School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology
Strategic Plan
October 1, 2003
Goal 1
Provide a viable undergraduate educational program and experience that provides an excellent foundation in the fundamental sciences and the skills needed for graduate study and professional employment.
- Increase EAS major enrollment to 80-100 majors, which is deemed to be the number that can be handled without requiring additional faculty resources while continuing to provide a quality learning environment.
- Enhance the visibility of the undergraduate program to K-12 schools through educational outreach programs.
- Enhance the visibility of the undergraduate program for Georgia Tech undergraduates through presentations made in the 1000- and 2000-level service courses.
- Maintain a program of study that encourages transfers from 2-year colleges.
- Develop appropriate 5-year BS/ MS programs of study.
- Provide a curriculum with a rigorous set of atmospheric and earth science core courses, while at the same time improving career preparation and employment opportunities.
- Improve communication with industries that hire and support our graduates.
- Develop career concentrations in earth and environmental sciences that is responsive to the economic needs of Georgia and the nation and the career goals of our students.
- Develop a concentration in meteorology that is non-traditional and focused on private sector employment (including courses on data analysis, computer graphics, business and public policy courses, weather derivatives).
- Provide a rigorous curriculum for preparing students for advanced graduate study in alternate employment areas like K-12 education.
- Inform students of the full range of opportunities available to graduates of EAS.
- Utilize the freshman psychology course to describe career options.
- Provide web-based resources describing career opportunities and current employment opportunities.
- Improve career advising.
- Increase the exposure of the Georgia Tech student body to courses concerning earth, atmospheric and environmental sciences.
- Increase the number of students in the 1000 and 2000 level courses.
- Select top teachers to teach these classes and encourage them to work with CETL (Center for Education, Teaching and Learning) to develop optimum methods for teaching large classes.
- Provide adequate administrative and teaching assistant support for these classes.
- Consider offering additional courses that take advantage of unique and changing developments in the earth and atmospheric sciences.
- Provide a meaningful research or co-op experience for all EAS undergraduates
- Involve research scientists and graduate students in this effort, as well as faculty.
- Consider proposing a REU site to NSF.
- Obtain additional funding to support summer research experiences for undergraduates.
- Identify additional opportunities for co-op experiences.
- Revise course contents to enhance the opportunities for development of leadership, communication, computational, and teamwork skills.
- Introduce technical writing projects in the sophomore courses having a policy component and encourage development of technical writing skills in junior and senior courses.
- Improve the freshman computing course to provide the operational skills needed for the junior and senior level courses.
- Increase applications of computational skills in the junior and senior level courses.
- Incorporate team projects into the junior and senior level courses.
- Improve the undergraduate program through regular and systematic assessment of educational programs and courses.
- Establish mid-course formative assessment survey for each course.
- Establish muddy points feedback for each course.
- Conduct annual surveys of the undergraduate students on selected topics.
- Utilize the external advisory board.
Goal 2
Enhance the graduate educational experience to prepare students for leadership positions in academia, government, and industry.
- Increase the overall quality of the graduate student applicant pool, particularly for U.S. students that have graduated from top undergraduate institutions.
- Increase the visibility of EAS through its web site, press releases, and opportunities at national meetings. Support the improvement the school web site to make online application and inquiries as simple as possible. Provide support and assistance so that each faculty member has an attractive, informative, and effective web page.
- Identify top U.S. institutions from which we would like to attract applicants. Have our faculty visit these institutions to give seminars, talk to their faculty about our program, meet with undergraduate students, and leave recruiting materials with the institution. Prepare Power Point recruitment materials that all faculty members can use.
- Establish relationships with a diverse group of international universities, from which we would like to attract applicants, e.g. Canada and Latin America.
- Improve the effectiveness of the visits of prospective students. Survey our 1stand 2nd year graduate students to assess the effectiveness of their recruiting visit. Establish an exit survey for prospective students that do visit.
- Maintain graduate student stipends that are competitive with comparable departments.
- Maintain a stable population of 70-80 graduate students (thesis M.S. and Ph.D.), while increasing the numbers of earth science students and professional-track M.S. students.
- Increase the funding base for earth science faculty.
