Dear Colleagues - The Officers of the Researchers at Undergraduate Institutions (RUI) Section of the Ecological Society of America would like to draw your attention to three events at the upcoming ESA Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh focused on the challenges and rewards of working as a scientist at a primarily undergraduate institution (PUI). These are:
(1) a workshop on getting a job and maintaining a research program at a PUI (2) the annual RUI section business meeting where you can meet your PUI scientist colleagues (3) a special session on a project newly funded by the NSF to create a network supporting collaborative, multi-site ecological research projects at PUIs (the Ecological Research as Education Network - EREN) Times, locations, and detailed descriptions from the ESA program appear below. We hope to see you at one or more of these events! Romi Burks, RUI Section Chair Laura Altfeld, Chair Elect Laurie Anderson, Past Chair Tuesday, August 3, 2010: 11:30 AM-1:15 PM 414, David L Lawrence Convention Center WK 22 - Arriving, Surviving, and Thriving as an Ecological Educator/Scientist at a Primarily Undergraduate Institution Working as an ecological educator/scientist at a primarily undergraduate institution (PUI) is a rewarding, engaging, and often challenging career path. This workshop, targeted at students, postdocs, and early career faculty, will focus on how to get a job at a PUI and be successful there, with particular emphasis on strategies for maintaining a viable research program. Discussion topics will include all aspects of the early PUI career, from the application process up through successfully balancing teaching, research, and service responsibilities in the PUI environment. Short presentations will be given on these topics by faculty and possibly administrators from PUIs, followed by break-out groups for more informal discussions. Wednesday, August 4, 2010: 12:00 PM-1:00 PM Fayette, Westin ESA Researchers at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions Business Meeting Wednesday, August 4, 2010: 8:00 PM-10:00 PM 308, David L Lawrence Convention Center SS 22 - Collaborative Research at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions: Developing the Ecological Research/Education Network (EREN) for PUIs Now, more than ever, ecologists are being called upon to provide data and insight on international environmental issues such as the influences of climate change on biogeochemical cycles and impacts of urban development and invasive species on ecosystem services. These issues are difficult to address comprehensively through small-scale studies at single sites, yet site-level experiments are often done by ecologists at primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs) because of practical and financial constraints. We propose to develop an ecological data-collection network of PUIs that links research sites together at a national scale. We argue that, through long-term, coordinated data collection, a network of PUI research sites could be used to identify and analyze important regional and national ecological patterns. Scientists with limited research resources may be able to answer broader scientific questions by working together and through cooperation can enhance their contributions to ecological science and environmental policy. In addition, we believe that engaging undergraduates in authentic, large-scale, collaborative projects that use faculty expertise across institutions represents true excellence in science education. We expect our students to emerge from such experiences with an enhanced understanding of geographic connectivity and ecological drivers at multiple scales, and an appreciation of collaboration as a powerful, feasible approach to ecological science. Proposed pilot projects include comparing carbon sequestration and decomposition across sites and effects of urbanization on ecological processes. At this session, EREN representatives will give brief presentations on progress made in network development and invite feedback on how to best further the project. -- Laurie Anderson (Laurel J. Anderson) Associate Professor Department of Botany/Microbiology Ohio Wesleyan University Delaware, OH 43015 740-368-3501 [email protected]
