Interview: Professor Mike Valentine “It’s so much more than rocks” BY SAGE MATKIN Professor Mike Valentine is a current geology professor at the University of Puget Sound. Valentine specializes in paleomagnetic studies, specifically in looking at the movement of the crust and geologic mapping. Mike has been teaching here for over 32 years! Aside from teaching, Mike is a baseball and music fan. Professor Valentine or, as students know him, Mike is sitting in his crowded office at the end of the geology department hall. It’s the Friday before Thanksgiving Break and students are ready for vacation. Those who care—students, professors, and faculty—are speaking about the future of the University of Puget Sound, with the recent financial blow and a low enrollment rate having corrosive consequences on the small departments at the university. Geology, unfortunately, is in line for a strike and a dip it seems. I sit with Mike, who has been teaching here for over 32 years and talk about his years prior and during his time at the university. We start at the very beginning and I ask him what got him into geology. As a kid growing up in Buffalo, New York, Mike was interested in all sci-
“‘My favorite class is actually Geology 101 ... The rewarding part of it is to see them gain interest. You see them go “rocks... boring” and then a certain percentage, at least, go “oh this is pretty cool,”’ he laughs.” ences, and had “chemistry sets, telescopes, and an observatory in a friend’s attic”. As he grew older and considered a future in science, he attended SUNY at Albany when the choice came. “When I got to college, I was looking at biology, geology, and astronomy,” Mike says, “with biology, I looked at the 300-400 people lectures, and that didn’t appeal to me particularly.” So, he decided, “with geology, I could do research, teach, or industry jobs—oil and minerals. I took some geology courses right away and decided I really liked it.” Professor Valentine went on to graduate from Albany and go on to do his masters and doctorate program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He graduated with an M.S with his thesis: Structure and tectonics of the southern Gebel Duwi Area, Eastern Desert of Egypt, and later with a Ph.D. with his dissertation Cenozoic tectonic rotation of the Mojave Desert, California as indicated by paleomagnetic studies. Between his undergraduate and graduate years, Mike took some time off to work at a pharmaceutical company. “Really geology-focused” he laughs while telling me about his time at the company doing lab technician work. Mike didn’t suffer during his time off school based on his story about a paid work trip to Barbados, where he tested sunscreens. Dreaming of the Barbados’ sun and the Atlantic Ocean, Mike went on to complete his master’s and Ph.D., each degree bringing him to a new place—as known from his thesis/dissertation titles. During graduate school, Mike spent three months in a city along the Red Sea, mapping out the geological structures—like faults and folds. During his time there, Mike was not your typical tourist. “I certainly never would’ve gone to that part of Egypt; it wasn’t
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