This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). The award will provide funds to renovate and expand research and research training facilities in the geosciences at Oberlin College. The existing facility was built in 1908 as the college library and was renovated in 1989 to accommodate four faculty, based on a model where each person occupied a large room that served as both office and research laboratory. Additional shared spaces were outfitted: one for wet-chemistry, a small room with a single research microscope, and a darkroom. This project will separate the office and research space and unite all research into a centralized corridor housing six laboratories. The lab cluster will facilitate cross-disciplinary work among faculty and undergraduate researchers and efficient sharing of instrumentation and equipment. Examples of research that will be advanced through the renovation will include: 1) Determining pathways of decay in shell carbonate in marine sediments; 2) Analyzing reef cores to better understand the record of coral reef accretion and community structure in the past as context for the present crisis on coral reefs; 3) Reconstructing metamorphic histories of subduction-zone rocks; 4) Characterizing cements from 1.9Ga iron formations to gain insight into the composition and temperature of Precambrian oceans; 4) Revealing how deformation is accommodated at finer scales within larger structures along the San Andreas fault system; 5) Refining the history of asteroid impacts on Earth during Precambrian time by locating and tracing new stratigraphic layers of impact spherules and characterizing these layers geochemically and petrographically; and 6) Analyzing water quality and contaminant migration in the glacial deposits of northeast Ohio.
Geology faculty and students develop a strong sense of community during field trips and in the classroom. Research activities in the present facility tend to isolate and separate research students and faculty because research space is highly fragmented. An updated and centralized research complex will enable faculty research to expand to new research areas not feasible in the current configuration, increase research efficiency, and will unite faculty and student researchers into a single facility that will foster interdisciplinary work. Given the high percentage of Oberlin geology graduates who go on to earn advanced degrees in the geosciences and careers in higher education, improved research training facilities will help strengthen the preparation of the next generation of geoscience educators and research scientists.
Two areas in which the Oberlin Geology Department excels are faculty research productivity and engaging in collaborative student-faculty research, with faculty placing particular emphasis on mentoring and encouraging students to develop and investigate their own research questions. The Department maintained that profile despite extremely limited and outdated research facilities in the College’s former library (Carnegie Building, completed 1908). With expansion of faculty effort to 5.625 FTE (with each new position adding new areas of research) plus an increase in acquisition and use of microscopes, sophisticated instrumentation, and computing, by 2010 the Department was in dire need of renovated space for research and research training. The grant met this critical need through renovation and upgrade of the research laboratories of all six faculty in the department, whose research areas include carbonate sedimentology and coral reef geology; metamorphic petrology and geochemistry; paleontology and paleoecology; Precambrian impact history and sedimentology; structural geology; and earth surface processes. The award also helped support renovation of the rock preparation lab, geochemistry lab, and scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive x-ray laboratory, facilities central to research training. Renovation of the faculty laboratories to support the research areas and corresponding laboratory needs of each member of the department has increased faculty research efficiency and productivity, strengthened the research training of undergraduates, and transformed the department’s research profile on campus. The renovation has made research activity highly visible and has improved research interactions among faculty, between student researchers and their faculty mentors, and among research students working on different projects and in different labs. Research productivity by faculty rose from 19 peer-reviewed journal publications in the three years prior to the renovation to 23 publications in just two years since the renovation. Three of the recent papers were co-authored by students. The centralized research corridor is positioned between teaching laboratories, so that all students enrolled in upper-level geology courses pass by the research labs often. The renovated labs have open glass in the doors and corridor windows into each lab. The open plan has resulted in many more students inquiring about faculty research and encourages student interest in research. Research training is a highly valued endeavor within Oberlin’s Geology Department and – as hoped – faculty have seen undergraduate participation in research rise significantly since the renovation. The year before renovation, a total of 24 students took part in collaborative student-faculty research in the department during the academic year or summer. The first year post-renovation the total number rose to 37 and in 2012-13 the number was again 37. The department has also seen a significant increase in the number of students declaring Geology as a major. Between academic years 2004-05 through 2010-11, the department averaged 28 declared majors annually, and after renovation the number of majors jumped to 47 in 2011-12 and 63 in 2012-13.
