EnviroNews
News
from the Department of Integrated Environmental
Welcome to the new EnviroNews website of Bethune-Cookman University! This site will give you, the reader, a look into the activities and accomplishments of the Department of Integrated Environmental Science, its faculty, and its students. I hope that you will check in from time to time to see what we are building here at BCU. And if you find any of it interesting, I hope that you will take part in our activities and programs.
Thanks for stopping by, and Welcome to the Department of Integrated Environmental Science at BCU!
Michael A. Reiter
Chair, IES
Fall '10
IES 2010
IES had its first team meeting last Friday, where the diverse group of IES grad students got the chance to meet each other, be introduced to their faculty, and get a quick lunch. Then, of course, it was up to the lab for a bit of "Summer Cleaning"! That was followed early the next week by a jaunt out to Blue Spring State Park to help finish up a summer project. It was a good start, upon which we will hopefully be able to build effectively. Welcome to the newcomers!
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| The IES grad group, Ver. 2010. From L to R: Rashan Moss, Dr. Mamdouh Nasr (economics), Niraj Ray, Lauren Kiser, Dr. Michael Humphreys (ethics), Cary Bleasdale, and Andrew Kamerosky. Not pictured: Dr. Michael Reiter (playing photographer), Dr. Alexis Brooks-Walter (chasing snails), and Dr. Herbert Thompson (Dean, putting out fires). | (L to R) Niraj, Andrew, Lauren, Rashan, and Cary (trying hard to hide from the camera) taking a break to pose while helping to finish out the summer project at Blue Spring State Park, Orange City FL. |
IES Welcomes Dr. Nasr
IES welcomes Dr. Mamdouh Nasr of Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt as a Fulbright Visiting Professor for the 2010-2011 academic year. Dr. Nasr is Professor of Agricultural Economics and Vice-Dean for Graduate Studies and Research in the Faculty of Agriculture at Ain Shams, where he specializes in Environmental Economics. Dr. Nasr will be teaching environmental and ecological economics courses while he is visiting our campus, and he will also interact with other departments and nearby universities as well as assist with the development and staffing of the new IES programs. We welcome Dr. Nasr and his wife Ulla to the United States and to Daytona Beach, and we look forward to our interactions over the next year.
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| Dr Mamdouh Nasr and his wife Ulla stop for a picture by the university sign on their first day tour of the campus. Welcome to you both! |
Summer '10
Courtney Also Tromping the Globe
Check out the latest exploits of a recent IES research student, Courtney JnBaptiste, at http://www.unil.ch/actu/page42162.html?showActu=1280319518617.xml. Hope you know some French. If not, the picture is still great. Way to do us proud, Courtney.
GlobeTrotter
Dr. Reiter has been hitting the road again lately. First he was off to England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland for the joint BCU - Stetson U. field course he co-teaches titled The Early English Landscape, then to Cairo, Egypt for an ECSC seminar and some consortium work, then to San Antonio TX to chair a session on Curriculum for the UNCF Building Green Institute. On the horizon are Utah (for the Council on Undergraduate Research) and New Hampshire (for the 5th IEA Roundtable on Environmental Systems and Sustainability). A word to the wise: you might want to invest in airline stock right about now.
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| Field course students posing by one of the large avenue gateway stones at Avebury in England. | Rashan Moss, a BCU graduate student in IES, discusses differences between forest restoration plans in Wales and Florida at the Pembrokeshire coast. | BCU and Stetson students checking out the remains of the Roman bathhouse latrine at Chesters Roman Fortress on Hadrian's Wall. |
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| Field course students meeting Solicitor General Mulholand of Scotland. | Dr. Reiter and escort on a tour of Mohamed Ali's Palace, now on the grounds of Ain Shams University in Cairo. | Dr. Reiter's ECSC seminar announcement at Ain Shams University. |
Spring '10
Time for that Next Step
It was Graduation Day here at BCU for two undergrad research students in IES, Courtney JnBaptiste and Rashan Moss. Veterans of the Blue Spring trenches (well, spring runs), they are both using their experience to move on to grad school. Congratulations to the both of you, and we know you will represent IES well in the future.
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| IES research students Rashan Moss (left) and Courtney JnBaptiste (right) with Dr. Reiter shortly after acquiring their newly-earned status as BCU graduates. |
IES Student Movin' On Up
Courtney JnBaptiste, an undergraduate IES research student working with Dr. Reiter on a Mellon Foundation undergraduate research project, has been offered admission and over $30,000 per year to join the Graduate Program of the Department of Biology at MIT beginning September 2010. He will be provided a fellowship or research assistantship each year to cover tuition, stipend, and medical/extended hospitalization insurance. Designed to teach students the research and communication skills required for a successful career as an independent scientist, MIT's Biology graduate program admits students with widely diverse academic and research experiences. Courtney hopes to continue his studies in medicine with an environmental slant.
Congratulations, Courtney; good luck in your future and make us proud!
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| IES research student Courtney JnBaptiste exulting in another successful sampling trip to Blue Spring for his Mellon research project. Or perhaps he knew all along about the MIT offer? |
BCU IES Exposure
Dr. Reiter has recently been informed that his presentation titled "Creating the Department of Integrated Environmental Science at Bethune-Cookman University: Curriculum Design, Program Outcomes, and the Role of Service Learning Research" has been accepted for presentation at the Council on Undergraduate Research's 2010 Annual Conference this June in Ogden UT. The proposals selected represent the work of faculty and administrators across the country and around the world who are engaged in undergraduate research .
