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 OPENINGS
Dear
students, alumni, and other interested readers, welcome!
It has been a year of changes here at SPEA. As Henk Haitjema alluded
to in the last edition of Environmental Science Report,
SPEA has undergone an organizational transformation. Henk Haitjema
stepped down as chair of the environmental science and policy faculty
last summer, and in the spring headed to Minnesota for a well-deserved
sabbatical. We thank Henk for his many years of remarkable leadership.
Our environmental science programs and SPEA as a whole are the better
for it. The position that Henk held was divided into several more
focused positions. I now convene the environmental science faculty
for discussion and actions related primarily to non-curricular issues.
J.C. Randolph now serves as director of the MSES program and as
the director of our Ph.D. in environmental science program. Flynn
Picardal now coordinates undergraduate efforts in environmental
science and policy. With this reorganization we are well positioned
to focus our efforts on strengthening all of our environmental science,
policy and management programs and creating tighter connections
between them.
We have increased our strengths in several key areas with the addition
of Todd Royer to our faculty. Todd was hired as part of the Commitment
to Excellence Initiative on campus, which we have mentioned in previous
issues. Todd comes to us from Kent State University, where he has
been an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences
since 2003. Todd’s research interests include ecosystem ecology,
aquatic biogeochemistry, nutrient cycling, organic matter dynamics,
spatial scale issues, and ecosystem management. Todd’s teaching
experience to date ranges from limnology and stream biology to aquatic
ecosystem conservation and biogeochemistry of forests. In our next
issue you will hear about another very recent addition to our faculty,
Burney Fischer. On a sadder note of change, in late January
we lost our dear friend and colleague, Dan Willard, following a
lengthy battle with cancer. We were touched to see many of you return
for Dan’s memorial service and to hear the thoughts and memories
of many, many others via e-mail. In this issue we provide a brief
tribute to Dan along with a small subset of your e-mails. Dan touched
many lives in very significant ways, including mine. I will be forever
grateful for the opportunity I had a few years ago to experiment
with co-teaching E272 Introduction to Environmental Science with
Dan in a rather non-traditional way. I learned a great deal from
Dan and had lots of fun doing so and getting to know him better
in the process. Though he is sorely missed, it is comforting to
know that a little bit of Dan lives on in the many of us he touched.
more . . .
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