The Georgia Institute of Technology and the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography are developing a joint GT/SkIO advanced degree program for Fall semester 2008 entitled Coastal Science and Engineering. Integration of geoscience and engineering concepts and rigor is fundamental to successfully address the spectrum of issues arising from the consequences of rapidly increasing coastal populations and exacerbated by changing weather and climate patterns. Educating coastal geoscientists and engineers to be mutually literate at the graduate level is critical, but with a few exceptions, educational programs to accomplish this goal are virtually absent. The complexity of coastal processes and environments requires that this effort integrates research and education; adopts a holistic, system approach to the teaching and examination of coastal processes; ensures that concepts from other basic sciences (e.g., meteorology, hydrogeology, life sciences) are a fully integrated part of the instruction base; focuses classroom instruction on fundamental concepts and processes that are universal rather than on facts that may only apply to a single location or process; requires the partnering of engineers with geoscientists to ensure the use of mathematical techniques for applying concepts to environmental situations; and stresses problem-solving skills while meeting emerging workforce needs. Both partner institutions have considerable success in the entrainment of underrepresented minorities into STEM educational tracks. The joint program will offer a transformative coastal geoscience/engineering graduate educational curriculum currently completely absent in the US southeast and rare elsewhere in the country. It is expected to serve as a model program for other US regions. Graduates of the program will be equipped to populate the future workforce to design and manage harbors, develop and maintain ocean observatory sensors and networks, model and predict invasive species and pathogen trajectories, and mitigate or manage environmental consequences of coastal habitation.
