Where have All the students
gone?
Part 2 of 2: Learning from Cal Poly - A Success Story
for Undergraduate Soil Science
By Victoria Smith
AWSS Newsletter, April 2003
Dr. Thomas J. Rice, Professor of Soil
Science and Chair of the Earth and Soil Sciences Department
at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in southern California
is also the Chair of the Membership, Identity, and
Visibility Committee for the Soil Science Society
of America (SSSA). AWSS talked with Dr. Rice in March
to find out how the undergraduate Soil Science program
at Cal Poly has remained successful even as the soils
profession has evolved over the past half century.
Rice stresses that the Pacific Ocean
plays a primary role in Cal Poly's success, and that
the semi-rural environment is attractive to students
coming from urban environments. "We also have
a program that is fifty years old that has been well
established [here]," Rice says. Its soil science
curriculum emphasizes a learn-by-doing approach, integrating
lab and field experiences into all of its classes.
The outdoor soils "laboratory" at Cal Poly
is completely accessible. Over 6000 acres near the
campus is owned by Cal Poly and there is a large variety
of geologic and soil environments located within about
50 miles of San Luis Obispo, including state park
and national forest land in San Luis Obispo County.
"We have a tremendous diversity
of interrelated soil-forming factors," says Rice.
Ecosystems vary from coastal sand dunes (a 15 minute
drive away) to oak woodlands, with an accompanying
range of microclimates. Precipitation ranges from
about 13 inches near the coast to about 35 inches
at the top of the Coast Ranges (the Santa Lucia Range,
10 minutes away), and drops back to 10 inches near
the San Andreas fault. Geologic and vegetation differences
integrate with changes in climate, to create a great
variety of soils: six soil orders are represented
here.
The largest number of soil science
students at Cal Poly are undergraduates, about 65
in 2002-2003 alone. "We do have a master's degree
program [with] about five to 10 students at any one
time [but] our major emphasis is undergraduate education,"
says Rice. "That is what makes us [especially]
unique. All of our faculty have 100 percent teaching
appointments."
While the soil science program began
in the 1950's with an agricultural emphasis, about
fifteen years ago the curriculum was modified to offer
three concentrations. One concentration in land and
water resources allows students to follow an agricultural
track; the environmental science and technology (EST)
concentration entails two years of chemistry (one
year of inorganic and one year of organic), and introductory
physics. EST is geared to students who want to go
on to graduate school or into environmental consulting
careers. The third concentration, environmental management,
is for students who want to be involved in environmental
science and planning and policy.
Earth science and soil science disciplines
are working closely together also makes Cal Poly somewhat
unusual. "Most universities feel there are strict
academic lines which divide geographers, geologists
and soil scientists. At Cal Poly we have integrated
all of these three disciplines within the Earth Sciences
program," says Rice. In fact, the earth sciences
major at Cal Poly was initiated just two years ago.
Faculty from geology, geography and soil science work
together to administer the major. The program offers
four minors: geology, soil science, land rehabilitation
(which is co-managed by the faculty in ecology), and
rangeland resources.
Enrollment in the earth sciences major
has gone from zero at the start of the program two
years ago to about 75 today. "On the other hand
we have followed the national trend in the soil science
majors; we were at a high soil science enrollment
of about 180 about five years ago, and now we are
down at about 65 soil science majors," says Rice.
Asked if he thought that undergraduate
soils enrollment was a battle worth fighting, he replies,
"Frankly, around the nation it is difficult to
recruit [freshmen] into undergraduate soil science
programs. I'd say is the best approach is to attract
students into allied sciences like environmental sciences
or earth sciences that have a soil science component.
Many students, after taking introductory soil science
classes, become interested in majoring in soils or,
at the minimum, in enrolling in upper division soil
science courses."
He continues, "It appears to
me that the profession of soil science is, in most
US universities, handled at the graduate level. Because
of our uniqueness at Cal Poly, our location, and the
program's long history, I think we'll be able to maintain
the soil science major. However, we will have a difficult
time maintaining a [single-major] soil science department.
The way we've been able to maintain our newly named
Earth & Soil Sciences Department, with relatively
low soil science enrollment, was to administer both
the earth sciences and the soil science major, which
tend to complement each other."
Read Where
Have All the Students Gone? Part 1
About Victoria Smith:
As a soil-scientist-in-waiting during my undergraduate
years, I received my training in natural sciences and
Russian language at Evergreen State College in western
Washington, before going on to obtain a master's degree
in Soil Science (Pedology) from UC Berkeley. Among my
experiences since completing my degree were performing
site assessments for a consulting firm in San Diego,
editing translations of Russian soil science journals
while living abroad, and mapping soils for the soil
survey in western New York state. I became fully ARCPACS-
certified in 1998. I have been an at-home mom since
moving from New York to Georgia in the fall of 1999,
and have recently begun to build a nonfiction writing
business. I have published over two dozen articles for
general interest, and several for BioCycle Magazine.
Of greatest concern to me are topics that change people's
understanding of the world-- from topics in alternative
health to the natural environment.
The most recent SSSA conference has
rekindled my own desire to look closely at the future
of our profession, to understand potential problems
and see what has already been done to resolve them.
As soil scientists, what often isolates us from one
another are the larger "state" factors that
vary greatly throughout this country--and that we
do.
