Progress 01/01/08 to 12/31/12
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Fellow #1 has moved away from purely academic pursuits and onto the expansion of a local community action organization he co-created that promotes journalism, events and advocacy programs in the areas of watershed management, local sustainable food systems, art and music. Fellow #2 completed and successfully passed her written and oral comprehensive exams, and completed her proposal and all of her required coursework for her doctoral degree requirements. She is currently working on her dissertation analysis. She formally presented her research at the 18th Annual International Interdisciplinary Conference on the Environment during at the end of June in Portland, Maine. She continues her research with Crown Research Institute Landcare Research and the Integrated Kaipara Harbour Managment Group in Auckland, New Zealand on a study an ecological risk assessment and institutional analysis of the Kaipara Harbour in Northland, NZ. To cover her fourth year of funding, she currently is the Performance and Tracking Fellow with the Office of Sustainability, assisting in green house gas inventories and teaching ENVS 187, Campus Sustainability. Fellow 3 successfully passed her comprehensive exams in March 2012. She attended and presented at a conference in Oxford that explored the equity implications of REDD+ projects. She conducted field work in Kenya from April 2012-December 2013 and presented a working paper on the gender implications of agriculture carbon projects. She is currently working on data analysis and writing up her dissertation, which she hopes to finish by November 15th, 2013. PARTICIPANTS: Fellow #1 has partnered with the Winooski Valley Park District, the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center and the Church Street Marketplace on a summer 2013 stormwater management public relations program to educate the public on different watershed stewardship issues. Fellow #2's student project continues to build upon former collaborations that her advisor, Professor Breck Bowden, formulated when working in New Zealand years ago. Dr. Bowden connected this student with her external additional committee member Suzie Greenhalgh in New Zealand and together they reopened partnerships with the Crown Research Institute Landcare Research in Auckland, New Zealand to conduct a study on the Kaipara Harbour in Northland, NZ. Landcare Research provided office space, resources and connections to schedule interviews and assistance through the data collection process over the summer. Through the interview process, many additional collaborations were formed with indigenous Maori groups, non-profits and private interest groups. Leane Makey, a PhD student at Auckland University and lead coordinator of the Integrated Kaipara Harbour Management Group, provided substantial expertise on the subject matter. Leane Makey and fellow #2 have continued correspondence in validating data and analysis. Fellow #2 has been invited to speak at the Integrated Kaipara Harbour Management's Group first annual conference on the Kaipara Harbor in August of 2013. Fellow #3 has continued to collaborate with The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) which is a strategic partnership of the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR) and the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP). The program is supported by the European Union (EU), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Danish International Development Agency (Danida) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID), with technical support from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). While she was in Kenya she worked with Vi-Agroforestry, a locally based Swedish NGO in Kisumu, Kenya, as well as with the World Agroforestry Center in Nairobi. TARGET AUDIENCES: The Target audience for our graduate fellowship program is students of color or other underrepresented groups interested in becoming leaders in the conservation world. This addressed a national TESA need for both scientific skills and balanced representation of the American population. Workshops in Environmental Problem Solving, Whole Systems Thinking and Critical Thinking were organized by the School specifically for our USDA Fellows, and were opened up to all graduate students in the Rubenstein School. The Environmental Problem Solving workshop followed a transparent problem solving road map, provided understanding for how each problem solving teammate approaches problems (i.e., favoring heuristics, algorithms, or creative problem solving); and identified ways to play to people's strengths. The Whole Systems Thinking workshop provided an introduction to systems approaches to complex systems. Students were introduced to the basic concepts associated with systems dynamics and then provided with examples of systems approaches to natural resource issues. Concept mapping was also introduced as a tool for organizing complexity. The general curriculum and requirements for all students at the Rubenstein School include requirements for courses that address subjects of multiculturalism, diversity, social justice and power and privilege in the Natural Resources field. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.
