Alumni Affairs

Union alumni are important to us and to Union College. You can help us maintain and improve the Geology program at Union.

• Let Union administrators know how you feel about the Geology Department, and that you feel its continued development is important for Union.
• Communicate with other alumni regarding organized support for the Geology Department. Don’t forget moral support, which is inexpensive and very important.
• Let us know of summer jobs, internships, post-graduate jobs, and graduate school opportunities that might be available to our students.
• Send us promising students! We have a small but strong geoscience program offering advanced opportunities in the field, lab, and classroom, and lots of personal attention. Some students may like that.
• Let us know what directions the geoscience profession is going, and how we might revise our curriculum or research programs to take advantage of new trends.
• Equipment donations may be helpful. Although we are generally well equipped, certain additional equipment may help us fill gaps in our current laboratory or field programs. Contact the department chair.

Donations

Current Geology funds to which donations can be made:

1. The Field Fund is an endowed fund that is used to support field camp scholarships, course-oriented field trips, special field trips, and research trips for students. Currently this fund has ~$230,000, and our goal is $1,000,000. Ultimately we wish to offer full funding of field camp scholarships, and to fund new and continuing student travel opportunities for field work and field courses in the U.S. and abroad.
2. The Geology Alumni Fund is a smaller fund used to sponsor student-oriented activities, including special equipment for projects, travel and lodging for meetings, and supplementary funding for field travel. All donations to the Geology Department not specifically for the Field Fund go into the Alumni Fund.

Other possible funding concepts that you might consider initiating:

1. A Geology scholarship fund. Having such funds would help attract attention to our program, bring in good students, and would help give our students well-deserved recognition.
2. Endowment of a Geology faculty position (a Chair). New endowed positions may be the only way Geology ever grows beyond 5 permanent faculty. With 5 faculty we cannot offer our students research and course opportunities available at many other institutions. For example, the typical small college geoscience programs has 6 faculty. See our self-studies and proposals, in the table above, for details.
3. Endowment of a fund to help maintain the Geology Department mineral, fossil, and rock collections. This could offer salary for a part-time curator and modest funds for displays, promotion, collection improvement, and improved storage environment.
4. Endowment for adjunct salary to help diversify our course offerings in areas we currently cannot cover, such as economic geology, hydrogeology, remote sensing, and paleontology.

If these possibilities intrigue you, please contact the Geology Department chair. Thanks for your support, moral or otherwise. Every bit helps!