Special Publication - 15
A History of the Geology Program at New Mexico State University: 1890 to 2015

Thomas H. Giordano
2022, 45 pages.

The history behind the Department of Geological Sciences at New Mexico State University goes back one hundred and thirty years and is complex. This history, as told in the pages of this monograph, documents the important details behind the founding of the NMSU geology program and its growth and evolution to 2015. The program's history is conveniently divided into three administrative phases. Phase I comprises the first 55 years, during which the program's activities were managed by one or two regular academic departments of the University. In the Earth Sciences phase, the geology program was administered as a division, along with one or two other divisions in the same department. In its third phase, the geology program became a regular academic department within the College of Arts and Sciences, its current status as the Department of Geological Sciences. Two obvious legacies of NMSU's geology program are the Department of Geological Sciences and the geophysics program in the Department of Physics. However, the program's legacy is also reflected in the students who have taken its courses and the program's research output through the efforts of its faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Since the mid-1960s, the geology program has produced a vast amount of research that has led to a sophisticated understanding of the geology of southern New Mexico and adjacent areas. Finally, through a better understanding of the geology program's academic evolution, the program's alumni and current students, faculty, and staff will have a more profound appreciation of their academic experience at New Mexico State University

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