J. Mark Erickson
Geology University Fellows Endowment Fund
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At the St. Lawrence Geology Alumni gathering at GSA in Houston on October 5th, 2008, we caught Mark off guard with a card that announced the creation of the J. Mark Erickson Fellowship for Geology. This fellowship will benefit future geology students and preserve Mark's legacy of undergraduate research in geology at St. Lawrence University.
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The fund was formally established with the university's Office of Major Gifts in October 2009. Below is the first paragraph of the fund language and the complete fund language can be found here.
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The Dr. J. Mark Erickson Geology University Fellows Endowment was established in 2008 through the generosity of alumni, family, and friends to support the University Fellows program at St. Lawrence University in honor of Professor of Geology, Dr. J. Mark Erickson. The friends of geology that gathered to establish this fund wish to acknowledge Dr. Erickson’s legacy of passionate teaching and dedication and commitment to students by endowing a University Fellowship in his name and honor. The University fellow selected should embody the characteristics that make Dr. Erickson so special to this community—passion for learning both in and out of the classroom and loyalty to fellow students and associates.
Since 2008 when we first started working on the fund, many donations have been made through the efforts of the University and Alumni. In February 2010, the St. Lawrence University Geology Alumni Council's Erickson Fellowship Committee kicked off the fundraising campaign with an email to alums. It is our hope that the many alumni and friends of Geology at SLU will come together to honor Mark and support future generations of geology students at St. Lawrence.
The April 2011 Edition of Momentum, the University's publication about "Momentum St. Lawrence," featured 2 articles related to the Geology Department. One was about the Dr. J. Mark Erickson Geology University Fellows Endowment and its formation and the other on the "Involving Students in Faculty Research Programs: Examples from the Geology Department" seminar given at the celebration to the end the campaign.
Student Recipients of the J. Mark Erickson Geology University Fellows Endowment Fund
2011 – Bonnie Govoni '13 "Calcareous Green Algae and Carbonate Sediment Production in (sub)Tropical Lagoons, San Salvador Isolated Platform, Bahamas" Mentor: Antun Husinec
2012 – Peter Christoffersen '13 "Zircon Dating as a Tool to Assess the Age and Timing of Geologic Events in the Adirondack Lowlands" Mentor: David Kratzmann
2013 - Michelle Goldberg ’14 "Carbonite Sediment Production in Discovery Bay, Jamaica" Mentor: Antun Husinec
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2013 - Bryn Keenhold '14 "Reconstructing Storminess: Mire-core Analyses, Adirondacks, New York " Mentor: Alexander Stewart
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2014 - Joseph Barns '15 "Ordovician Greenhouse to Icehouse Transition: A Case Study from the Red River Formation, Williston Basin"
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2014 - Paxton Rountree-Jablin '15 "Geologic Investigation of the Adirondack High Peaks Region through Landslide
Exposures"
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2015 - Cullen LaPointe '16 "Hamilton Fauna, Actinopteria: A Study of Evolution and Stasis" Mentor: Judith Nagel-Myers
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2015 - Jacob Montefusco '17 "Understanding hydrocarbon reservoir architecture and heterogeneity of the Red River Formation in the Williston Basin" Mentor: Antun Husinec
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2016 - Alexandria Cerpovicz '17 "Magnetic Susceptibility Profiles as a Tool for Correlation: A Case Study from the Upper Ordovician Red River Formation, Williston Basin" Mentor: Antun Husinec
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2016 - Helen Eifert '18 "Using Tree Rings to Evaluate an Active Mass-Wasting Site Affecting a Remote Section of the Richardson Highway Near Tonsina, Alaska" Mentor: Alexander Stewart
