Donors Making a Difference

Women Geologists: Haertlein-Ferrin Fund

Student Field Experiences Endowment

Women Geologists: Haertlein-Ferrin Junior Faculty Fund

The war had just ended and universities swelled with record enrollments as returning soldiers took advantage of the G.I. Bill.

When Jeanne Allen Ferrin (B.A., 1948) came to The University of Texas at Austin to study geology in the 1940s, she wasn’t the only woman. Her sister Rosamond (B.A., 1947) was already a student in the program. In the late ‘40s, 18 women graduated from the university with geology degrees.

There were a total of 140 geology graduates in that time. Still, women were increasingly pursuing careers requiring college level education.

Classes were held in the original geology building, now named the W.C. Hogg Building.

When Rosamond Haertlein went to work for Gulf Oil in Shreveport, she was the only woman geologist in the company and one of only four women in the local geological society. She said the men didn’t know quite what to make of her.

Although Ferrin enjoyed her geological studies, graduated, and went on to work in the oil and gas industry in Texas, she and the other women students faced challenges trying to make it in a male dominated field. They were barred from taking field-based courses with their male counterparts. They were instead required to take alternative courses to fulfill their graduation requirements. And they didn’t always get the credit they deserved.

“The men didn’t want us in their classes getting the A’s,” she said. “If you got a good grade, they claimed it was because you were a girl; but that’s not true, we worked hard.”

“I would come back from the field carrying a hammer and ride the elevator with the men and they’d say, ‘What are you going to do with that hammer?’,” she said.

Ferrin’s nephew Albert Haertlein (B.S., 1978), a geologist at SG Interests, an independent oil and gas company in Houston, wanted to make a gift to the Jackson School that would have a real impact. After brainstorming with the school’s development staff, he decided to establish the Rosamond Allen Haertlein and Jeanne Allen Ferrin Junior Faculty Fund in honor of his mother and aunt.

“They were early women in geology, not the first, but certainly at a challenging time,” said Haertlein. “So I thought it would be nice to make sure their names are associated with an effort to promote women in geology.”

According to the endowment charter: “Funds from the endowment shall be used to support untenured faculty members. When it is demonstrable that female faculty are under-represented in the Department of Geological Sciences and to the extent permissible under the law and the University policies, preference should be shown to female faculty members.”

Endowments such as this offer a way for alumni to shape the culture of the Jackson School. They are a way of imparting values and expanding the vision for what the school can achieve.

Out of 43 active faculty members in the Department of Geological Sciences, just five are women (2 more will join in 2009). According to a report by the Association for Women Geoscientists, one of three keys to increasing the number of women receiving doctoral degrees in geosciences is to provide more role models: “Female students look around to see if anybody on the faculty looks like them and has a lifestyle they want.”

“These funds will be very beneficial for young faculty just initiating their research and teaching programs, especially young women,” said Sharon Mosher, Dean of the Jackson School. “Seed funding and extra support makes a world of difference when you are starting an academic career.”

Student Field Experiences Endowment

Make a difference in the lives of students by ensuring a Jackson School tradition of outstanding student field experiences.

Many students struggle with the added expense of field trips, from the extremely popular 660 Summer Field Camp for undergraduates and its parallel track in hydrogeology to the range of field experiences pursued by graduate students.

The Field Experiences Endowment allows JSG to be competitive while some Geology programs across the country are cutting back on—or cutting out entirely—their annual field courses.

Here are some student reactions to the Endowment:

“The scholarship allowed me to go on 660 without moving further into debt paying for college. . . . The experience gained from being in the field like that is priceless. The scholarship really helped initially convince me that the course was worth it, and in retrospect, I am so glad I went. . . . I would really like to extend my sincere appreciation to the alumni that have established the Geology Foundation. You have made my college experience truly worthwhile. Thank you.” –

Christian Dohse, undergraduate in geology who participated in 660 Summer Field Camp in 2006

“I was very worried at the beginning, about taking on the responsibility of rent, bills and field camps while not having a job. As an undergraduate, I was always very busy, and my part-time job earned barely enough to cover my utilities and cable let alone rent and tuition! . . . At the time, I considered trying to switch majors within the department to avoid field camp and get a job - not something I wanted to do by any means, but felt was my only option. The scholarship I was awarded covered my tuition, leaving me with only the smaller bill of supplies.” –

Taylor Bartholomew, graduate student in geology who participated in 660 Summer Field Camp in 2006

Celebrating Philanthropy

Giving Societies cultivate a culture of generosity.

