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Department has a strategic plan goal of providing each student with a research experience prior to graduation, as this is a major area of content knowledge and skills required for certification as a professional geologists.  Currently, the department offers two routes to achieve this – a senior thesis, and a group research project in GEO 490.

Department faculty, through discussion at Assurance of Learning Day, decided to allow an additional capstone experience that would be similar in scope to the GEO 490 capstone, but would allow for pursuit of an individual research project rather than a group research project. This pathway is intended specifically for students who are talented, top-notch students but who are unable to complete a multi-semester senior thesis project due to constraints of time (usually because of transferring to the major late in their academic career).  These students often are considering graduate school, where an individual research project would give them an advantage at gaining scholarships and assistantships.  Enrollment in this course requires departmental approval because students will need to have a commitment from an individual faculty member to mentor the project, analogous to a senior thesis project.

As a department who used to support a graduate program that was suspended six years previously, many of the faculty have robust research programs that were designed for student participation.  Faculty members currently use two routes to support student-contributing research projects: senior thesis (GLY 499) and independent study (GLY 398).  However, these two courses do not serve the needs of all students well.  GLY 398 is intended as a course for students to study subject matter that is not offered by the courses currently offered by the department.  Senior thesis, on the other hand, is a multi-semester, comprehensive research project that is analogous to the Honors Program’s senior thesis (but offered to students who are not in the Honors Program).  GLY 498 fills this gap by providing a vehicle for students to spend a single semester working on a faculty-led research project that is part of a scholarly research program, but that is not a stand-alone project in the same manner that a senior thesis is.  Students learn the necessary content and skills required for certification as a PG or to prepare them for graduate school.