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2016 - Lisa Grohn '17 "Project Title: Geochemistry of Gabbroic Dikes and Tectonic Implications for the Snowbird Tectonic Zone, Nunavut, Canada" Mentor: Jeff Chiarenzelli
2017 - Lukas Harvey '18 - "Facies, depositional environments and sea-level trends within the Upper Ordovician Stony Mountain Formation, Westrn North Dakota" Mentor: Antun Husinec
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2017- Margaret S. Musser '18 "Glacial Geomorphology of the Gigjkull Proglacial Landscape: Quantifying Landscape Change Following a Catastrophic Glacial Outburst Flood in Iceland (2010)" Mentor: Antun Husinec
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2017 - John St Denny "Deciphering Deformation Conditions Along the Carthage-Colton Mylonite Zone, NW Adirondacks, Based on Feldspar Microstructures. Mentor: Erkan Toraman
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2018 - Liam F. Blake '19 - "Modern Carbonate Sediment Distribution Patterns in Shallow Tropical Lagoons, Roatan Island, Honduras" Mentor: Antun Husinec
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2018 - Sandra L. Walser '20 - "Earthquake-Rotated Gravestones as a Means of Assessing Intensity and Source Mechanisms for the 1994 Massena-Cornwall Earthquake" Mentor: Alexander Stewart
2019 - Cory Couture ‘20 - "Analyzing the Temporal Progression of Heavy Metal Contamination in Bivalves from Black Lake, NY"
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2019 - Calum Perry ‘20 - "Revealing Erosion Rates at Select Locales on the SLU Campus Using Tree-ring Science"
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2019 - Oscar Wilkerson ‘20 - "Drones in Tropical Shallow-Marine Environment Studies: Benthic Habitat and Facies Maps, Jamaica"
2020 - Claire Bartlett '21 - "Analysis of Course-Woody Debris in Four Adirondack Mountain Catchments: Potential
Implications for Paleoclimate Work" Mentor: Alexander Stewart
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2020 - Krista Walrath ’21 - "How water pH affects shell shape in fresh water bivalves; using morphometrics to compare bivalve shapes from the highlands and lowlands of Northern New York" Mentor: Judith Nagel-Myers
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2022- Caroline Starace ‘23 - “Detailed Documentation of Compositional, Structural, and Petrologic Heterogeneity Within Marcy Anorthosite Massif: A Window in the Genesis of the Adirondack Highlands” Mentor: Sarah Brehm
2022 - Audrey Bowman ‘24 - “Ground-Truthing a Desktop Landslide Model Using Tree Rings Near Glennallen, AK” Mentor: Alexander Stewart
2022 - Nika Husinec ‘23 - "Habitat Distribution and Sediment Composition of Jamaican Winward Lagoons" Mentor: Antun Husinec
2022 - Annabella Kennedy ‘24 - “Using Tree-Ring Science to Evaluate Remote Sensing Landslide Model: Glennallen, Alaska” Mentor: Alexander Stewart
There are Several Ways to Donate
1) Send a check to St. Lawrence University, Annual Giving & Laurentian Engagement, 23 Romoda Drive, Canton, NY 13617 with a letter indicating your gift is for the Dr. J. Mark Erickson Geology University Fellows Endowment.
2) Online at: http://www.stlawu.edu/onlinegift and in the "honor" section write "Dr. J. Mark Erickson Geology University Fellows Endowment" Then follow up with an email to Kim Hissong at khissong@stlawu.edu
3) Call 1-888-SLU-GIFT (1-888-758-4438) and specify that your Gift is for The Dr. J. Mark Erickson Geology University Fellows Endowment
4) To donate stock or for another type of donation
contact Valerie Ingram, Director of Advancement Services & Stewardship at 315-229-5322 or vingram@stlawu.edu.Your donation to The Dr. J. Mark Erickson Geology University Fellows Endowment is tax deductible.
A donation to an endowed fund is not included in participation numbers for annual giving. The alumni giving rate for the annual fund is often used by foundations and granting agencies in determining awards.
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In recent years, the Geology department has benefited from some of these granting agencies with the purchase of an SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope), XRD (X-ray Diffraction) and part of the money toward an XRF (X-ray fluorescence). To donate to the Alumni Geology Fellowship fund (or another fund) follow the same steps as above and replace with appropriate name.