GEOSCIENCE RESEARCH AT LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES: SCHOOL RANKINGS Michael D. Robinson Economics Department, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA 01075,
[email protected] James E. Hartley Economics Department, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA 01075,
[email protected] Steven R. Dunn Department of Earth and Environment, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA 01075,
[email protected] ABSTRACT Liberal arts colleges have in recent years placed an in- creasing emphasis on research. In this environment of in- This environment of increased interest in the research creased interest in research at liberal arts colleges we of faculty at liberal arts colleges is the background for our present a ranking of research in geoscience at national lib- study. This paper presents evidence of the amount of eral arts colleges based upon articles published in GeoRef geoscience research at national liberal arts colleges. In par- listed journals. We find that the research activity is highly ticular we present departmental rankings, a measure of concentrated among a few schools. We also find that lib- the concentration of research among schools, an examina- eral arts faculty are interested in teaching geoscience as tion of the increase in scholarship over time, a look at the measured by the number of publications in the Journal of journals in which liberal arts faculty publish, and an exam- Geoscience Education and that there is a positive correla- ination of the fields of inquiry by liberal arts faculty. In tion between faculty research at an institution and the un- many ways, this study is a natural extension of dergraduates who go on to receive Ph.D.’s in geoscience.