VT College of Science Magazine Summer 2008 | Page 4

Issue No. 5 suMMeR 2008

C o l l e g e

o f

S C i e n C e

M a g a z i n e

2

100

uNcoVEriNg
a cENtury
of learning about
the Earth

Department of Geosciences celebrates 100th
anniversary of the graduation of its first student

Just after the turn of the 20th century, Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute or VPI, as it was formerly known) looked quite different than it does today. There were 728 male students enrolled
in the university in 1904, the year the Department of Geosciences
was born. The site of the present-day Derring Hall was part of a
row of faculty houses. All sciences were taught in one small building that was located at the site of today’s Shanks Hall in the upper
quad. Thomas Watson was hired as professor of geology and mineralogy and thus began a program of study that would eventually
be recognized internationally for its excellence.
iN thE BEgiNNiNg
Watson left the next year, and despite the fact that the science
building almost completely burned in 1905, and the total enrollment at VPI dropped to 477 during World War I, the department
survived thanks to Watson’s replacement, Roy J. Holden. A young
geologist who had just completed his Ph.D., Holden served as a
dedicated and inspiring mentor to all who took geology at VPI for
the next 40 years. Almost single-handedly, he brought the department through the first half of the century.
Even in those early days, being a geology major was not for the
faint of heart. The 1904-05 college catalog lists such mandatory
courses for geology majors as chemical physics, inorganic chemistry, zoology, and French in the first two years, and metallurgy, mineralogy, organic chemistry, petrography, and German in the last two.
In 1907, the department graduated its first major, Joel Watkins, who
later became a prosperous mining entrepreneur. (See page 5).
Watkins and those who followed him in the early years would have
been members of the corps of cadets and enrolled in the “Scientific Department” as it was called. A description for General Geol-