Impacts
Our linkage with the USDA Multicultural Scholars Program allows us to strengthen the pipeline for graduate students. Our USDA fellowship program has funded stipends and cost of education awards to a total of six Masters and six PhD multicultural fellows graduate students through USDA grants. Almost 10% of our both our graduate and undergraduate populations now identify as multicultural. Thus our overall numbers of students from underrepresented populations have been increased substantially as a result of this and other related funding. We have developed skill workshops in whole systems thinking and critical thinking for the students and will continue to monitor the Scholars' progress and assist them with counseling and appropriate resources to help them be successful in the program. We have worked with the Fellows to better prepare them for employment in academia, government, and the private sector, emphasizing cultural competence, working in non-diverse environments, and critical thinking/problem-solving. Our multicultural graduates from other grants have successfully entered into employment with Federal Agencies and non-profit organizations, and we anticipate the graduates from this program will successfully obtain employment in natural resource fields. We also hope that this program continues to encourage our current undergraduate students to pursue graduate studies, serving as a multicultural pipeline for the natural resource and environmental science disciplines is an ongoing process and the School intends to reapply for additional resources to continue this work. As the students complete their degree and move on to the workforce, their experiences and expertise will contribute to developing a more fully integrated American perspective in environment and natural resource fields.
Publications
- Lee J. Smallholder agricultural carbon projects in Ghana: Benefits, barriers, and institutional arrangements. CCAFS Working Paper no. 30. CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), Copenhagen, Denmark. Available online at: www.ccafs.cgiar.org, 2012.
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Progress 01/01/11 to 12/31/11
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Fellow #1 has discovered the critical importance of social justice and community organizing in ecosystem and watershed efforts. Hence, he has shifted his research from the application of physical principles and methods to biological problems to the social and human parameters of urban agriculture and watersheds. He hypothesizes that no matter what the biophysical landscape may be, the city is ruled by politics, thus by society, thus by people. In this vein, he is working to repopulate his dissertation committee in order to have support of this social side of design, urban agriculture, and urban watersheds. He has completed all of his required coursework and has collected and analyzed the data for his first dissertation paper on urban agriculture in Baltimore. He plans for his remaining two publications to be a white paper on Socially Engaged Ecological Design (SEED) and a case study of SEED in practice. Fellow #2 was accepted as a scholar for the City University of New York's (CUNY) Summer Institute, in conjunction with the Consortium of Universities Advancing Hydrologic Sciences (CUAHSI) working on a collaborative project that aims to quantify human impacts on water resources in the Northeast during the 20th century. Findings were presented at the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco this fall. Her dissertation work focuses on an ecological risk assessment and institutional analysis of Kaipara Harbour in Northland, New Zealand. Recent coursework has included Graduate Teaching Practicum and Ecological Economics, Land Use Policy and Economics and Systems Modeling. She co-taught Ecological Risk Assessment and traveled to New Zealand to collect the majority of her dissertation site-specific data set last summer. She recently passed her proposal defense, completed her final classes in fulfillment of both her PhD coursework and the Graduate Certificate in Ecological Economics and became a student leader in the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics community. Fellow #3 recently completed all her required coursework, taking an advanced qualitative research methods class and an independent study on political ecology. She spent the summer in Ghana working for the Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security program and visited different climate mitigation projects that are working with smallholder farmers. She assisted in collecting information on current status of agricultural mitigation projects and how institutional arrangements and incentives in agricultural mitigation can improve farmer livelihoods in sub-Saharan. She also presented her research at the ISSRM conference in Madison, Wisconsin in June. She successfully defended her proposal and will complete her comprehensive exams before traveling to Kenya to start her field research in April. She co-authored a chapter titled "Designing agricultural mitigation projects for smallholders in developing countries: a comparative analysis" with Jess Newman in Climate Change Mitigation and Agriculture. She will be presenting a paper on the equity implications of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) at a conference in March. PARTICIPANTS: Fellow #1 has been collaborating with the Northeastern Organic Farmers Association (NOFA) to develop workshops on urban ecology and sustainability and, with other fellow graduate students, presented two workshops at the Summer Conference with Animal Power Field Days at UMASS Amherst in August 2011. The workshops entitled "The