Education, Research and Community
in Tailings Management
The Tailings Center was formed in early 2020 by the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), Colorado State University (CSU), and the University of Arizona (UA) to provide an academic hub for tailings and mine waste education and research that crosses disciplinary boundaries and produces critically needed tailings professionals, recruit top students to tailings and mine waste careers, introduces tailings and mine waste to mining engineers, and advances the tools for environmental stewardship of tailings and mine waste
The Tailings Center has developed six short courses that provide registrants with an understanding of the Fundamentals of Tailings Management. All courses will be offered online, and all content will be available both synchronously and asynchronously. Registrants will have access to the course content for 4 weeks after completion of the course. Courses may be taken individually, or all six courses can be taken in sequence earning a Tailings Center certificate of completion. The target audience for these courses are those who seek additional basic knowledge on tailings management.
The Tailings Center leverages faculty from the three universities and works with industry leaders to develop timely and appropriate education opportunities for practicing professionals and graduate and undergraduate students who have an interest in tailings management. At the graduate level, we incorporate basic and applied research topics that advance the science related to tailings facilities, with a strong focus on reducing risk and sustainable, life-cycle approaches. The Center engages industry stakeholders as members to drive cooperative industry and university education and research agendas.
OUR MEMBERS
TRIO OF MINING INSTITUTIONS
The core of the Tailings Center is faculty from Mines, CSU, and Arizona. These institutions have strong reputations and complementary expertise in the fields of mine waste and tailings management. Mines and Arizona are home to world-class programs in mining engineering; and the premier international conference on the subject, the Tailings & Mine Waste Conference, was founded by CSU in 1978. Other universities are becoming increasingly active in the tailings space internationally, but this is the first coordinated effort to specifically address industry needs in the United States. The Tailings Center will collaborate with the other educational initiatives to the maximum practical extent.