- Determine optimal balances of the ratio of postdocs and research scientists to students in atmospheric sciences, and increase the selectivity of atmospheric graduate students.
- Increase the numbers of professional track M.S. students (with minimal requirements for faculty resources and space) primarily through working with local companies and through establishing a 5 year B.S./M.S. program.
- Increase the selectivity of the Ph.D. program, through the admissions process and through evaluation of the Ph.D. comprehensive exam.
- Enhance the profile of our Ph.D. students so that they are competitive with the top students graduating from other universities.
- Increase the number of students obtaining graduate fellowships from competitive national programs (e.g. NASA, NSF, EPA). Maintain a web-based list of fellowship opportunities. Notify all graduate students and faculty members approximately 30 days before applications are due for a specific fellowship. Individually encourage qualified students to apply. Provide financial incentives for students that are awarded a graduate fellowship from competitive national programs.
- Establish expectations whereby Ph.D. students are expected to present a paper at a national conference by the end of their second year and to submit a paper for publication by the end of their third year. Each student should attend at least one conference per year after their first year.
- Expand the international educational and research experiences for our students. Encourage students to go to international meetings and summer schools and help them obtained the needed funding.
- Establish specific expectations for presenting and publishing papers.
- Provide a curriculum with both fundamental science courses as well as elective courses that target important and emerging research areas, with connected program requirements leading to more unified understandings and tangible learning products.
- On an annual basis, assess the curriculum in terms of enrollment in specific classes, classes desired by the students, important emerging topics identified by the faculty, and also for the needs of the students of new faculty hires.
- Provide incentives for faculty to explore new courses that address such areas.
- Continually assess course prerequisites as the course offerings change, so as promote depth in the curriculum.
- Increase student credit hours in EAS graduate classes through coordination with other Schools.
- Coordinate with the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry to establish a graduate curriculum in environmental chemistry.
- Coordinate with the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering not only in the air quality courses, but also in solid earth and water science courses.
- Coordinate with the School of Biology on an oceanography curriculum.
- Coordinate with Electrical Engineering to establish a minor in remote sensing.
- Coordinate with the School of Physics on courses in nonlinear dynamics and data analysis.
- Target additional Schools that typically have students minor outside of their home School to package attractive minors of relevance.
- Implement a program to help students develop the necessary skills to succeed in professional life beyond the traditional academic knowledge and research experiences.
- Provide resources for faculty members to improve the mentoring of their graduate students: web-based materials, junior faculty mentoring
- Systematically integrate development of writing and oral presentation skills into the curriculum
- Establish an annual graduate student symposium where the best oral and poster presentations are rewarded
- Establish a seminar course to address personal and professional skills (e.g. oral and poster presentations, the research process, professional societies, manuscript and proposal writing, research and professional ethics, reviewing and responding to reviews, resume writing and job interviews, teaching).
- Target an average of 5 years to complete a Ph.D. from matriculation.
- Establish the expectation for both faculty and students that the target tenure for full-time Ph.D. students is 5 years.
- Eliminate any obligation for faculty to support graduate students beyond the 6th year.
- Provide targeted preparation for students interested in careers in government, academia, and industry.
- At the orientation for incoming graduate students, make them aware of resources to learn about employment and career opportunities.
- Maintain a web site with information about career opportunities and current employment opportunities.
- Institute a program to support students interested in an academic career that provides teaching opportunities and also includes a "Preparing Future Faculty" seminar course.
- As part of the Ph.D. training, familiarize graduate students with the major government or government supported research institutions in the U.S. in their field, and work toward developing collaborations between their dissertation research and that of scientists in these institutions.
- Establish the interests of major industries in the activities carried out by EAS, and through development of partnerships on topics of interest to them, show them who our students are and what they can do.
Targets:
- Applicant pool with 100 U.S. applicants (at least half from the top 200 nationally ranked colleges and universities) and 100 foreign applicants with a diverse distribution;
- Acceptance by at least half of the domestic applicants from top institutions that receive offers;
- Minimum enrollment of 6 in each graduate EAS course;
- Offer 2 new courses or special topics courses per year;
- Half of the U.S. Ph.D. students participate in some international experience;
- 20% of our Ph.D. students receive nationally competitive fellowships;
- Each Ph.D. student presents a paper at a national conference by the end of the 2nd year;
- Each Ph.D. student submits a paper for publication in a journal by the end of the 3rd year.