Cities will Save us: Regenerative Urban Ecology" and "Making Good Food Matter: Strategies for Liberation" focused on integrating agriculture, energy, bioremediation and permaculture in a comprehensive picture for sustainability. Additionally, he has been collaborating with two area elementary schools in their urban agriculture/sustainable schoolyard efforts. Fellow #2's student project builds upon former collaborations that her advisor, Professor Breck Bowden, formulated when working in New Zealand years ago. Dr. Bowden connected this student with her external additional committee member Suzie Greenhalgh in New Zealand and together they reopened partnerships with the Crown Research Institute Landcare Research in Auckland, New Zealand to conduct a study on the Kaipara Harbour in Northland, NZ. Landcare Research provided office space, resources and connections to schedule interviews and assistance through the data collection process over the summer. Through the interview process, many additional collaborations were formed with indigenous Maori groups, non-profits and private interest groups. Leane Makey, a PhD student at Auckland University and lead coordinator of the Integrated Kaipara Harbour Management Group, provided substantial expertise on the subject matter and she and Fellow #2 continue to work closely together with the goal of producing future publications. Fellow #3 has been collaborating with The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) which is a strategic partnership of the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR) and the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP). The program is supported by the European Union (EU), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Danish International Development Agency (Danida) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID), with technical support from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). TARGET AUDIENCES: The Target audience for our graduate fellowship program is students of color or other underrepresented groups interested in becoming leaders in the conservation world. This addressed a national TESA need for both scientific skills and balanced representation of the American population. Workshops in Environmental Problem Solving and Whole Systems Thinking were organized by the School specifically for our USDA Fellows, and were opened up to all graduate students in the Rubenstein School. The Environmental Problem Solving workshop followed a transparent problem solving road map, provided understanding for how each problem solving teammate approaches problems (i.e., favoring heuristics, algorithms, or creative problem solving); and identified ways to play to people's strengths. The Whole Systems Thinking workshop provided an introduction to systems approaches to complex systems. Students were introduced to the basic concepts associated with systems dynamics and then provided with examples of systems approaches to natural resource issues. Concept mapping was also introduced as a tool for organizing complexity. A workshop in Critical Thinking is being developed for this April. The general curriculum and requirements for all students at the Rubenstein School include requirements for courses that address subjects of multiculturalism, diversity, social justice and power and privilege in the Natural Resources field. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.
Impacts
Our linkage with the USDA Multicultural Scholars Program allows us to strengthen the pipeline for graduate students. Our USDA fellowship program is now funding a total of seven graduate students out of a total student population of 110 for a total of more than 6% of our graduate population. Additionally, our undergraduate Scholars program accounts for 2.7% of our undergraduate population (17 out of 633 total). Almost 10% of our undergraduate population and almost 13% of our graduate population now identify as ALANA students. Thus our overall numbers of students from underrepresented populations have been increased substantially as a result of this and other related funding. The fellowship program has, so far, provided funding for six Masters and six PhD multicultural fellows. The multicultural fellows continue to be highlighted in the Rubenstein School Graduate Studies paper brochure and in electronic form distributed to all potential graduate students. The School's web-page continues to focus on the program and profile our current Fellows. We have developed skill workshops in whole systems thinking and critical thinking for the students and will continue to monitor the Scholars' progress and assist them with counseling and appropriate resources to help them be successful in the program. We will work with the Fellows to better prepare them for employment in academia, government, and the private sector, emphasizing cultural competence, working in non-diverse environments, and critical thinking/problem-solving. Our multicultural graduates from other grants have successfully entered into employment with Federal Agencies and non-profit organizations, and we anticipate the graduates from this program will successfully obtain employment in natural resource fields. We also hope that this program continues to encourage our current undergraduate students to pursue graduate studies, serving as a multicultural pipeline for the natural resource and environmental science disciplines is an ongoing process and the School intends to reapply for additional resources to continue this work. As the students complete their degree and move on to the workforce, their experiences and expertise will contribute to developing a more fully integrated American perspective in environment and natural resource fields.
