After a 15-year hiatus, Michigan Technological University in the UP is bringing back its mining engineering program.
Michigan Tech was originally established to train mining engineers for the nearby copper country. But over the years, enrollment dropped and the mining program was suspended in 2004.
John Gierke is the Chair of the Department of Geological Services and Mining Engineering and Sciences at Michigan Tech. He said alumni of the program played a role in it’s return.
“The advocacy of our alumni in mining and the mineral industry and industrial representatives were very demanding that this program was necessary - the demand for mining engineers was going to continue and there are fewer programs around the U.S., so less supply of engineers. And that we really, based on our history, should return it.”
Gierke said while geologists find deposits for possible mining activity, mining engineers plan how to extract deposits from the ground. He says the new program will focus extensively on how to extract minerals with as little environmental impact as possible.