Ecolog: I tried running a comprehensive seminar on ecosystem restoration and management back in the '80's with invited speakers, paying for expensive university facilities, catering, busses, etc., but even though I charged an arm and a leg I still lost money. Too fancy. I though we all did a good job, and feedback was mostly positive. But I wasn't fully satisfied.
I've been trying to re-think how to cover this subject better and more efficiently and economically ever since, and having read several notices about short-courses, I've come to the conclusion that there must be so much talent and experience out there that some of you might care to express ideas and advice about how to structure one that gets the job done such that everybody walks away feeling that it was all worth it and then some. I'm especially interested in the opinion of students. The idea I've been mulling around is that the seminar should be more user-driven and less of a lecture format. I also think we should excise generalities and use specific cases--successes and failures, and to have a clear mission and a firm commitment that when we are through we will have actually moved the ball forward rather than just kicked the can down the road some more. I hope as many of you as possible will let me have it off-list, and I will assemble the responses (except those who don't want their ideas revealed) and post them here when some kind of mass is reached. The "series" part is intended to imply that even though we may reach a plateau of resolution, we will undoubtedly uncover as many peaks to climb as we scale. WT "Restoration is the ultimate test of ecological theory." --J. J. Ewel
