Oh, To Be Working Here Again! It Could Be You: Santa Barbara City College

This might seem a bit of a long narrative describing a job opening in the earth sciences, but this one has a special resonance with me. To the extent that I have had any success as a teacher of geology, I owe much to the Earth and Planetary Sciences department at Santa Barbara City College in southern California. My first job out of graduate school back in 1984 was that of a laboratory teaching assistant at SBCC. Despite the term "assistant", it was a full-time teaching gig, with the responsibility for six or seven labs every semester as well as working with their numerous field studies courses. As time went on, I was given a number of courses to teach. The experience has served me well for the past 28 years.

There was a culture of excellence at SBCC that continues to this day. Students emerge from the program with skills equivalent to 3rd and even 4th year baccalaureate scholars, including excellent field mapping and research skills. As far as I'm concerned, it's one of the flagship programs among community colleges in the American west.

With that background in mind, check out this job opening in the department. It's an incredible place to teach. We had a beach processes lab at the base of the hill, a fault scarp running through part of the campus, and some marvelous field exposures in the hills above campus. The facilities on campus are excellent. They run multi-day field studies courses in Death Valley and the Eastern Sierra Nevada, and summer courses across the western United States. They also have an extended field methods class that is conducted in the Mt. Pinos area and the Cuyama Badlands.
Although I haven't worked there in years, I know the department has continued their tradition of excellence. Information at https://jobs.sbcc.edu/postings/1785. The application deadline is February 6, 2017.