Daily Skiff

A new energy technology and management minor open to all majors will be brought before the Undergraduate Council for consideration Friday.

Already approved by the College Committee, the minor is an incorporation of the Neeley School of Business, the College of Science and Engineering and the AddRan College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Ken Morgan, associate dean and director of operations for the new Energy Institute, said he is helping to push the minor to be accepted by the Undergraduate Committee.

Morgan described a tentative list of classes students can take to earn the minor. Included are a variety of classes from the business and economics departments and a new geology class, From Prospect to Production, which Morgan said is an overview of the entire process of a drilling company.

"Our hope is that those courses will help some students prepare to be able to study at that level to either get into the petroleum engineering side or the geological management side of a company that is studying the Barnett Shale," Morgan said.

The Barnett Shale is a natural gas deposit, which Morgan said he believes will produce $5 billion to $10 billion a year for the local economy in the form of potential job opportunities and industry expansion.

Richard Hanson, geology department chairman, said the proposed minor would give students a balanced series of courses that could help them in the petroleum industry.

Because there is so much going on in the petroleum career field locally and globally, Hanson said, the addition of the new minor could make students a more competitive and appealing to petroleum businesses.

Andrew Schoolmaster, dean of AddRan, said AddRan is involved with the proposition because economics majors are one of the groups being targeted as candidates for taking up the new minor because of their background with supply and demand analysis.

"The minor is a really good example of a new interdisciplinary program responding to some of the market needs in the area driven by the Barnett Shale and its development here in Fort Worth," Schoolmaster said.

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