WKU To Offer New Programs In Meteorology, GIS

February 02, 2007

Bowling Green, Ky. - Strong employment demand for students with Geographic Information Science skills and growing societal concerns about climate change are just two of the reasons Western Kentucky University’s Department of Geography and Geology has developed new bachelor of science programs in GIS and meteorology. 

“Students around the Commonwealth and across the region frequently asked about a professional major in meteorology and often were disappointed to hear that we didn’t have such a program,” said Dr. David Keeling, Geography and Geology Department Head. “We know that over the past decade several dozens of students, if not hundreds, have chosen to attend other universities because of the absence of a meteorology degree.”

With the development of the Kentucky Mesonet project, spearheaded by Dr. Stuart Foster and Dr. Rezaul Mahmood, and the ongoing success of the Kentucky Climate Center, new teaching and research opportunities in meteorology are becoming available.

The development of the bachelor’s program in meteorology has been led by Dr. Greg Goodrich, who came to WKU in 2005 from Arizona State with expertise in drought and climate modeling. Dr. Goodrich and his colleagues coordinated the new program’s development with staff at various National Weather Service offices around the region, with alumni, and with other constituents who saw a need for a professional meteorology program.

Successful completion of the program will allow students to meet the qualification standards of the American Meteorological Society, qualify them for employment with the National Weather Service, and prepare them for graduate study in the atmospheric sciences.

The program requires a minimum of 49.5 semester hours of meteorology, geography and computer science courses, with an additional 24 hours of advanced mathematics and physics courses required.
 
Input from recent graduates, alumni and employers pointed to the need for a professional major in Geographic Information Science (GIS). Geospatial technologies have been identified by the U.S. Department of Labor as one of three technological areas that will experience explosive job growth over the next decade.

Over the past decade, geospatial technologies have already expanded rapidly. In 2000, the GIS industry exceeded $7 billion in revenues; since 2000, GIS software sales have exceeded $1 billion annually. While geospatial technologies are broadly defined to include such elements as mapping, global positioning and dynamic location tracking, it is GIS that lays the foundation for them.

Although the Department of Geography and Geology already offers GIS certificates at the undergraduate and graduate levels, a GIS Minor, and a bachelor’s in geography with a GIS and Spatial Analysis concentration, alumni and employers have continued to argue for a stand-alone professional GIS major.

The development of this new GIS program allows students to focus more specifically on new and more specialized courses in GIS, mathematics and computer science, and enables them to develop more comprehensive skills in collecting, managing, analyzing and applying geographic information.

WKU graduates from the GIS program are expected to be well positioned to succeed in the highly competitive GIS job market and in graduate school and to make a positive contribution to society.   

“WKU offers the only comprehensive professional GIS program in the region,” Dr. Keeling said. “The department has already awarded over 80 GIS certificates since 2003 and has alumni working for major software companies like ESRI in California and Washington, D.C., for local and state governments around the region, and for private companies across the U.S.  The demand for highly trained GIS professionals continues to grow at a rapid pace.” 

With the new bachelor’s program in GIS, WKU is positioned to be a regional and national leader in Geographic Information Science education and training. Kevin Cary directs the GIS Center at WKU and, along with Dr. Katie Algeo, Dr. Jun Yan and other faculty in the Department of Geography and Geology, coordinates student research using GIS that ranges from transportation to tourism and from mapping telecommunications pathways to subsurface water flows in karst regions.

The program requires a minimum of 57 semester hours of GIS, geography, AMS and computer science courses, with an additional 20 hours of mathematics, computer science and technical writing courses required.
For more information about these new programs, contact Dr. Keeling at david.keeling@wku.edu or visit the department’s website at http://www.wku.edu/geoweb/info/aboutgeo.html
               
More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.

For information, contact David Keeling at (270) 745-4555.