17 NEWS FROM THE STAFF Dr. Tao Wu Geochemistry Lab Coordinator Greetings everyone! Time is running so fast. This is already my second year to serve in the Boone Pickens School of Geology (BPSoG) as a lab coordinator for geochemistry lab. I am keeping myself busy on two major areas. The first, I try to maintain the lab equipment in a good condition on a daily basis. For instance, some of the instruments, like Isotope ratio mass spectrometer (IRMS) coupled with combustion elemental analyzer (EA), need to be on all the time. One of my daily mission is to check the pump, ensure that ion source is working properly and I also need to run some of tests, like standard on/off test, to make sure the standard deviation of the results is within the estimate. The second, I closely interact with students and postdoc to not only help them correctly use the instruments and equipment in the lab, but also teach them the good habits to perform experiments. For instance, I am very strict on making standards for ion chromatography. I teach students how to make standards correctly. I observe what they do when they make standards. I encourage them when they do right and correct them when they do wrong. I also tell them why they do wrong and the possible consequence if they do this step wrong. I am also interested in involving students’ research projects. I have already discussed with several master and Ph.D. students about their research and helped them design the experiments and point out the possible breakthrough of their projects. It is fun to work with students, especially, when I have a chance to share my knowledge with them. On my family side, my younger daughter was born on March 2016. We were very excited about this. She brings tons of fun to my family every day. Ms. Sheri Orr Sr. Academic Counselor Hello and happy 2017! 2016 brought about another year of exciting changes (as well as challenges) for the Boone Pickens School of Geology undergraduate program! With the downturn in the petroleum industry, we definitely noticed a drop in majors and are now hovering just over 100. The past year saw another round of curriculum changes, primarily trying to increase our number of web courses; such as Geology of the National Parks and our new class Earthquakes, Volcanoes, & Disasters, as well as offering an online version of GEOL 1224 in the fall (while keeping a face‐to‐face section in the spring). The number of students participating in undergraduate research has remained steady, with 16 students enrolled in research in the Fall 2016 and 17 students enrolled in Spring 2017. This does not account for the freshmen/sophomores who are working in or shadowing our research labs but not enrolled for credit. As we look toward 2017‐2018, we are excited to continue offering more online courses (potentially environmental Geology and oceanography) and we hope to see a rise in our undergraduate enrollment – even if just by a few students. Though enrollment is down, we have doubled our recruiting efforts and have offered 6 scholarships to admitted freshmen for 2017‐2018 in hopes of recruiting them to OSU and we’ll offer quite a few scholarships for returning students to help them complete their degrees from the Boone Pickens School of Geology. Lastly, we’re proud to have thirty‐four undergraduate candidates up for graduation this Spring and Summer 2017! As always, Go Pokes! Ms. Sandy Earls Administrative Assistant Hello all! Another year has gone by and I am not sure where it went. There have been a lot of changes on campus with the new Banner system that is in place. I am still trying to figure out how everything works. Anytime something goes wrong we simply say it’s banners fault. We once again went to visit family in Tennessee in November. We also spent a little time in the Great Smoky Mountains revisiting some of the sights from our Honeymoon to celebrate out 33rd anniversary. We were glad that we got to visit since they have had the devastating fires. We actually could smell smoke the last few days in
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