Strategic Plan

2025 Strategic Plan

Executive Summary

The Judson Mead Geologic Field Station has been an educational and research mainstay of the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (EAS) department for 75 years and is an important part of our global reputation and identity. It has helped produce generations of dedicated IU and Field Station alumni who have given generously to both the Field Station and the Department over the years. The teaching and research at the Field Station have continuously evolved to keep pace with the fundamental changes in our science, providing students with a hands-on, experiential approach to scientific learning. The Field Station provides an opportunity to continue to build on our reputation as a leader in integrating field-based teaching and research.
This Strategic Plan is intended to be a document that outlines goals, strategies and metrics to guide the objectives and plans for the Field Station.

Please contact IUGFS for a copy of the Strategic Plan

The IUGFS Philosophy

In 1949 IUGFS was established by Drs. Charles Vitaliano and Charles Deiss to provide the best field geology education possible. The outcrops around the field station span 3.8 Ga of geologic history, providing the foundation for the most comprehensive geologic training in North America. The beautifully exposed geology is coupled with a teaching philosophy that combines enduring geoscience fundamentals with the latest concepts and technologies. IUGFS staff prepares meals and maintains the field station so that students can focus on learning and practicing geoscience skills.

A Sustainable Strategy

The strategic plan for IUGFS has four main components:

Academic infrastructure: we are commitment to provide modern, up-to-date teaching facilities.
Educational leadership and innovation: we offer courses that integrate the best of traditional field-based education, geoscience fundamentals, the latest geoscience concepts, and modern technologies for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting geoscience data.
Acceptable housing: we are committed to continuously updating accommodations to provide safe and comfortable lodging for students, faculty, staff, and visitors. This is mainly done by upgrading existing facilities, but occasionally requires construction of new buildings.
Affordability and sustainability: we must ensure that students, faculty, and researchers can afford to utilize IUGFS in perpetuity without relying on a large amount of financial support from IU-Bloomington.

Field Geoscience Leadership

With the most diverse and complicated geology in North America as a backdrop and the IUGFS facilities to provide a focused educational environment with minimal distractions, learning geology around IUGFS is pretty easy. However, being a leader in field geoscience education also means continuously updating geoscience concepts, local geologic datasets, teaching materials, and equipment.

While the rocks around IUGFS don’t change very fast, the understanding of geologic processes is continuously improving. At IUGFS we:

Utilize the outstanding geologic exposures in the IUGFS area to teach the fundamental geoscience skills and concepts necessary to understand the Earth in four-dimensions. This includes all aspects of field geology including observation, measurement, description, understanding scale, interpreting rocks in the context of geologic processes, thinking about rock properties, etc.;
Integrate the newest geologic concepts and data analysis techniques to push geologic interpretations beyond what can be observed in the field;
Provide immersive training in critical thinking, the scientific method, and project management.

Donation information

For more details about our strategic plan and the campaign, contact:

Erika Elswick
eelswick@iu.edu
Executive Director, IUGFS
Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Indiana University
1001 East 10th Street
Bloomington, IN 47405
(812) 855-2493

For more information about ways to make a gift, including gifts of stock or personal property, bequests through your estate, and gifts that provide income to you for life, please contact:

Jeff Stuckey
stuckyj@iu.edu
Director of Development
College of Arts and Sciences
812-855-1876

I learned an unbelievable amount—it’s hands-on learning, and you can see the structures right there in front of you—but the faculty also emphasized independent thinking. I really fell in love with field geology.
Ellen Reat, IUGFS Class of 2012, M.S. 2016, Sedimentology