OT - THIS MAY BE HARD TO BELIEVE BUT . . .

[Richard]

UCA is a university with a total enrollment of over 12,000 students.
UCA offers 77 undergraduate degrees, 33 master’s degrees, one education specialist degree, and four doctoral degrees.

BUT . . . do you know what you can not take at UCA this spring and rarely in the fall?

GEOLOGY! They occasionally offer an introductory course for science teachers. Thats it!

12,000 students!

I have been told they don't offer it because there is no interest. 12,000 students!
I wonder if this would qualify for Ripley's Believe it or not?

[Monsoon]

That must be recent. I took Geo in 1997 at UCA. Lots of fun actually. We did only have about 10 people in our class.

[lalyle]

Betcha their geology prof(s) got lured away by the big bucks of the drilling companies

I couldn't get an upper-level Spanish course at UALR or UCA back in '91-91 to save my life. They all bailed for the $$ in the new translators' market.

[Trismegistus]

Tis' Sad -- Especially given the unique geology lying within our state -- we have all three main rock types (albeit very little metamorphic rock), world renowned exposures of igneous rocks such as found at Magnet Cove, thermal springs, juvenile water deposits tens if not hundreds of thousands of years old, and all kinds of ores and gas deposits. Moreover through geology one gets exposure to biology, ecology, history, chemistry, etc. One can't even fully appreciate our rivers and bayous unless they understand the geology that gives rise to their form and life. You'd think there would be introductory geology courses every semester and even in the evenings. I can only assume that there is no demand for these courses or they would exist -- thus my sadness.

The question -- why is there no demand for these courses? Is it because people can't see an immediate finacial return on their investment? Or they just don't care to know what they don't know?

[okieboater]

Tris, my take is you are correct in that people these days do not care about anything that does not give immediate satisfaction.

applies to every thing from science, business, politics, retail - you name it.

I can remember when it was commonplace for universities (especially the land grant ones) to have multiple research programs going on for pure science just for science sake. Not much of that any more. I remember when GA Tech was doing research for nose cones for JFK's space projects. Everyone thought that was only for NASA till some one started using the technology to produce cooking utensils made of ceramics that went from freezer to micro wave and did not crack.

Look at business and government. The current economic mess we are in and all the Washington DC solutions to that mess are all short term. IE give those loans to folks who cannot pay them, get those commissions by bundling toxic loans in with a few good ones and resell them, get that year end bonus by hook or crook even if you drive the business into ruin, throw billions of taxpayers money into bail outs of businesses whose management is the major part of the problem and print money to give away now with no regard to long term hardships - do it now cause it's "insert name here" too big to fail!

Retail looks only at year end figures. It's all consumer driven. Washington DC would have us believe retail sales of foreign made goods is the savior for the economic mess we are in. They wonder why most every US of A consumer is tapped out of money. Making consumer loans on your house's promised appreciation in value was the last straw. How can we have money to buy things when the USA only consumes? We wonder why our economy is going south and China's is growing. Duhh - look at every thing from computers to cookware - I'm having problems finding anything that is not made in China except a few tee shirts I ordered from a USA Outfitter Company that have made in India on the label. When I was growing up all our shoes, shirts and metal were made in America. Not any more.

I for one, am hoping we can find leadership that understands the value of long term planning that is realistic. I am sick to death of watching us throw only money to solve problems. From school teachers to economic issues - we need realistic action plans that demand performance for expenditure of money. And, we need to as a country start spending our own money not borrowed or printed money.

It is sad to see what has happened. My wish is for all of us to wake up and start thinking long term again.

One bright spot, price of gas is now down to the point we can afford to drive to the creeks ----- if it would only rain!!!!

[Trismegistus]

Amen!

If we had stayed focused on "long-term sustainability" we wouldn't be in this fix today. Moreover the "too big to fail" certainly suggests that to promote the development of large centralized multinational firms really puts all our eggs in one basket -- small businesses are far more adaptable and innovative and if one fails you don't have to worry about the entire economy crashing.

Don't want to delve to far into these issues as this is not the place -- rather we should be sitting at the Paddler's Campfire -- but obviously all of these factors do impact our ability to enjoy, protect and conserve our water ways.

The geological forces -- the anticlines and synclines, faults, and the Mazarn tectonic plate -- that give rise to our mountains and streams are fascinating. I think it would be a grand idea to have a geologist (perhaps Dr. Brahana) come speak at an upcoming meeting -- or perhaps we should put together another "geology float".

[Clif]

oh! OH! I wanna go! Missed the other Buffy geo float. My son and I loved the geological discussions with Richard on a Buffy run once upon a time.