Leaders urge flexibility in new UW energy school
W. DALE NELSON Star-Tribune correspondent | Posted: Friday, August 11, 2006 12:00 am
LARAMIE - The energy school planned by the University of Wyoming must be flexible enough to deal with future changes in the state's energy industry, members of the UW Energy Resources Council were told at their first meeting Thursday.
"Wyoming has more energy resources than just oil and gas," said Myron Allen, UW vice president for academic affairs. "Ten or 15 years from now the array may be different."
State Rep. Tom Lockhart, R-Casper, chairman of the House Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee, said the school "must have flexibility in the design" to be prepared "when things switch from oil and gas to hydrogen or whatever they switch to."
Gov. Dave Freudenthal, who appointed industry officials as seven of the council's nine voting members, urged the board to "think 40 years down the road."
The council was created in this year's legislative session to oversee the energy school, for which the lawmakers appropriated $12.1 million for a two-year period. As one of its first orders of business, the council will conduct a search for a director for the school.
The school will be interdisciplinary, cutting across the seven colleges within the university. Allen said some favored creating a separate college, but he did not favor an institution "that would be isolated from and competing with the other colleges."
In the long range, he said, a building will be needed for the energy school. He estimated the cost of the building at $40 million, to be funded by private support and state matching funds, but said no specific plans had been made.
Preliminary plans for the school envision having high school teachers come to the campus for a year of training in energy-related education, and bringing in non-academics for some of the research and teaching.
Allen said the university was "quite strong in energy-related technology" when he joined the faculty but had weakened by 1993 as major oil companies moved out of the state. "Now we find ourselves building back up," he said, adding that the energy school will help stabilize the situation.
UW President Tom Buchanan, a non-voting member of the board by virtue of his office, said the university currently has "pockets of strength" in the energy field, but they have not been "working together as well as they should have been."
Harold Bergman, director of the university's School and Institute of Environment and Natural Resources, also an ex-officio member, said he hoped for a partnership with the energy school, with the two going "hand in hand."
Voting members in addition to the seven appointed by the governor are Lockhart and Senate energy committee Chairman Bill Hawks, also of Casper, who were named by legislative leaders.
Star-Tribune correspondent W. Dale Nelson can be reached at {M3wdnelson@bresnan.net.