Perhaps part is the continuing decline of paleontology positions.
When I started at the University of Illinois at Chicago, we had 4 other
faculty in my department and other departments who could be considered
paleontologists (3 VP and a paleobotanist). All have retired
without being replaced. With Dan Blake having retired, there are no
paleontology faculty at UI Urbana-Champaign. That leaves me as the
sole paleontologist in the UI system. - Roy
Roy E. Plotnick
Professor
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Illinois at Chicago
845 W. Taylor St.
Chicago, IL 60607
plotnick@uic.edu
office phone: 312-996-2111 fax:
312-413-2279
lab phone: 312-355-1342
web page:
http://www.uic.edu/~plotnick/plotnick.htm
"The scientific celebrities, forgetting their molluscs and
glacial periods, gossiped about art, while devoting themselves to
oysters and ices with characteristic energy.." -Little Women,
Louisa May Alcott