John Jackson’s gift to The University of Texas at Austin, one of the most generous ever to a public university, not only enabled the creation of the Jackson School of Geosciences, it also set an example for the kind of community he wanted to create—a community with a strong spirit of generosity.

Hill Society

Barrow Founder's Circle

The Hill Society

A biographer referred to Hill as the “Father of Texas Geology.”

Everyone’s gift is important. Small contributions sustained over a period of time have tremendous impact. That fact inspired the creation of the Hill Society in 2007 to honor friends and alumni who have contributed a total of $10,000 or more over the years to the Jackson School. Approximately 100 inaugural members of the Hill Society were inducted.

Robert T. Hill, the first professor and chair of UT’s School of Geology, was known as the "Father of Texas Geology."

The Hill Society is named after Robert T. Hill, the first professor and chair of the Department of Geology and a founding member of the UT Mineral Survey, which would later become the Bureau of Economic Geology.

Born in Nashville, Tennessee two years before the start of the Civil War, Robert T. Hill led a colorful life. He dropped out of school in the sixth grade and went to work for his brother at a newspaper in Comanche, Texas, a wild frontier town. He spent some time as a cowboy on the Dodge City Trail. In his spare time, he collected rocks and fossils and went on to receive a B.S. in geology from Cornell University in 1887. Through some 200 papers, books, and maps, he made significant contributions to the understanding of Texas geology.

In 1921, Hill was an expert witness for Texas in a boundary suit between Texas and Oklahoma. His testimony, along with those of other specialists, permanently won for Texas some 450,000 acres of river-valley lands and over 90 percent of the oil wells along the Red River. He received international attention as one of the first scientists to study the volcano Pelée on the island of Martinique during its catastrophic eruptive cycle of 1902, being the first to describe its classic “glowing cloud.” Hill was an original fellow of the Geological Society of America.

The last ten years of his life, he wrote about science and Texas history for the Dallas Morning News. Hill died in 1941.

The L.T. Barrow Founders Circle

Geology instructor in the Department (1921-24) and chairman of the board of Humble Oil and Refining Company (1948-55).

The L.T. Barrow Founders Circle is named after Leonidas T. Barrow (1895-1978; B.S., 1921; M.S. 1923), who with his wife Laura helped found, and donated to, the Geology Foundation. He was a geology instructor in the Department (1921-24) and chairman of the board of Humble Oil and Refining Company (1948-55), which later consolidated with Standard Oil to become Exxon.

Leonidas Theodore (Slim) Barrow, petroleum geologist, the son of Thomas Heskew and Sarah (Graves) Barrow, was born on June 16, 1895, in Manor, Texas. He was educated in the public schools of Austin and entered the University of Texas in 1917, but in 1918 he left the university to join the Signal Corps of the United States Army. He returned to the university upon his military discharge in 1919 and was awarded the bachelor's degree in geology in 1921. During his undergraduate days he played on the Longhorn football and basketball teams, where he earned his nickname. He received his master's degree in 1923 and served as instructor in geology at the University of Texas from 1921 to 1924. In 1923 he married Laura Thomson, a geology student at the university.

Barrow joined the Humble Oil and Refining Company as field geologist in San Antonio in 1924. He did surface geologic mapping in Caldwell and Guadalupe counties, where his company discovered the Salt Flat and Darst Creek oilfields. He recognized the igneous origin of the material that makes up the pay section of the Lytton Springs oilfield in Caldwell County.

By 1929 he was made chief geologist for Humble in Houston. There he became associated with Wallace E. Pratt, a member of the board of directors of the company. Pratt and Barrow, working together, established the highest type of business and professional ethics in the petroleum industry. Barrow was promoted to the board of directors of his company in 1937, to vice president in 1938, and to chairman of the board in 1948. He retired in 1955.

Barrow and his wife aided the University of Texas by helping to organize and donating to the Geology Foundation in 1952. The foundation provides loans for needy students, travel funds for teachers, scholarship and fellowship funds, library funds, and endowments establishing named professorships and chairs in geological sciences.

Barrow served on the Geology Foundation Council from 1957 to 1963 and was elected a lifetime honorary member in 1964. He was also a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the Society of Petroleum Engineers, and the Geophysical Union, as well as a fellow of the Geological Society of America.

He and his wife were the founders of the Wallace E. Pratt Publication fund of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. They also made important contributions to many other geological, charitable, and church organizations. Barrow died in Houston on March 4, 1978.