1. Overview
Macroeconomic Perspective on Geo Workforce and the Higher Ed environment
Strengthening the resilience of geo departments
Looking at what defines a geo department
Christopher Keane (AGI) and John Geissman (UT-Dallas)

2. The Changing Economic Landscape of Geoscience
Christopher M. Keane AGU Heads & Chairs 11 December 2016

3. Enrollments
Pure online-only majors

4. Degrees

5. Exit Survey Punch Points
33% of Bachelor graduates attended community college
No link between high school Earth Science experience and becoming a major
Marked number reporting not bothering to look for employment in geoscience because they assume there was no hiring

6. New Visualization of Student Pathways
Accompanying Talk: Wed, 4:00pm, Moscone South 309.

7. What is a Skill Shortage?
Rhetoric is there is a shortage of advanced STEM skills
Continued <2% unemployment
Acute shortage in technician – MS-level STEM
Traditional research levels are full
Evidence of specific skill shortages, not just “A Degree in X”

8. Narrowing the Geoscientist Deficit
In 2011, projected 135,000 FTE deficit for US Geoscience, 2022
In 2015, now projected to be 95,000
Why?
Record enrollments
Cross discipline entries because of hot job market
Improvements in technology
Changes in labor strategy, especially in energy
This is the revised human capital deficit in the US – substantial revision from the enrollment and MS growth, but still a yawning gap to fill. My key point on this slide is that the gap can be filled 3 ways:
Growth in the # of geoscientists
The economic activity that is expect to generate this growth won't happen because of supply contraint
Other professionals will fill the gap -engineers, accountants, etc.

9. The Downside of STEM Rising
Employment prospects of current grads
Good students getting good jobs
Average SAT/ACT of new majors is dropping significantly
Geoscience has historically had the lowest SAT scores of all STEM
All of STEM is facing rapid deterioration in aptitude scores
Rebasing of the SAT?
Popular push and record enrollments are bringing STEM towards the mean

10. A Need for Upping our Entry?
University of Maryland Econ Department says this to prospective majors:
“You might keep in mind that, generally speaking, quantitative aptitude is relatively hard for many people to cultivate, and thus it is a relatively scarce attribute. At the same time, empirical skills are very much in demand in today's workforce. As a result, people with strong empirical skills tend to earn higher compensation than people whose aptitudes fall in other areas.”

11. Field Experiences Still Lacking

12. Advanced Math is a Problem

13. Distribution of Jobs For Grads

14. Change is afoot Storm or Opportunity?

15. Punctuated Equilibrium of the GeoEconomy
Irrational
Exuberance
Truly Good Times
Meh
Real Despair
Irrational
Despair

16. Machine Learning, Unit Testing, oh my!
Can you win a Turning Test in Geoscience?
Can your work be boiled down basically to:
Pattern recognition
Model framework construction
Spatial analysis
Machine Learning is now bulk and cheap
$0.42/hour compute time PLUS $ per prediction.
Unit Testing approaches can handle lots of model input dimensions

17. “Intellectual” Careers and Automation Risks
Creator Class
Automation-risk
population
Advanced Scientists
New Graduates
Automation-risk population
Work-a-day
Automation-risk population
Techs

18. Being Discipline Vertical
Career
Path
Formal Education
Professional Employment
Professionalism – Ethics, Business, etc.
Licensure and Regulatory Awareness
Applied
Skills

19. Critical Externalities
Cultural shift to the “practical arts”
Move towards competencies approach
ROI metrics for universities
New era of departmental closures
Evolving labor market
The permanent skill shortage?
Online programs – fight or flight?
Alternative credentials
Credit eligible definition

20. Geo is late to the Game Competency frameworks being used extensively
Computer science
Financial fields
Communications/media fields
Engineering
Geospatial sciences
Desired reporting for modern employers
Google
Facebook

21. Moving Towards Competency
U.S. NSF funded Summit on the Future of Undergraduate Education
Sharon Mosher, Jackson School of Geoscience, University of Texas
Follow-on workshops with employers and department heads
Community convergence into competency model concept
First identification of needed competencies for career success in geoscience

22. Shift to Online Programs
~5000 majors in pure online programs
Lower staff and overhead costs
Current traditional program trends are improving online attractiveness
Heavy use of flipped classroom (Little face-to-face time)
Reduction in field experiences
Most effective means to expand student body

23. The College Scorecard A blunt but effective instrument
Ideal for state-level decision making
Actual out of pocket costs
6-year completion rate
10-year out average In-State earnings
Are you in a weak-sister campus?
If so, are you a path to the solution?
Does anyone know?

24. Recent Closures Institutions that fare poorly in the College Scorecard
Unable to identify how they strengthened their institution
Unable to identify how well they place their graduates in-state
Did not know how their department rated in alumni giving