Goal 3
Enhance innovation and scholarship within the EAS academic program through greater utilization of nontraditional educational methodologies, expanded utilization of information and interactive technologies, and development of outreach and professional education programs.
- Augment and enhance School policies, infrastructure and support staff to facilitate faculty awareness of emerging educational methodologies, literacy in information and educational software and technologies, and usage of such methods, software, and technologies in the classroom.
- Provide adequate staff support for development of web-based resources
- Develop a software library
- Configure classrooms to allow flexibility for alternative teaching methods
- Define a "course-teaching period" of 3-5 years over which a faculty member will typically teach a given course in consecutive academic years. At the end of each period, the faculty member will be expected to submit a Course Packet (containing syllabus, lecture notes, problem sets, exams, virtual/electronic course content, and other related teaching materials) for inclusion in the School's Course Archive
- Devote one seminar per semester to an outside academician speaking on experiences using innovative methods and/or technologies in the classroom.
- Augment the School's DOTE (Department Officer for Teaching Effectiveness) procedures for mentoring and evaluating teaching effectiveness of untenured faculty to promote collaboration, innovation, and scholarship in the academic activities of SEAS faculty.
- Form the Collaborative Teaching Effectiveness Group, consisting of junior faculty and the DOTE, whose goal is to share ideas and experiences in the classroom, especially with regard to the use and evaluation of innovative methods and technologies.
- Incorporate an optional review of one or more Course Packets developed and used by individual faculty into the DOTE-evaluative process for promotion and tenure.
- Develop and implement professional outreach courses in environmental monitoring and simulation for technicians, engineers, scientists, and policy-makers working in state and local environmental-protection agencies and environmental consulting firms, as well as science educators at the high school and college level.
- Develop and implement a Certificate Program in Air Quality Monitoring, Simulation, and Forecasting that focuses on the use of emerging technologies and methodologies for professional technicians, engineers, and policy-makers working at state and local regulatory agencies and consulting firms.
- As part of aforementioned Certificate Program, develop a course in Air Pollution Prediction that utilizes distance learning to allow students and instructors to collaborate on ozone episode forecasting in real-time during the summer ozone-pollution season.
- Develop and implement a Teacher Training Course for high school science teachers on the implementation of the Georgia Clean Air Campaign/CEISMIC curriculum.
Targets:
- Within 5 years, at least 50% of the courses offered by EAS will make use of nontraditional methodologies and/or information and educational technologies
- Within 5 years, at least 5 non-traditional teaching products and/or scholarly assessments of nontraditional methodologies will have been developed and disseminated by EAS faculty for more general use at colleges and universities.
- Within 1 year, the School will have successfully developed and offered a 1-2 day course in air quality monitoring or simulation for professionals working in the area.
- Within 4 years, the School will have successfully developed a professional certificate program and have awarded at least 10 certificates.
Goal 4
Conduct research that expands the frontiers of knowledge in earth and atmospheric sciences, promotes interdisciplinarity, and elevates EAS to a recognized position of leadership.
- 1Stimulate research with a continued influx of new talent by:
- recruiting, developing and graduating the very best graduate students
- recruiting, developing and retaining the very best faculty
- arranging visits by accomplished scientists to the School
- Stimulate research through seminar series
- Establish a distinguished seminar series, possibly jointly with other Schools in the Environmental Sciences and Technology Building.
- Change the current Friday colloquium to have fewer seminars, but with top speakers having broad appeal.
- Encourage informal seminars with internal and external speakers to focus on issues of disciplinary interest.
- Promote cross-School collaborations in ES&T through a seminar clearing house.
- Stimulate internal collaborations through an annual graduate student symposium.
- Raise the national profile of EAS and individual faculty members.
- Actively encourage national and international workshops, conferences, and symposia to be held in Atlanta.
- Nominate faculty and students for prominent national awards.
- Increase participation of EAS faculty in national/international panels, advisory boards.
- Increase participation in major national research efforts (e.g. field programs, etc).
