Meramec professor has passion for his students to give their all
By: PATRICK NIEHAUS
Staff Writer
Professor Carl Campbell of the Science Department at Meramec has a passion for Geology that seems to be second only to his love of teaching.
“I wish I could have done more teaching,” Campbell said
This is so even after more than a decade at Saint Louis Community College, Campbell said.
He currently teaches Geology, Oceanography, Earth Science and Astronomy. He is also the head adviser of the Geology Club.
Campbell has a true passion for teaching and enjoys when the students put their best effort into their projects.
“If you are going to give a presentation, give it with a little enthusiasm,” Campbell said.
Campbell appreciates when students take his class seriously and are actually interested in what they are learning in his classes.
Prior to getting two Master’s Degrees in Geology and Geophysics from the University of Indiana, Campbell had other ambitions.
Like many young adults, he had a plan of what he wanted to do when he graduated Kirkwood High School.
“I wanted to be an M.D.” Campbell said. “I went to college, and I took a few geology classes my junior year and decided I wanted to major in it.”
Dr. Campbell has come a long way since his days at Indiana. He worked in the oil industry, trying to find and explore new spots for drilling in Canada.
“The oil industry doesn’t want PhD’s,” Campbell said. “They’re more useful for research than exploration, which is what I wanted to do. They want people with a Master’s Degree.”
Dr. Campbell worked in the oil industry for most of his professional career, he even owned his own oil company eventually before he left and decided to try teaching.
Another love of Professor Campbell’s is dinosaurs. He has been on digs in Northeastern Montana on several occasions.
“We found a lot of different dinosaurs up there,” Campbell said.
He was even apart of some digs with different partial skeletons that he helped dig up.
“We found T-Rex, a lot of Duckbill’s and Triceratops also,” Campbell said. “The Triceratops were like the cows of the Cretaceous period. They were everywhere. And I just mean everywhere.”
Dr. Campbell has many different stories of times he has been to dig sites and enjoys telling them. He is always available to help in any way with the physical sciences.
