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December, 2008 The fall semester has gone by quickly and as I write this, the students are "looking forward" to "dead week" and finals. This has been another active and productive semester, and the Mewbourne College of Earth & Energy (MCEE) continues to move forward and provide outstanding educational opportunities for all of our students. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of our faculty and staff for their contribution to the success of the Mewbourne College. Our faculty have continued to demonstrate their commitment to research and teaching in a broad range of geoscience and engineering areas, and our staff have provided strong support to our faculty and students to help make this possible. I believe we have seen good progress in our undergraduate education in both geosciences and engineering, and our graduate programs are getting stronger. The current economic situation has once again demonstrated that future problems require a broad perspective as well as a high level of technical knowledge. We must remember that activities with too-narrow focus tend to be short-lived, and we must help our students build for the longer term by providing a broad base in science, engineering & humanities. We will continue to provide a petroleum engineering and geosciences focus on extraction and exploitation processes, but we should do so while maintaining close academic ties to the science and engineering base. I continue to believe that it is important to provide an academic environment for the development of tomorrow's academic and industry leaders that contains the full breadth of the university/educational experience. I also want to thank our alumni for their support for the Mewbourne College. In particular, I want to thank the MCEE Board of Visitors for their support and advice during the first 2 ½ years of the college. We had good alumni meetings during the week of November 21st, and enjoyed the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Oklahoma Geological Survey. It is appropriate that the week was concluded with our first Distinguished Alumni and Service Awards dinner. So overall, the Mewbourne College continues to move forward, and I anticipate that I will be able to report continued progress. No doubt, the current economic situation will present challenges, but I believe we are a good position to meet these challenges and maintain strong programs for our students. I hope everyone enjoys the holidays and has a successful new year.
Larry R. Grillot, Dean Mewbourne College of Earth & Energy |
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