- Provide an organizational framework that enhances the development of new research areas
- Support the core research in the School while facilitating and rewarding cross-unit collaboration and initiatives within and outside the School.
- Provide additional opportunities and methods for faculty and students to form partnerships with industry.
- Increase the funding base for the School and broaden the distribution of funding across disciplines and faculty.
Targets:
- Bring at least one major research center to the School
- Average annual research expenditures per faculty of $300K
Goal 5
Attract and retain an outstanding and diverse faculty and staff and promote their professional development for leadership at Georgia Tech and within the international scientific community.
- Build a diverse community of faculty and staff.
- Increase the numbers of women and underrepresented minority faculty.
- Provide mentoring and other retention programs for faculty and staff.
- Ensure family-friendly policies to address the needs of faculty and staff.
- Identify and recruit the best faculty candidates.
- Rely on personal contacts not just advertisements.
- Continually discuss with colleagues and following outstanding Ph.D. candidates from top research groups.
- Actively seek and recruit outstanding mid-career and chair candidates.
- Develop funding for attractive start-up packages for outstanding faculty candidates.
- Actively mentor and retain junior faculty.
- Chair will meet with untenured faculty individually several times per year
- Help junior faculty develop a network of faculty contacts and mentors through participating in the COS mentoring program and through interactions with the EAS faculty mentoring committee.
- Minimize the School service load for untenured faculty, while at the same time taking maximum advantage of their good ideas and enthusiasm in all School activities.
- Aggressively work to address issues as needed regarding spousal employment.
- Establish a culture in the School where faculty professional development is expected, valued, and encouraged.
- Sponsor teaching training through CETL (Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning).
- Lower teaching loads for new course development and implementation of alternative teaching methods.
- Support leaves to work at other labs and universities (including other countries).
- Actively evaluate and encourage professional development in tenured faculty as part of the Periodic Peer Review (post-tenure review) process.
- Utilize the diversity of teaching, research, and service interests of faculty members by
- Promoting involvement of all faculty members in School activities and operations and maintaining a balance of such activity among the faculty.
- Recognizing and rewarding excellence in teaching, research, and service.
- Provide accommodation for atypical differential workloads for tenured faculty.
- Provide appropriate resources and rewards to enhance research and teaching.
- Develop resources through capital campaign and other activities.
- Establish professorships or other named positions that can be used to reward and stimulate activities of faculty members at all ranks.
- Encourage faculty professional development through leaves of absence and other sabbatical-like programs.
- Nominate outstanding faculty members for national and college awards.
- Provide the support network for creating independent and contributing Research Scientists.
- Provide facilities support for independent Research Scientists.
- Provide opportunities for teaching and interacting with students, with commensurate salary support.
- Identify mechanisms to provide bridging salary support during gaps in funding.
- Increase the number of research scientists in the earth sciences.
- Enhance staff capabilities and training.
- Provide incentives and recognizing excellence in performance through awards and salary adjustments.
- Provide resources for each staff member to participate annually in a skills-development activity.
- Implement and enforce a zero tolerance policy for hostile and discriminatory behavior
- Expand the EAS web site on collegiality.
- Expect the Chair to thoroughly investigate reports of hostile or discriminatory behavior, with the Office of Human Resources.
- Expect faculty to report such behavior to the School or COS administrators. Ignoring such behavior enables it.
Targets:
- 100% retention of productive faculty
- Attract 2 additional named Chairs to the School
Goal 6
Strengthen research and academic relationships with other units within Georgia Tech, and raise the overall profile of EAS within Georgia Tech.
- Work with other units in the Environmental Science and Technology (ES&T) Building to develop joint research programs.
- Establish thematic, cross-cutting seminar series of one semester in duration.
- Establish focus groups on specific environmental themes, e.g. biogeochemical cycles, water resources.
- Invite several distinguished lecturers to speak on topics of broad interest.
- Encourage social interactions among the ES&T faculty.
- Conduct workshops on cross-cutting topics that include faculty from other schools
- Continue and expand the mini-workshops with Georgia Power and the Southern Company to include faculty from other Schools and also other power companies and regulatory agencies.
- Host national and international workshops at Georgia Tech, and advertise to relevant faculty in other Schools.
