faculty and students? The space situation is very concerning. Our growth has forced us to spread our Department out into four separate buildings and into some inappropriate space. To house all faculty and students in a single state-of-the-art location, the Department is raising funds to build a new addition onto old Lindley and renovate the old building. To help us get this project moving, the office of the Provost and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences have committed significant financial help to the Department of Geology to make this project move forward. Both have stipulated that their commitments are contingent on loyal G-Hawks coming on board with financial commitments for a large part of the project in the near future. If you are in a position to help with this project over the next couple of years, please consider making a commitment to the Lindley Hall Building Expansion Fund. If you would like to hear more about the project, please feel free to give me a call. Also, we will be sure to be in touch about our progress and naming opportunities for this project.

As always, any donation would be sincerely appreciated and immensely helpful to the Department, especially during this exciting yet challenging time. Your generosity has achieved much for the Department of Geology. Given your continued support, this fine tradition will continue to flourish.

Sincerely,

Luis González, Chair
Department of Geology