Department of Ocean and Earth Sciences

Oceanography Students Catching Fish, circa 1980-1989
Oceanography Students Catching Fish, circa 1980-1989

The Department of Ocean and Earth Sciences is one of the departments that make up the College of Sciences at Old Dominion University (ODU). Most of the classes take place in the Oceanography and Physical Sciences Building.

History

Dr. Jacques Zaneveld with Students in Antarctica, 1965
Dr. Jacques Zaneveld with Students in Antarctica, 1965

The oceanography program began as the Oceanography Laboratory in 1960. In 1965, the Institute of Oceanography was established at ODU with Netherlands native Jacques Zaneveld as its first director. Dr. Zaneveld used decommissioned Navy and donated ships on research trips to places such as Antarctica. The first of these, named after Linwood Holton, former governor of Virginia, was used by Hampton Roads researchers on the Chesapeake Bay. The first master’s degree in oceanography was authorized by the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV) in 1968, and the Department of Ocean, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences was established in 1980. In 2002, the department acquired a new vessel, the RV Fay Slover, named for a longtime ODU benefactor. In 2020, the department was renamed Ocean and Earth Sciences.

Resources

  1. Old Dominion University Photographic and Multimedia Collection, Special Collections and University Archives, Perry Library, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, 23529.
  2. ODU Photographic Collection, Old Dominion University Libraries Digital Collections, Old Dominion University Libraries.

References

  1. Bookman, Steven and Jessica Ritchie. Old Dominion University: A Campus History Series.  Arcadia Publishing. Charleston, South Carolina, 2017.
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