Video Views: Transcripts of Interview with Dean Fisher

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Clips:

The Jackson School’s unique composition (1:28)
The Jackson School as it was set up and constituted by the Board of Regents in the summer of 2005 included the Department of Geological Sciences, which is an academic unit, and two organized research units, the Institute for Geophysics and the Bureau of Economic Geology. What really makes it unique as an academic unit within the University is the large size of its structured and organized research. The academic department and the faculty constitute about 30 percent, and about 70 percent is in the research organizations. This I think is a unique combination amongst academic schools of the geosciences in the nation. It brings back for students I think a tremendous, real opportunity because many can have the experience of working both their individual research within the academic department but also an experience as a research assistant working in more structured research. We've found through the years that people that have combined those experiences here have found that very useful as they move into a professional career when leaving here.

Its breadth of opportunities for students (:50)
Taking the composition of the Jackson School as it is, with a large research component along with a substantial academic component, really offers to the student, undergraduate as well as the graduate student here, substantial opportunity for an experience whether they care to go to an academic department and teach, whether they care to be involved with government labs, with government agencies as a research scientist, whether they want to go the professional route in the energy and environmental industries. So, this breadth and diversity of the school offers a real opportunity for meaningful experiences that one can carry to almost any pursuit in the geosciences.

Financial support for students (:40)
A benefit of the Jackson gift to the students is a very direct one. We have already put into place for graduate students a guaranteed institutional level of support. For a person pursuing the doctoral degree that is ten semesters of guaranteed support, working as a research assistant, as a TA, or even doing independent research. For a person pursuing a master's degree, that's four semesters. I don't think there's any place around that offers that much guaranteed, institutional support.

Texas as a natural laboratory (:51)
Well, Texas as a natural lab for geology—one, it's a large place, it runs all the way from a very dynamic coast with all kinds of processes that are exciting from a geological standpoint and particularly in terms of modern processes, to the mountains of West Texas and the Trans-Pecos to the Llano Estacado, which is the great high plains of the state. So there's a great geographic and geologic diversity to the state. And it includes some of the sites, particularly in the Guadalupe Mountains, that, in both Texas and New Mexico bordering, are some of the most famous geologic localities in the world visited by more geoscientists than probably any other piece of geography on the face of the earth.

Tradition of educating leaders (1:00)
The folks that have come through here, students that have graduated and gone on, have gone to a variety of places—some to government, some to leadership in government agencies,others in academia. I would say the predominant, and some of our best known people, actually went to the corporate side of America, particularly in the oil and gas industry and more recently into the water and environmental industry. We probably claim out of our graduates here as many CEOs and leaders of the oil and gas industry of any school. So it's been a variety of folks here but I would say the predominance and a larger part of our history has been in oil and gas.

John Jackson’s reasons for his gift (:56)
I think the main rationale that Mr. Jackson had in making a gift of this size was very simple. He wanted to make a impact, and a real impact, and he felt it was very important to focus those funds toward that end. So that's why they are to the geosciences. He specifically says geology, geophysics, energy, mineral, water resources, the broad areas of the earth sciences including the Earth's environment. He was quite specific in what he wanted to do. Now that's a pretty broad area—it encompasses most of the things we might logically do in the field of the geosciences—but it was a focus for the geosciences. And it was his feeling that these resources, coming in this magnitude, could really make an impact and really advance the geosciences.

Hopes for future JSG students (:42)
In terms of what future students at the Jackson School, I hope that they will, as they have in the past, and to even a greater extent find this a very exciting environment within which to be, from the standpoint of teaching and learning and the classroom, from their own involvement with research, from their networking with a diverse geologic, geoscience population which will be important to them as long as they pursue a career in geology. I hope that historical richness will be there and in an even more amplified fashion in the future.

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