It was an honor to return to the University of Georgia, my alma mater, to give a presentation to the students and faculty of the geology department on October 18, and participate in the alumni board meeting for the department on October 19. It had been over 20 years since I graduated from the department and I was pleased to see how both the University and the geology department have grown over time in size and reputation. The department currently boasts 110 geology majors, which is the highest geology enrollment in the southeast. That is four times higher than the geology enrollment in 2007. UGA also has one of the top-rated applied geology field schools in the nation - that just happens to be located here in Colorado. Newmont has committed $40,000 over three years to help underwrite the cost to students for the geology field school, that costs $5000 per student for the intensive six-week school.
The topic of my presentation, Current State of the U.S. Mining Industry, was of great interest to the department that has a very strong economic geology program. It was interesting to learn that the majority of the graduates are going in to the oil and gas industry, chasing six-figure salaries even for undergraduates. Mining and exploration has been a distant second to petroleum for jobs for graduates, however there was renewed interest in this sector of the industry after I told the audience there were more global jobs than graduates to fill them. While starting salaries in mining are a bit lower than oil patch jobs, the overall job market is still strong for mining. The students had to be reminded that the mining industry still employees a lot of geologists – not just mining engineers.
During the geology department alumni board meeting, Dr. Doug Crowe, head of the department, commented that maybe there is an opportunity for the geology department to partner with the new UGA college of engineering to create a mining engineering degree or certificate program, at least. Since my board term is three years, I look forward to continuing these discussion with the two departments to bring more of a mining focus to the geology curriculum and to the opportunity for jobs for future graduates.
UGA geology department alumni board meeting, Athens, GA October 19.