Coos Bay, OR – Southwestern Oregon Community College’s popular Geology Lecture Series concludes for the 2021-22 academic year with a talk by Dr. Ron Metzger, Professor of Earth Sciences at Southwestern with “The Last Lecture? Oribatid Mites, Conodonts and Musings from Nearly Four Decades in the College Classroom”.
The talk will take place on Saturday, May 21, 2022 at 7:00 pm in the Hales Center for the Performing Arts on the Coos Bay campus (1988 Newmark Ave., Coos Bay) and also streamed live via Livestream at the College website (https://livestream.com/swocc/geology2021-22).
Ron Metzger earned a Bachelor of Science degree with honors from St. Lawrence University, and master’s and doctorate degrees in paleontology from the University of Iowa. He has been a member of the Southwestern Oregon Community College faculty since the fall of 1996 and will officially retire in June. He is a member of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers having served in a variety of leadership roles for the Pacific Northwest Section including president. He has been a workshop leader for Teachers on the Leading Edge and for On The Cutting Edge: NAGT Early Career Geoscience Faculty Workshop.
While at Southwestern he served as Geology Club Advisor, Faculty Senate Chair, and as faculty ex-officio on the College Foundation Board. Over the years he has given community outreach talks to numerous groups. One of Metzger’s most significant local contributions has been hosting the geology lecture series, bringing prominent scientists to the College to present lectures on cutting edge topics to students and community for over two decades. Ron also serves on the Jefferson Public Radio Foundation Board and recently retired from the board of the Oregon Coast Music Festival after 20 years of service.
In addition to our speaker, representatives of the Southwestern Foundation, South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, University of Oregon’s Charleston Marine Life Center, Shoreline Education for Awareness, and Surfrider Foundation will be present in the Hales Center lobby starting at 6:30 pm to share information regarding their organizations. The representatives will also be available after the lecture.
Lecture Series Sponsors include DB Western, Southwestern Foundation, The Mill Casino & Resort, Ocean Discovery Lecture Series, and the American Geophysical Union. For additional information contact Ron Metzger at rmetzger@socc.edu or 541-888-7216.
Coos Bay, OR – Coos Bay, OR – Southwestern Oregon Community College’s popular Geology Lecture Series continues for the 2021-22 academic year with a series of talks covering “Relationships Between Elakha (Sea Otter) and a Sense of Place on Oregon’s South Coast” a conference honoring the life and legacy of Chief Don Ivy. Join us on Saturday, April 16, 2022 from 1:00 to 4:00 pm. At the time of this news release we expect to be live in the Hales Center for the Performing Arts on the Coos Bay campus and also streaming via Livestream at the college website (https://livestream.com/swocc/geology2021-22).
This conference brings together a number of experts including Bob Bailey (President of the Elakha Alliance) delivering “Elakha Alliance: Bringing Sea Otters Home”; Dr. Roberta “Bobbi” Hall (Oregon State University, Emeritus) discussing “With the Coquille Indian Tribe — and the Sea Otters”; Dr. William “Bill” Robbins (Oregon State University, Emeritus), author of Hard Times in Paradise: Coos Bay, Oregon with “The Floodtide of EuroAmericans and the Disruption of Elakha”; and Dr. Loren Davis (Oregon State University) talking about “The Importance of the Devils Kitchen Archaeological Site”.
The talks will be followed by a panel discussion/question and answer session with our speakers. Our conference is dedicated to the life and legacy of Chief Don Ivy. When Chief Ivy was recognized as the Southwestern Oregon Community College’s Distinguished Alumnus in the Spring of 2021, several individuals associated with the Elakha Alliance were in the virtual audience. The idea of hosting an event on the south coast involving Elakha and sense of place conceived. Following Don’s passing in July 2021 we began to plan a conference dedicated to many of the tenets that Chief Ivy lived by, among them recognizing the cultural identity of Native Peoples of the region, supporting education, improving community, and fostering a greater awareness for land stewardship. It’s our intent that those attending will go forward with a better “sense of place”. It is also our hope, that like Don, we will all go out and “think deeply, make an impact, share our knowledge and go on to encourage others to do the same.”
In addition to our speakers, representatives of The Coquille Tribe, Elakha Alliance, South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, and The University of Oregon’s Charleston Marine Life Center will be present in the Hales Center lobby before and after the lecture.