Publications
- Lee, Jean and Newman, Jessica, Designing Agricultural Mitigation Projects for Smallholders in Developing Countries: a Comparative Analysis in Climate Change Mitigation and Agriculture, London: Earthscan, 2011
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Progress 01/01/10 to 12/31/10
Outputs
The fellowship program has provided stipend funding for three multicultural PhD fellows in the field of Watershed and Ecosystem Science. In addition, cost of education funding has been provided to two students to present their research at conferences. Fellow #1 is now finishing his third year and completed his required coursework with Integrating GIS and Statistics. His research investigates multi-functional urban agriculture as a planning priority and explores the multiple functions and benefits of urban agricultural ecosystems. He explores how these benefits can revitalize communities, and how to position urban agriculture as a viable tool for grassroots changemakers and policy makers to use in creating resilient, thriving, and equitable urban ecosystems. Also, he helped found and directs the Ecological Learning Institute (http://ecolearninginstitute.org/) whose mission is community self-determination through ecological design strategies. This grassroots group is dedicated to a social justice vision while utilizing ecological design techniques and principles in partnership with community. Through the integration of community work and academic research, he hopes to push into new innovative territory while keeping relevant to the needs of under-represented, disempowered communities who are disproportionately affected by environmental problems. Recent conference presentations have included Growing Food and Justice For All: Food Justice Movement Conference and Growing Power's National-International Urban and Small Farm Conference, both in Milwaukee, MN. A current paper entitled Urban Agricultural Opportunities: Identifying and Typifying Suitable land for Urban Agriculture is underway. Fellow #2 recently began working on a collaborative project that aims to quantify human impacts on water resources in the Northeast during the 20th century. Findings were presented at the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco this fall. Her dissertation work has focused on the provision of water in an ecosystem services framework in Northland, New Zealand, and she met with her committee members from New Zealand earlier this year. Recent coursework has included Graduate Teaching Practicum and Ecological Economics, which is in fulfillment of a Graduate Certificate in Ecological Economics. Fellow #3 recently changed the original focus of her dissertation project and will pursue a path working on environmental issues in developing countries. She will explore livelihood-related incentives for and trade-offs with carbon sequestration related to agricultural and forest ecosystems in East and West Africa. She conducted preliminary research this past summer while working at the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) office in Nairobi, where she collaborated with the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security Initiative. Here, she visited sites and watersheds to interview locals, including farmers and NGOs. Recent coursework has included a seminar in University Food Systems, a Graduate Teaching Practicum, Community Forestry, Community Participative Research and a course in Food Systems, Society and Policy. PRODUCTS: Development of a database of places to advertise our fellowships has been instrumental in attracting a diverse population of candidates for this and our other USDA NNF grants. The recruitment process for all three of these multicultural fellowships has increased The Rubenstein School's profile and reputation regarding our commitment to diversity in our student population. OUTCOMES: The fellowship program has provided funding for three multicultural Fellows as PhD students at the University of Vermont and funds for research presentation travel. Our doctoral students have developed national and international networks that will both help in the development of their work and connect our program with other potential applicants interested in watershed and ecosystem science. As these students conduct their work in the various settings from urban America to developing countries in Africa, they become role models for other students with whom they interact. In addition, they have made technical presentations in a variety of professional settings that also serves to provide diverse role models for other students. DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: Presentations have recently been made by our fellows at the following conferences *Growing Food and Justice For All: Food Justice Movement Conference, Milwaukee, MN, *Growing Power's National-International Urban and Small Farm Conference, Milwaukee, MN, *American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, CA. Our NNF fellowship programs are highlighted in the Rubenstein School Graduate Studies paper brochure and in electronic form distributed to potential graduate students. A web page (http://www.uvm.edu/rsenr/q=multicultural-fellows) resides on the Schools web-site highlighting the various fellowships and profiling our current Fellows. This complements the development of our School Diversity pages (http://www.uvm.edu/rsenr/q=diversity) that indicate our commitment to diversity in many aspects of the School's activities and reinforce the importance of diversity in the context of planning and management of natural resources and sustainable ecosystems. FUTURE INITIATIVES: We will continue to monitor the Scholars' progress and assist them with counseling and appropriate resources to help them be successful in the program and afterwards in their professional careers. We have regular meetings with our Fellows to give them an opportunity to discuss their progress together and to better prepare them for employment in academia, government, and the private sector. We emphasize cultural competence, working in non-diverse environments, and critical thinking/problem-solving. Planning is underway for a Whole Systems workshop this fall. We are also planning a get-together this year to connect current undergraduate and graduate USDA Multicultural award winners. Building a multicultural pipeline for the natural resource and environmental science disciplines is an ongoing process and the School intends to continue to reapply for additional resources to continue this work.