- Work with the new Institute for Policy Research to identify topics.
- Actively encourage participation of EAS faculty in major interdisciplinary research initiatives at Georgia Tech.
- Target additional participation in developing initiatives, such as the National Institute for Aerospace and the Institute for Policy Research.
- Take the lead on new initiatives, such as Focused Research Programs and proposals to such programs as NSF IGERT.
- Work with other Schools to establish new interdisciplinary curricula.
- Coordinate with the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry to establish a graduate curriculum in environmental chemistry.
- Coordinate with the School of Biology on an oceanography curriculum.
- Coordinate with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering to establish a remote sensing curriculum.
- Publish an annual EAS newsletter, and disseminate widely at Georgia Tech.
Goal 7
Through outreach and partnerships, foster entrepreneurship, corporate interaction, and economic development through the applications of earth and atmospheric sciences.
- Involve EAS more fully in the genesis of new ideas and technologies and their dispersion through commercial enterprises, as well as public policies and general education initiatives that lead to improved economic outcomes.
- Increase outreach and service to the public and private sectors, and by developing partnerships with other schools and centers at Georgia Tech, small businesses, corporations, chambers of commerce, local and state governments, and other organizations involved in new venture and economic development.
- The School itself should create a climate of entrepreneurial spirit and, working with the existing business development centers at Georgia Tech (such as ATDC, VentureLab, EDTV, GTRC, and the Dupree College of Management), develop a process that assists EAS faculty and students as they pursue patents, licensing, and start-up ventures.
- Reserve 1 seminar per semester for topics related to economic development. These may include subjects such as industry's perspective of environmental issues; commercial applications of instrumentation; regulatory initiatives; regional and city planning; etc.
- Increase development activities within EAS and in the broader context of ES&T. Initiate inquiry into creating an EAS Development Office with a Director, or coordinating with other Schools in the Environmental Sciences and Technology Building. This office would continuously survey the ongoing research programs within the School to identify potential opportunities; establish contact with Georgia Tech's existing business development centers and become familiar with their programs, services, and personnel; and to assist faculty and students develop plans, serve as their advocate, and help identify and connect them with the appropriate business development center(s).
- Working with Georgia Tech's Division of Professional Practice, develop a co-operative education course of study in EAS and seek to find qualified and eager students and suitable organizations in which to place them.
- Strongly encourage professional M.S. track students to complete an external summer internship.
- Encourage faculty to engage more in external consulting, and assist in identifying the appropriate consulting clients.
- Create and deliver a series of relevant professional (continuing) education courses.
- Initiate inquiry into developing a statewide professional Environmental Resources Laboratory to be established at Georgia Tech, that is parallel and complementary to similar models in the USG. This laboratory will provide fee-based environmental services including analysis of air, water, and mineral samples, onsite field monitoring, complex environmental modeling, data analysis, and strategic planning. Staffing may be drawn from many other colleges, schools, and centers.
- Initiate inquiry into creating a statewide "Regional, Urban, and Industrial Environmental Extension Service" that permanently provides outreach through Georgia Tech's Economic Development Institute's regional offices to support Georgia's economic development efforts by conducting specialized professional development courses, performing environmental research, helping Georgia communities manage growth, and working with relocating or expanding companies to mitigate local, regional, and global environmental impacts while preserving economic competitiveness.
Goal 8
Create an environmental science community at Georgia Tech that fosters the success and growth of its members, alumni loyalty, and relations with corporations and foundations.
- Improve the social and professional climate in the School so that students are able to connect better with other students and faculty and so enhance their overall experience at Georgia Tech.
- Revitalize an undergraduate society that includes social events.
- Establish the EAS Graduate Student Symposium as an annual event.
- Establish social traditions (several events per year) that include the entire EAS family .
- Provide budget and administrative support for these activities.
- Improve communications and relations with EAS alumni.
- Make continued efforts to keep track of all EAS alumni.
- Publish an annual EAS newsletter, and disseminate to all alumni.
- Establish a "Classmates" web page with alumni information (including contact information).
- Involve retired faculty in these efforts
- Establish an External Advisory Board for EAS (or ES&T).