Team and Institutional Context

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Deron Carter

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Deron has held a full-time faculty position at Linn-Benton Community College since 2006, and has served as department co-chair since 2011. He is the principal investigator for a NSF-funded GEOPATHS grant that supports LBCC transfers in geology to nearby Oregon State University by providing them social, field, and research experiences. In graduate school, he researched pluvial lake outburst flooding in remote southeastern Oregon. Deron wrote about The role of majors and non-majors geology courses at a 2-year college for the Teaching Introductory Geoscience Courses in the 21st Century workshop in 2014.

Courses

Deron teaches Physical Geology, Historical Geology, Descriptive Astronomy, and Principles of Earth Science. You can read about his course Introduction to Geology: Solid Earth at the Teaching the Earth portal.

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Shannon Othus-Gault

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Shannon has been teaching geology and Earth sciences for seven years. Prior to teaching, Shannon worked as a natural resource scientist for the Washington Department of Natural Resources in the Forestry department mapping landslides and making landslide hazard maps. Since 2015, Shannon has begun working to incorporate open education resources and pedagogy (OERs) into many of her classes. She has created three open education websites, including a website for Oregon Virtual Field Trips and a website that showcases student's mineral research projects. You can read about her development of these resources at Open Oregon Educational Resources.

Courses

Shannon teaches Oceanography, Earth System Science, Earth Science, and several courses focused on the Pacific Northwest: Geology of the Northwest-Volcanoes, Mountains, Earthquakes; Pacific Northwest Rocks and Minerals and Geology of the Northwest-Rivers, Glaciers, and Deserts.

Administrative Involvement

Linn-Benton Community College

• Jess Winans, Head of the Learning Innovation Center (2017-2019)

Chemeketa Community College

• Danielle Hoffman, Site Director (2017-2019)

Institutions

Linn-Benton Community College

Institution: Linn-Benton Community College (LBCC) is located in Albany, Oregon, between Salem and Eugene. It has about 5700 students; 5% of these students are formally registered as students with disabilities.

Geoscience program: One full-time faculty and about 4 part-time faculty members teach geoscience courses at LBCC. Most students in geoscience courses are non-science majors taking geoscience to fulfill general education physical science requirements, although LBCC does offer a year-long geology sequence, with courses in physical geology, surface processes, and historical geology including both a majors and non-majors sequence. Most students taking these courses are planning on transferring and pursuing a Bachelor's degree at Oregon State University since OSU programs in Fisheries and Wildlife, Natural Resources, Soil Science, and Environmental Sciences require at least one geology course. LBCC offers Associates degrees in Geology and in Environmental Sciences. Typically, each degree program has 5-10 students per year. Both the geology and environmental sciences programs are part of the Physical Sciences Department that also includes physics, chemistry, food and fermentation science, and general science.

Chemeketa Community College

Institution: Chemeketa Community College is the second largest community college in Oregon and is located in the central Willamette Valley. It has two campuses: one in in Salem and the Yamhill Valley campus in McMinnville, as well as five centers. Chemeketa Community College serves approximately 30,000 students, 25% of whom identify as Hispanic/Latino. 39% of students are age 25 or older. The Yamhill Valley Campus where Shannon Othus-Gault teaches serves approximately 1000-1200 students each year.

Geoscience program: The Geology Department at Chemeketa is part of the Physical Science Division which also includes physics, chemistry, and general science. Across all campuses, there are 4 full time geoscience faculty members and 5 adjunct faculty. The geoscience program at Yamhill Valley Campus has one full-time instructor. Three sections of geology and Earth sciences are offered each of the three terms per year. Each section has between 24 and 30 students. Most students take geoscience courses to fulfill the requirements for the associate of arts Oregon transfer degree. Each year between 1 and 5 students transfer to local, four-year universities such as Western Oregon University and Oregon State University for geoscience degrees.

Institutional demographic data is from IPEDS the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, U.S. Department of Education, typically for the 2014-15 year as available.