Faculty Advisor Strategic Session

Superstars on a Sunday afternoon

Mick Swiney, SEG Staff

"Faculty advisors are exceptional people who get a personal reward out of leading the way for the next wave of geophysicists," says Elsa Velasco, University and Student Programs Manager at SEG.

It is a Sunday afternoon in the Mandalay Bay Convention Centre, where a group of faculty members from universities on five continents have gathered to share their thoughts and concerns on a topic of crucial importance to SEG: how faculty advisors operate as caretakers of the student chapters that will eventually yield the future membership of this society.

With many attendees of the SEG Annual Meeting yet to arrive for the official start of the technical program in the upcoming week, the group of faculty advisors was small in number - but big in diversity. Representing a variety of ages, genders, and nationalities, advisors hailed from large academic programs and small to share lessons learned with those of smaller programs.

But throughout a session full of new ideas and exchange, the focus of the conversation was an all-important issue of identity: What is a faculty advisor? What does a faculty advisor "look like"? What is the role of a faculty advisor at SEG? What are their untapped strengths? What are their external opportunities?

"It is essential to listen to and understand everybody's approach, and come to some middle ground... only then can you begin to develop a relevant, values-driven program," says Velasco, who organized the event. "In all we had a pretty open conversation about a lot of issues, which helped us create a blueprint of where we need to go this year, and how we'll get there."

In addition to these strategic questions, those present were able to shed new light on some of the challenges they face as well.

Dr. Joseph Ebeniro of University of Port-Harcourt, for example, raised the question of how SEG is currently extending membership to graduates. Dr. Jie Zhang of the University of Science and Technology of China called for greater collaboration with the SEG China office on University and Student Programs.

Meanwhile, Dr. Hendratta Ali from Fort Hayes State University addressed resource concerns, such as the difficulty in obtaining current data sets. Dr. Ebeniro and Dr. Oleksandr Petrovsky of Ivano-Frankivsk Oil and Gas University concurred, pointing out that faculty advisors must often resort to back channels to obtain current data sets, as reflected by their experience dealing with NOCs (National Oil Companies) in their regions.

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing faculty advisors are institutional in nature, said Dr. Steve Danbom of Rice University, as many faculty advisors may be hard-pressed to prioritize their student chapter-related activities among the pressing instructional, research, and publication demands of their profession - especially for an activity whose benefit may not be readily apparent to their universities.

He and Dr. Ebeniro also shared the difficulty good faculty advisors encounter in "reproducing themselves". After all, being a great faculty advisor is only half the battle; they also have to find others to carry on their work.

These are issues worth addressing, as the role of faculty advisor is a critical one for the future, not just in the ways they cultivate the future members of the organization, but in their potential to inform the wider strategic directions SEG pursues as a society.

"SEG has invested in the university area in terms of supporting student leadership, and now we're focussing on the curriculum," says John Meade, head of SEG's new University Excellence program. "Who knows these academic programs better than the faculty advisors? They are vital in producing like-minded geophysicists, vital for promoting geophysical education."

In the end, this Sunday afternoon meeting yielded a serious and productive exchange of perspectives which greatly helped to define the program objectives. Up next? The outputs of the meeting will be compiled into a paper with a primary focus item for consideration by SEG leadership. Look out for exciting new things to happen in this area!