As someone who is very familiar with this issue (I am a PSU ERM grad, have taken sufficient soil credits to obtain Professional Soil Scientist certification both with PAPSS and ARCPACS, and have worked in the environmental consulting industry for 16 years), I will give my opinion.  Although I understand Tim's concern and agree with some of what he says, I do not blame the University for doing what it is doing.  If you have a business and you have a service your clientelle are no longer using, would you keep offering that service at a significant cost to your business? 

We are looking at this from the wrong direction.  If we want to maintain high visibility of soil science as a needed and required science, then we need to educate middle school and high school students about the benefits and the need for this science.  In addition and maybe more importantly, we need to push and obtain a professional certification that is needed throughout the PADEP regulatory process.  Although I disagree that you cannot be a project manager without a P.G. or P.E., I do agree that our value is reduced drastically by the fact that a soil scientist is only required for onlot sewage issues and some landfill certification work.  I deal with the issue everyday where I cannot sign a report because groundwater or geology is "interpretted" and therefore a PG must stamp the document.  However, there is no need for a PG to obtain a soil scientist signature for a Phase II ESA, Site Characterization, or other report or permit that is all soils based science. 

Unfortunately the number of soil scientists as a group to fight to put requirements into the PA regulations is very small, and I believe an effort to push for these requirements will be muted by the PGs and PEs.  I have run into this issue at a local level when a soil classification code was put into place.  Initially it stated a Professional Soil Scientist was required to make the call of the type of soils at a site.  However, several PGs pushed the council to get the PG certification added to the ordinance.  Of course they did not want their ability to do the work to be limited.  There are far too many PGs and PEs that will not allow regulations to limit their ability to perform work that they currently can stamp.

 In the end it is money that talks, and as high school graduates talk to professionals in the field and do research on salaries they will find that PEs and PGs make on average $10,000 to $30,000/year more than a soil scientist and PEs and PGs are typically promoted more quickly into management positions.  They will also find that a soil scientist is very limited in what he or she can officially submit to a regulatory agency.  Therefore, if they decide on a natural science or engineering major, they will most likely go to geology or engineering to make sure they have the best career opportunity.

Stephan Levitsky

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Having been a member of PAPSS for over 30 years, former board member, and past President, I wanted to give the membership my thoughts on this issue.  I have had significant dialogue recently with David Sylvia and also have met personally with Dr. Robert Steele, Dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences at Penn State regarding this issue.  Both gentlemen have explained the situation to me and have assured me (as Dr. Sylvia did in his message to PAPSS)  that Penn State will continue to offer the course work necessary to become a professional soil scientist.

Having been in the environmental consulting field for over 30 years, I have employed many soil scientists who had degrees in ERM, agronomy, soil science, etc. The key to their employment and success in consulting was their core coursework in soils, not their major.   In fact, for those of us who have been around for a while, a soil science major at PSU has only been offered for 10 years or so.  Both my degrees from Penn State are in Agronomy and I have not found that to be a problem with advancing in the environmental consulting field.  I supervise and manage professional engineers, professional geologists and many other technical people  on a daily basis as large environmental remediation projects require a team of professional staff.   

I would advocate that members of the PAPSS board meet with Dr. Sylvia about this issue and learn the details of what PSU is contemplating.  I believe you will find him very committed to continue to educate soils professionals in the future to support the needs to PAPSS members and others out there in the business world.