All lectures in the series are free. The final speaker in the series this year will be Dr. Ron Metzger (Southwestern Professor of Earth Sciences) on Saturday, May 21 at 7:00 pm with “The Final Lecture? Oribatid Mites, Conodonts and Musings from Nearly Four Decades in the College Classroom”. Lecture Series Sponsors include DB Western, Southwestern Foundation, The Mill Resort and Casino, and the American Geophysical Union.
For additional information or to submit questions prior to the talk contact Ron Metzger at rmetzger@socc.edu or 541-888-7216.
Coos Bay, OR – Southwestern Oregon Community College’s popular Geology Lecture Series continues for the 2021-22 academic year with the talk “The Health Effects of Air Pollution, Why Do We Care?” by Dr. Tong Zhu, Peking University, at 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, March 8, via Livestream from the college’s website (https://livestream.com/swocc/geology2021-22). Dr Zhu joins us as a speaker in the inaugural year of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) College of Fellows Distinguished Lecture Series.
A Q & A session with the speaker will follow the lecture. Advance questions may be sent to Ron Metzger at: rmetzger@socc.edu.
Dr. Tong Zhu is the Dean and Cheung Kong Chair Professor at College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, and the director of Environmental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China. Dr. Zhu earned his BS and MS degrees from Peking University and doctorate from Wuppertal University, Germany. Dr. Zhu’s major research areas are atmospheric chemistry and environmental health. He has been Primary Investigator on more than 20 National Natural Science Foundation of China and Ministry of Science and Technology of China projects. He was elected as an AGU fellow in 2019 and has been serving as a consular of the State Council, People’s Republic of China since 2020, and a member of AGU board of directors since 2019. Dr. Zhu has broad research interests and has published more than 350 peer-reviewed papers, covering Megacity and Regional Air Pollution, Fundamental Atmospheric Chemistry and Global Biogeochemistry, Health Effects of Environmental Pollution in many of the leading scientific journals. Several of his publications received wide media attention in the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Chemical & Engineering News, Guardian, Reuters, BBC News, ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News.
The focus of Dr. Zhu’s talk involves the fact that annually, 4.2 million deaths around the globe are attributed to the exposure to ambient air pollution. Good air quality is thus essential for human health and the environment, and critical to achieve the UN 2030 Sustainability Development Goal (SDG) 3: Good Health and Well-being. Additionally, the improvement of global air quality can also help achieve other SDGs, such as SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy, SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, and SDG 13: Climate Action. Due to the complex variables and processes involved, formulating air pollution control policies is a complicated challenge. The fundamental understanding of the formation of air pollution, as well as tools to understand air quality, including online monitoring networks and numerical model simulations, are essential in improving global air quality.
All lectures in the series are free and are archived for later viewing. Future talks for Spring 2022 (available via Livestream, stay tuned for updates on whether we will also be before a live audience) include a conference Honoring the Life and Legacy of Chief Don Ivy that focuses on Relationships Between Elakha (Sea Otter) and a Sense of Place on Oregon’s South Coast. Speakers currently scheduled include Dr. Roberta Hall (OSU), Bob Bailey (Elakha Alliance), Dr. Loren Davis (OSU), and Dr. William Robbins (OSU). The conference will be looking at the history of Elakha, Native American history and a “sense of place” revolving around Oregon’s south coast. The final speaker in the series this year will be Dr. Ron Metzger, Professor of Earth Sciences at Southwestern, on Saturday, May 21 at 7:00 pm with “The Final Lecture? Oribatid Mites, Conodonts, and Musings from Nearly Four Decades in the College Classroom.”
Lecture Series Sponsors include DB Western, the Southwestern Foundation, The Mill Casino & Resort, and the American Geophysical Union. For additional information or to submit questions prior to the talk contact Ron Metzger at rmetzger@socc.edu or 541-888-7216.
Coos Bay, OR – Coos Bay, OR – Southwestern Oregon Community College’s popular Geology Lecture Series continues for the 2021-22 academic year with a series of talks covering “Relationships Between Elakha (Sea Otter) and a Sense of Place on Oregon’s South Coast” a conference honoring the life and legacy of Chief Don Ivy. Join us on Saturday, April 16, 2022 from 1:00 to 4:00 pm. At the time of this news release we expect to be live in the Hales Center for the Performing Arts on the Coos Bay campus and also streaming via Livestream at the college website (
