On the second floor of Alden Hall, surrounded by graphs and maps the size of chalkboards, a gaggle of students convened. They’re from a number of different learning disciplines, some studying geology and some English majors, others even undecided freshmen. No matter their interest, they were all in Alden for the Rock Talks With Ron event, hosted by Geology Club on the evening of Oct. 21.
The event featured President Ron Cole, ’87, presenting his scholarship in geology from his years in the study. Cole had been invited by the Geology Club to give a talk on his experience researching earth processes. He also spoke on how they impact the planet we live on and shared stories from his time in Alaska. It all drew from the joy he feels when teaching, something he had done at Allegheny for 20 years before his time in administrative work.
“What I enjoyed about teaching was the learning part of teaching. In order to be the most effective teacher, we have to really understand systems and the topics. And helping inspire that in students was really inspiring to me.” Cole said in an interview with The Campus.
Parker Dayton, ’28, is a biology major and treasurer for Geology Club. The club strives to bring geologically involved events to campus throughout the year. During the planning stage of a future event, Cole had naturally come up in their conversation because of his background in geology.
“People who go into geology are doing it because they’re passionate about it, so, he’s still, I’m sure, very passionate about it,” Dayton said. “We just started talking about it. We were like, ‘Maybe we can get him to talk about his research. Because I’m sure he’d love to talk about his research.’ So we came up with ‘Rock Talks With Ron.’”
The club had first sent him an email asking if was still interested in sharing his research, which he promptly accepted. The first Rock Talks With Ron, taking place in Spring 2025 with a small group of students, was the inaugural event for Geology Club. Cole was enthusiastic about his participation in the event, emailing them for updates on other events and activities.
“I mean, more than just Rock Talks With Ron, he emails us. He’s like, ‘What’s going on with the Geology Club? I want to hear about it. If I can do more, let me know.’” Dayton continued, “It’s just really awesome, as well, that Allegheny has a president that wants to talk to the student body and wants to be around the student body. He’s kind of a celebrity, so it’s a good way to get people to sort of come into geology even if they’re not super interested in it. ”
Cole brought with him a number of graphs and rock samples, first explaining how tectonic plates shift and rock folds. He then went into a presentation on his time in Alaska with other researchers exploring the Alaska Range suture zone. The presentation ended with Cole inviting all attendees to look at rock samples, some large and some requiring the use of a microscope.
Mia Anderson, ’26, attended the event both because of their fascination with geology and because of their mother, who was a student of Cole during her time at Allegheny. Even though some attendees had less geology knowledge than others, they believe it made for an insightful evening.
“He was able to go back and teach all the fundamentals and was so willing to answer everyone’s questions. I thought that that was really great,” Anderson said. “But I really appreciated hearing about his own experiences being in Alaska and then bringing in those samples and allowing us full access to look at them under the microscope.”
Cole spoke highly of the time he spent researching in Alaska. He had been given support for the trip by different grant agencies, such as the National Geographic Society and the National Science Association, and engaged with students and academics who accompanied him. He went from working on sedimentary basins and volcanoes to large mountain analysis projects. It became interdisciplinary, too, when he used geochemistry tools to accomplish his work.
“Because of that, I started to collaborate with colleagues with world class geochemical laboratories,” Cole said. “For example, my colleague Sun-Lin Chung at the National Taiwan University in Taipei. And others, also, in the U.S. with the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.”
Cole continued, “I mention all that because, for me, the love of science and discovery wasn’t a solo endeavor. It’s sharing ideas and solving problems together, not working in a vacuum. That, to me, is when we had the most fun and the most potential for discovery.”
Anderson believes that events like ‘Rock Talks with Ron’ are significant because of the extracurricular additions they offer to the education offered at Allegheny.
“It costs money to take classes and, if you’re going to be here, you’re going to be doing stuff that’s within your major so that you can graduate.” Anderson continued. “You really don’t have the opportunity to take things that are completely out of left field for what you want to do, so these kind of supplementary classes or fun times to engage with material that isn’t in your major, I think, is really valuable and a lot of what Allegheny preaches.”
In the future, Geology Club plans to hold more events that were previously successful with students. This means more hands-on activities like Rock Talks with Ron, as well as hikes and field trips to the Kamin Science Center, with Dayton herself giving a tour to participants. She hopes that participants of future events will, after attending, understand geology and their environment better than they had before.
“I think, going forward, we want to do more things that people who might not even be into geology are interested in just because what we’re doing is really cool.” Anderson said about the goals of Geology Club events. “Our goal every time people come to a Geology Club event is to leave definitely learning something new and taking something away from it, but understanding the world better and understanding geosciences a little bit better.”
