Dr. William Kroesser Announces Retirement

May 25, 2001

Dr. F. William “Bill” Kroesser will be retiring from Marshall University in mid August.  Below is a profile of Bill Kroesser in his own words:

I came here in 1974, when the environmental movement was in a growth spurt. I liked the practical applications of theory. Here I found the older students to be a pleasure to work with. They would bring stories about problems at work, and together we would look for academic solutions. I learned so much that I wondered whether I should be paying tuition to my students!

I became interested in environmental problems in 1964 when “scientist and citizen” groups first emerged. These scientists and engineers volunteered to help citizen groups understand and solve problems more complex than those that layman could handle. As environmental regulations proliferated, engineers in industry also needed help, and my avocation came into enough demand to take this job.

The “student-friendly” style of teaching here fit perfectly with the needs in my field. At traditional schools, faculty have a great deal of knowledge, gained by doing research, developing theory, and critiquing work in progress. Presumably, the faculty could provide the theory needed to solve everyday problems faced by students, if they knew what those problems were. But do they know what is going on at a local chemical manufacturing facility, a local analytical laboratory or at a regulatory agency? Yes, they know the traditional problems, and can help with solutions. But in the 1970's, we were rethinking almost every aspect of emissions, environmental quality, and exposure. Also, inflation was changing all of the “rules of thumb” that we had learned. At this institution, I had the equivalent of a spy in industry. I had older, experienced students who could tell me what were the most pressing problems, and what kind of teaching was needed.

Creating those new topics, courses and programs was a daunting task. Almost every environmental problem was new to us, and soon almost every course we created hadn’t existed anywhere in the country until then. It’s hard to teach a new subject, but I could always count on one student in the group to have experience in the subject at hand, and a willingness to share, as long as I would be open to such help and guidance. Then I could apply appropriate theory, and teach the rest of the group.

Each time a course was taught, it was refined, expanded on, and updated based on student comments, guest lecturers, and material from professional society meetings. For you, the student, this means that the courses you choose from have been fine tuned to provide for the needs of West Virginia environmental professionals.

You might want to look at the newest of our courses to see what are emerging issues are today. One growing field is Geographic Information Systems. Environmental agencies are using or planning to use GIS for the retrieval of critical environmental data

Another emerging trend is that many environmental jobs have components of both environmental protection and safety. If you are in either of these programs, you can take courses in the other. We are attempting to coordinate the courses offered in the industrial hygiene and environmental science programs, and I predict that we will see a further integration of these two degrees soon.

Although I’ll be retiring from the University in August, I hope to teach for Marshall occasionally, and perhaps be involved with the program in other ways. I have enjoyed these last 27 years. I will remain in this area, and could help students with ideas for comprehensive projects, career change strategy, and other questions that come up. If you’d like to chat, my e-mail then will be Bill_Kroesser@hotmail.com, and my phone number is in the Charleston phone book.

We want to take this opportunity to thank him for his many contributions to the institution, and wish him much success in his future endeavors.