IES Student Shines
Rashan Moss, a MS student in IES funded through the Environmental Cooperative Science Center, recently won First Place in the Biology section for his oral presentation at the 17th Annual Florida Georgia Louis Stokes Alliance on Minority Participation (FGLSAMP) Conference held in Tampa, FL February 26-28, 2010. Rashan’s talk, entitled “Changes in the Hydrobiid Community of Blue Spring State Park, Volusia County, Florida”, presented his work on endemic snail populations at one of the IES program's service learning field sites. Jarel Lawrence, a BCU student in Computer Science, also won First Place in the oral presentation competition for his discipline, presenting on “The Creation of a File System Watcher with 32 - Bit Checksum Return”. FGLSAMP is a NSF-funded program to increase the number of minority students who graduate in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math disciplines. Congratulations to both Rashan and Jarel.
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| IES student Rashan Moss (left) and Jarel Lawrence showing off their First Place awards for their presentations at the recent FGLSAMP Conference. |
We're Getting a Visitor!
The IES program has been informed that their Institutional Proposal submitted for the 2010-11 Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence Program received approval from the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. As a result, Dr. Mamdouh Nasr of the Faculty of Agriculture at Ain Shams University in Cairo Egypt will join the IES faculty for the 2010-2011 academic year. Dr. Nasr, an environmental economist, will be boosting the economics of the program while adding an international perspective to both IES and university programs. Ain Shams is also a university interested in joining the international resource management consortium being organized by Dr. Reiter.
Guess we have to clean up the living room now....
Ohh, Ohh, Mexico
Dr. Reiter recently returned from a trip to Ensenada, Mexico and the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California to give seminars and run a short course on the Environmental Cooperative Science Center's coastal resource management method. By all accounts, the effort went well and will hopefully provide a first step in a planned exchange agreement between the two schools as part of a new resource management consortium. The only drawback? Dr. Reiter gave the course and seminars during his Spring Break.
Spring Break in Ensenada? Usually that does not get equated with teaching courses. Dr. Reiter may understand the geography of Spring Break, but perhaps not the sociology?
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| A view of the UABC campus in Ensenada. | How would you like to have this view from the edge of your campus? |
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| UABC students working on model assembly during the short course. | A UABC student presenting the issue submodel his group derived during the workshop. |
IES Reaches a Milestone
The concept at BCU is only three years old, and the department officially only one year old, but with the acquisition of a recent grant the IES Department has now obtained over a half million dollars in external support for its degree programs! Congratulations to all of those who's hard work has made this possible.
Dr. Reiter to Travel Again
After recent stints as Co-Chair of the IEA Roundtables and work at the NCSE conference in Washington DC, Dr. Reiter has learned that he will be taking some trips beyond the country's borders. Dr. Reiter has been invited to give research seminars and run workshops on integrated assessment methods and interdisciplinary program design at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California in Mexico and at Ain Shams University in Egypt this semester. We tried to find Dr. Reiter for a statement, but at the time he was frantically trying to find his passport. Maybe we'll catch him later.
Fall, '09
Maybe Money Does Grow on Trees?
Dr. Reiter was recently informed that IES will receive $50,000 from the USDA as part of the U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station Director’s Initiative, a new effort designed to create research and training opportunities for minority students and researchers in the field of natural resources. Dr. Reiter will use the funding to further develop the new undergraduate and graduate programs in IES. BCU joined Florida A&M University, Hampton University, Southern University, and Tuskegee University as universities selected for support under the program. The IES program will receive two years of support.
Off to DC
Dr. Reiter and a pair of students will be participating in the upcoming Educational Partnership Program conference sponsored by NOAA at Howard University in November. They will be presenting work on converting habitat-scale conceptual resource management models into watershed-scale models by utilizing land use-land cover data. Good Luck!
Opportunities for Masters Work
Due to some effective financial work by the Dean and Department Chair, there are masters research assistantships available for Spring, Summer, or Fall 2010. These assistantships will focus on integrated assessment and ecosystem management strategies for coastal ecosystems, with several potential sites of research focus depending on the needs of the NOAA-sponsored consortium funding the positions. Visit http://www4.cookman.edu/faculty/reiter/opportunities.htm for details.
New Publications
The article and book chapter recently in press are now in print!
Reiter, M. A., M. Saintil, Z. Yang, and D. Pokrajac. 2009. Derivation of a GIS-based watershed-scale conceptual model for the St. Jones River Delaware from habitat-scale conceptual models. J. Environ. Manag. 90:3253-3265.
Reiter, M. A., P. C. Coggins, and M. E. Howse. 2009. Designing an integrated interdisciplinary Environmental Science curriculum using an IRMA chart: An example from Bethune-Cookman University. In: Filho, W. L. ed., Environmental Education, Communication and Sustainability Vol. 31: Sustainability at Universities: Opportunities, Challenges and Trends. Peter Lang Scientific Publishers. Ch. 12, pp 153-162.
http://www4.cookman.edu/faculty/reiter/environews.htm
Last modified 8/30/10
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