Impacts
Impacts of this program include creating an increased number of multicultural graduate students in The Rubenstein community who will interact with faculty, graduate student colleagues, and undergraduates, as role models and instructors. We also hope that this program continues to encourage our current undergraduate students to pursue graduate studies through informal mentorship and role models. We will schedule informal activities to get the undergraduate scholars and graduate fellows together. As our students complete their degree and move on to the workforce, their experiences and expertise will contribute to developing a more fully integrated American perspective in environment and natural resource fields.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 01/01/09 to 12/31/09
Outputs
The fellowship program has provided stipend funding for three multicultural PhD fellows in the field of Watershed and Ecosystem Science. In addition, cost of education funding has been provided to one student to present his research at two different conferences. One fellow is now entering his second year of our program and has completed coursework in Computer Aided Drafting and Design, GIS, Agroecology, Ecological Design and Interdisciplinary Methods and Analysis. His research is using a complex systems approach to research the direct links of urban agricultural to socio-cultural function and ecosystem services, including watershed stewardship. Anticipated products include a typology of urban agricultural practice and an urban agriculture site assessment tool. While at the University, he has co-hosted (with UVM's Center for Cultural Pluralism) a presentation entitled Intercultural Competency as a Toolbox for Community Development and Ecological Design, as well as serving as the Co-director of the Ecological Design Guild for the Greenhouse Residential Living Community's curriculum entitled Socially Engaged Ecological Design (SEED). In September 2009, we brought in our two remaining fellows. Our first new fellow attended the University of Iowa, where she studied Geography and Environmental Studies and focused on rural water supply and sanitation issues in India. While completing her Resource Management and Administration Master's degree at Antioch New England, she again worked in rural India, focusing on rainwater harvesting and the relationship between community participation and the quality of harvested water. She held positions at the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the Massachusetts Water Resources Research Center at the University of Massachusetts. She will continue her research in international water resources management at UVM, and has completed coursework in GIS and Statistical Methods. Spring 2010 courses include Policy Analysis, Program Evaluation, Systems Analysis and Strategic Management, and Integrating GIS and Statistics. Her ultimate goal is to be the director of an NGO working on rural water supply and water quality issues in the developing world. Our second new fellow in 2009 obtained her Bachelor's degree in Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology at Columbia University. After a series of internships as an environmental educator with the Audubon Society in Maryland, as an Americorps volunteer at Joshua Tree, and as an intern at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Boston, she returned to graduate school at Duke where she studied the role of palm fruits in the carbon budget of tropical rain forests in Costa Rica. She spent a year working with the Forest Service in Washington State, coordinating a National Visitor Use Monitoring project for the Colville National Forest. The project came in #1 in the country for completion and success. She will take Spring classes in Forest Health and will be working in watersheds at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire for her Ph.D. research. PRODUCTS: Development of a database of places to advertise our fellowships has been instrumental in attracting a diverse population of candidates for this and our other USDA NNF programs - Conservation Leaders and Forest and Ecosystem Health. OUTCOMES: The recruitment process for all three of these multicultural fellowships has increased the Rubenstein School's profile and reputation regarding our commitment to diversity in our student population. The fellowship program has provided funding for three multicultural Fellows as PhD students at the University of Vermont and all the Fellows are progressing toward their degrees. This complements the current cohort of multicultural doctoral students at the Rubenstein School and contributes to the critical mass, both in terms of diversity representation on the campus and efforts to emphasize diversity in curricula and research. The program has created an Advisory group to help to support all aspects of the fellowship experience. This advisory group of Principal Investigators from all three of our USDA grants met in November of this year to discuss student services, the responsibilities of the fellows, marketing, events, and our plans to attend the future NNF meetings. This Advisory group overlaps with the School's Diversity Task Force and contributes to the overall emphasis on diversity at the School. This January 2010, diversity in the curriculum was a specific component of strategic planning at the School's Faculty Retreat. Expansion and cohesion in the diversity component of the undergraduate and graduate curricula was promoted at this