Presentation of the Distinguished Public Service Award of the Mineralogical Society of America for 2017 to David W. Mogk

Mickey E. Gunter

doi:10.2138/am-2018-AP10347

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Presentation of the Distinguished Public Service Award of the Mineralogical Society of America for 2017 to David W. Mogk

Mickey E. Gunter

Published/Copyright: March 31, 2018

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From the journal American Mineralogist Volume 103 Issue 4

President Harlow, members, and guests. It’s my great honor to stand before you today as the citationist for the 2017 MSA Distinguished Public Service Medal to be awarded to Dave Mogk of Montana State University. What I share today are a few personal anecdotes and comments from those who wrote letters of support for Dave—two of whom are a bit on the senior side (i.e., gray hairs) and two who are currently mid-career, but whose comments are directed to how Dave influenced the start of their careers. For the former gray hairs, there are tens of us who could have written similar letters, and for the latter early/mid-career ones, hundreds, but it will really be the thousands born in this century who will benefit from Dave’s efforts over the past 30-ish years.

My presentation could only be one sentence long—“There is NO one in our community in the last 20 years who has worked so tirelessly to develop and improve education methods in the geosciences in general and specifically mineralogy, petrology, and geochemistry than Dave.” However, as my wife tells me in this type of situation people want to hear nice things said about them. Needless to say, I don’t want to disagree with her, but in this case Dave deserves to have another 4 minutes and 15 seconds of “nice things” because I’m limited to 5 minutes to honor his accomplishments!Also I’m sure one person who would like to hear some of those kind words is Dave’s wife, Gwendy, who no doubt has sacrificed along the way while Dave was up working away on a proposal or a short course, or being left at home doing the chores during the short courses. Regardless, it’s great she can attend this luncheon to see her husband receive this much-deserved award.

As I recall I first met Dave at a GSA session on teaching mineralogy in 1993. Several of the at-the-time best-known researchers in our field were asked to speak and there were comments like “geez this is the largest group of people I’ve ever presented to at a GSA.” I think at that point many of use realized how important it was to direct our efforts to develop instructional methods different from how we were taught.

In Dave’s email asking me to make this presentation he said “We’ve come up through the ranks as twin brothers from different mothers.” Academically speaking I believe that’s true as we were both state-school educated and spent our entire careers in rather isolated western state schools. So it’s rather fitting for Dave to receive this award in the city in which he received his Ph.D.

And now for some comments for the letter writers, first a senior member of our society: “If you ask any mineralogist, any petrologist, any geochemist, indeed most any geoscience educator, to make a list of the leaders in developing and supporting pedagogical growth in the geosciences, Dave will be on the list. Dave’s most significant contributions have been in two areas. First, Dave has conceived, funded (as co-PI on many grants), organized, co-led, and supported ‘On the Cutting Edge Geoscience Faculty Professional Development Workshops’in a great variety of geoscience disciplines. Second, Dave has been a key player in the building and development of the mineralogy, petrology, and geochemistry portions of the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College website.”

This one is from a mid-career member: “I write to offer enthusiastic support for the nomination of Dave for the MSA Distinguished Public Service Medal. But enthusiasm is such a tepid word, a micrometer-scale word when what I want to express is mountain-scale, unrestrained zeal in support of Dave’s nomination. I am a direct beneficiary of Dave’s vision, leadership, dedication, and achievements in improving geoscience education. And I feel that I’m writing on behalf of the thousands of scientists, educators, and students who are similar beneficiaries. In the early 1990s, Dave had the vision to organize and obtain NSF funding. This is the lasting achievement of Dave’s work in geoscience education. Professors teach better than they used to—I know because I see how early career faculty teach when they interview for jobs. The geoscience education community has grown enormously and garners greater respect from scientists and funding agencies. People starting their careers now may not be aware that this all connects back to one workshop in 1996.”

And finally another mid-career one: “Today it’s difficult for me to channel adequately the deep gratitude I felt in the summer of 2002 when, as a brand new tenure-track faculty member I took the ‘On The Cutting Edge Teaching Petrology’ workshop in Bozeman, Montana. No matter. Today I write this letter both with that gratitude and with a more informed perspective of the incredible time and dedication it takes to sustain the professional development of new geoscience faculty.An enduring legacy of Dave comes from his years spent reaching back toward younger colleagues with open, wise hands to pull us into a connected circle of more effective and knowledgeable educators and mentors in the geosciences. Suddenly I realize it’s not going too far to say I may owe my tenure success and career to Dave! Most importantly I can say that 15 years of my students have benefitted from his work.”

Returning to my thoughts, I believe there’s a direct comparison between our late colleague Paul Ribbe’s development of the RIMG series and Dave’s development of the NAGT Cutting Edge workshops. In both cases Paul and Dave were the driving forces behind these efforts coaxing the involvement of hundreds of us along the way.As we all know the RIMG volumes both contain specific mineral content—feldspars, amphiboles, pyroxenes, etc., and overarching themes (i.e., Medical Geology). Also, recall that Paul was awarded the third DPSM for these efforts. Likewise there have been content-based workshops on mineralogy, petrology, structural geology, etc., and overarching ones as well such as geovisualization, public policy, geology, and health, etc. And these all started with the Teaching Mineralogy workshop in 1996 at Smith College. Dave is long overdue for the recognition he has so rightfully earned with his unselfish efforts to improve our field.

And a final postscript from one of the letter writers: “I accidently became aware that I was nominated for this award in the last cycle. While it would be a great honor for me to receive this award, it is my opinion Dave is more deserving of it than I based on his much broader and sustained impact on geoscience education than I have had”... hmm, this sounds more like sibling pride than rivalry!

I’ll conclude my presentation in the same way Dave concludes an email “thanks for everything and ROCK ON!”

Published Online: 2018-3-31

Published in Print: 2018-4-25

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.2138/am-2018-AP10347