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Photo by Logan Lyley • llyles@mscd.edu

Rocking out: geology professor retires

By Heather Embrey
hembrey@mscd.edu

Dr. Rock is retiring. James M. Cronoble, associate professor of geology here at Metro, will retire after this semester. After teaching for more than 20 years, he will begin a new chapter of his life as a member of the oil and gas exploration community.

“Oil and gas exploration has always been my first passion,” Cronoble said. “My first love has always been petroleum geology.”

His geology career started when he was very young. “I had an older brother who majored in geology in the University of Oklahoma, and he would always bring me home rocks and fossils,” he said.

And after studying the different areas of geology, he decided to base his education on sedimentary geology (soft rock geology) and oil and gas exploration.

His tenure at Metro in the 1980s began as a result of the oil industry decline. “I was essentially out of work. I had to find a new field of study,” he said. One of the requirements from a fellowship he received at The Colorado School of Mines was to someday teach. However, teaching was not on his list of priorities when he received his Ph.D.

The only teaching positions then available to Cronoble at Metro were in the math, chemistry and physics departments. The college did not have a formal geology department nor offer a degree in geology or geography because of competing schools in the surrounding areas. Instead, Metro adopted the land use program with concentrations in geology, environmental resources, geographic information systems and urban planning. As a result, Cronoble was forced to find a part-time job teaching math. “I minored in math in Mines so it was something I could teach,” he said.

He began teaching college algebra in the spring of 1967 and his first day is one that he will never forget. The math coordinator had called him a few nights before classes were to start and explained which books and materials he was to use. When he walked into the classroom, the class informed him that he had the wrong textbook. “It was kind of embarrassing,” Cronoble chuckled.

But that didn’t deter him from his goals. As an educator at Metro, he feels that the students have made more of an impact on him than he has on them. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for Metro students,” he said. “They are working so hard to get their degree.”

He is going to miss being around young people because he feels they keep him young at heart. “They keep me on my toes,” he said.

He believes that he has influenced several students to become geology majors. “I make them fall in love with rocks. It’s like that plateau field trip. If you were a student trying to decide what to major in, you would be toast. I mean as soon as you go on that field trip, you would just fall in love with the geology,” he said. He is referring to the annual trip offered to geology and environmental studies students where they travel to southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah to study the sandstone formations. Pete Varney usually accompanies Cronoble on the trip and turns it into an adventure.

Cronoble’s not worried about leaving his students in the lurch. “I definitely think the department is headed in the right direction. I think the faculty cares about the students and they really emphasize teaching rather than research,” he said.

Compared to larger universities, he feels that the faculty and staff at Metro place the importance on teaching and personal help. “We don’t have any graduate assistant to help the faculty, so the faculty basically have to do everything themselves,” he said.

By working in a smaller college setting, Cronoble was witness to several large changes on campus. He thinks the most significant was the expansion of the campus complex buildings during the past 20 years. “In 1987, you could still drive right through campus,” he said.

As the campus grew, so did the geology department. After establishing a reputation, Cronoble resurrected the Earth Science Club in 1989 and helped make it one of the most active clubs on campus.

He was instrumental in establishing the integrated natural science course sequence in Metro’s teacher education program. He was given the opportunity to become the Interim Associate of the School of Letters, Arts and Sciences from 1999-2000. As the department head from 1995- 2000, and again in 2001, he helped implement the environmental science program, GIS program and GIS certificate program.

He also helped establish The Peter Durbin Endowed Scholarship, which is given to an environmental science major each year.

As for retirement, Cronoble plans on concentrating on his number one passion of petroleum geology. Previously, he couldn’t devote the amount of time he wanted to his “obsession”, but now he is able to pursue it full force.

“I love being outside. I can work around the house, I can read, and I can hike and camp,” he said.

Cronbole has been an outstanding member of Metro’s community and has definitely left his mark. He hopes his impact will drive other faculty and staff to continue developing new ideas to help attract future generations of geologists.