meeting. DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: The project PD presented at the 2009 NNF/MSP Project Directors and Beneficiaries Meeting, October 20-21, 2009 ~ Waterfront Centre, Washington DC. meeting: Engaging a Diverse Community of Scholars in Sustainability, Social Justice, and Healthy Ecosystems. In addition, our second year fellow made a presentation at the 2009 North American Biochar conference in Boulder, CO and at the 2009 Northeast Biochar Conference in Amherst, MA, entitled Mycorrhizal inoculated biochar as an active filter in wastewater remediation. He also made a presentation at the 2009 Growing Food and Justice for All Conference entitled, Getting Community Leadership: Making our work ethical, relevant and transformative. Our NNF fellowship programs are highlighted in the Rubenstein School Graduate Studies paper brochure and in electronic form distributed to potential graduate students. A page (http://www.uvm.edu/envnr/Page=welcome/gradpages/student_bios.html) was created on the Schools web-site highlighting the various fellowships and profiling our current Fellows. This complements the development of our School Diversity pages on the web that indicates our commitment to diversity in many aspects of the School's activities and reinforces the importance of diversity in the context of planning and management of natural resources and sustainable ecosystems (http://www.uvm.edu/envnr/Page=diversity/default.html). Graduate Program personnel reply to hundreds of prospective students annually with information that highlights our USDA fellowship programs. FUTURE INITIATIVES: We will continue to monitor the Fellows' progress and assist them with counseling and appropriate resources to help them be successful in the program and afterwards in their professional careers. We have regular meetings with our Fellows to give them an opportunity to discuss their progress together and to better prepare them for employment in academia, government, and the private sector. We emphasize cultural competence, working in non-diverse environments, and critical thinking/problem-solving. Last year, we provided a workshop on Environmental Problem-Solving and will host a cultural competency workshop this winter. We also plan to connect our graduate Fellows with our undergraduate Scholars to promote mentoring and model future possibilities in academic pursuits. We plan to again send a Fellow to the annual MANRRS conference in March 2010 in Orlando, Florida to network and learn about employment opportunities. The School has also initiated a Strategies for Ecology Education, Diversity and Sustainability (SEEDS) chapter at the University of Vermont. We will be developing programming associated with this effort. This is a Program of the Ecological Society of America (http://www.esa.org/seeds/) and should be an important opportunity for out students to network with scientists and identify research opportunities. Building a multicultural pipeline for the natural resource and environmental science disciplines is an ongoing process and the School intends to continue to reapply for additional resources to continue this work.
Impacts
Impacts of this program include creating an increased number of multicultural graduate students in The Rubenstein community who will interact with faculty, graduate student colleagues, and undergraduates, as role models and instructors. We also hope that this program continues to encourage our current undergraduate students to pursue graduate studies through informal mentorship and role models. As the students complete their degree and move on to the workforce, their experiences and expertise will contribute to developing a more fully integrated American perspective in environment and natural resource fields.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 01/01/08 to 12/31/08
Outputs
We have recruited two of our total of three PhD multicultural Fellows in Watershed and Ecosystem Science and are in the process of negotiating with a third. All students were chosen based on their academic history and responses to questions posed about their anticipated career path, past activities and experiences with diversity and equity issues, and their activities relating to conservation, natural resources and the environment. 2008 Fellow #1 came into our program in the Fall of 2008 from a pool of seven applicants. He is a 29-year old Asian fellow with a BA in Environmental Studies and Philosophy and a Masters in Environmental Science, both from Tulane University. In addition to his academic pursuits prior to coming to UVM, he founded and directed several community service organizations and taught both at Tulane as a Visiting lecturer and at many environmental education centers and non-profits. His research since arriving here has focused, in large part, on ecological design technologies, including use of eco-machines to treat household level waste water, as well as the feasibility of using these technologies to capture and reuse phosphorus from urban rivers. Coursework since arriving has included: Interdisciplinary Methods and Analysis, The History and Science of the Eastern U.S. Wilderness, Carbon Neutral Economies, an Environmental Thought and Culture Seminar and Advanced EcoDesign and Living Technologies. In the fall, he is registered for an Alternative Water and Waste Treatment course. He is described by one of his fellow graduate students as "visionary." 2009 Fellow #2: Our second fellow will come to us from Washington State where she has been working as a biological scientist in the Colville National Forest. Her work as forest coordinator for the National Visitor Use Monitoring Project has her coordinating logistics for interview days, holding interviewer trainings and managing a $100,000 budget. Her research there is measuring the effects of extensive off road usage on the Sullivan Lake Ranger District. She holds a BA from Columbia University in Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology and a Masters in Ecological Science and Management from Duke University. As a research assistant for many projects both in the United States and abroad, she has a broad range of experience over the years in projects relating to both the natural and social aspects of environmental issues. While at UVM, her research at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest will begin in May 2010 to examine the relationships among soil cation depletion, plant uptake of nutrients and leaf decomposition, and impacts on corresponding arthropod feeding guilds (decomposers, phloemaphagous, and folivores). In years to come we will propose to expand her research to cross-link Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest with another site, H.J. Andrews in Oregon. PRODUCTS: The recruitment process for this grant and for our previous USDA NNF Multicultural Masters Fellowships in Conservation Leadership, and Forest and Ecosystem Health have substantially increased The Rubenstein School's profile and reputation regarding our commitment to diversity in our student population. Development of a database of places to advertise all the fellowships the School has received has been instrumental in attracting a diverse population of candidates. Along with this database, a web-page has been created on the Schools highlighting the various fellowships and profiling our current Fellows. Also, all our USDA graduate fellows have been highlighted in the Rubenstein School newsletter. A total of six additional students who were identified during our recruitment process for these grants, but who did not receive the fellowship, also enrolled in our School and are funded as regular graduate students under teaching and research assistantships. Thus this fellowship has increased the overall numbers of students from underrepresented populations in our graduate student pool. OUTCOMES: Our first doctoral fellow has spent just under one academic year at the Rubenstein School and is working toward a completed proposal. He has developed networks within the graduate student and faculty community and is developing a project in Baltimore, MD in connection with the NSF supported Baltimore Ecosystem Study. This is a good start to developing his dissertation research. Felix is the first of our doctoral multicultural fellows, and we hope that as we develop more of a critical mass of doctoral students through other fellowship programs (some from NNF) and our general graduate student recruiting efforts, a strong support group of colleagues can be created. Ten multicultural doctoral students are currently enrolled in the School, four of whom are international students. U.S. students including two African Americans, two Hispanic, and two Asian Americans. This is approximately 25% of our total Ph.D. student population. DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES: The fellowship is highlighted in the Rubenstein School Graduate Studies paper brochure and in electronic form distributed to potential graduate students. Updates on the activities of all our scholars are reported upon in the Rubenstein School's monthly print and electronic news. A web-page was created on the Schools web-site highlighting the program and profiling our current Fellows (http://www.uvm.edu/envnr/diversity/Page=DiversityScholarships.html) . The Graduate Program personnel reply to inquiries from prospective students with information that describes our fellowship programs. FUTURE INITIATIVES: We will continue to monitor Fellows' progress and assist them with counseling and provide appropriate resources to help them be successful in the program and afterwards in their professional development and job searches. We have advertised widely for all our fellowships and have a greatly increased number for requests for information about our fellowships. We had a 50% rise in the number of applicants for this fellowship from 2008 to 2009. Building a multicultural pipeline for the natural resource and environmental science disciplines is an ongoing process and the School intends to continue applying for additional resources to continue this work. The Rubenstein School has recently initiated a MANNRS chapter at the University and we will continue to encourage our doctoral, M.S. - level, and undergraduate multicultural scholars to participate in this opportunity as a cohort.
Impacts
The impacts of the project will be to create an increased number of multicultural doctoral students in The Rubenstein community. Also these students will eventually pursue professional careers in the environmental field. This will help diversify an otherwise under-represented population of multicultural Scholars into the Natural Resource and Ecosystem Science Fields and help strengthen a multicultural network of scientists. We also hope that this program continues to encourage our current undergraduate students to pursue graduate studies by providing role models.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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