GMU Department of Environmental Science & Policy

of and

4400 MSN

King Hall,

VA

(703)

Participant observation at Maasai meeting about Amboseli National Park, Kenya, 2012

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Contributors

Editorial staff

soester@gmu.edu

Dr. Chris ecm-parsons@earthlink.net

Writers

Dr. Chris Parsons: Editorial: Teaching by Numbers: The sad rise

of education by "box checking" (Page 4) Dr. Changwoo Ahn: Faculty Article:

Page 6) Richard Groover: Graduate Column: GMU @ Environmental

Symposium of VA (Page 8) Chelsie Romulo: Graduate Essay: GMU Volunteer Student Group

Raises Over $20,000 for Water, Sanitation &

Hygiene Project in the Peruvian Amazon (Page 9) Dr. Ingrid Faculty Article: Meet New ESP Faculty Member: Visseren-Hamakers: International biodiversity governance (Page 10)

Rachel Golden: Graduate Article: Endangered Species Condoms: A great conversation starter (Page 12)

Romaric Moncrieffe Undergraduate Article: Patriot Tree Project

(Page 13) Elly Roland: Graduate Essay: A Home Aquaponics

Adventure (Page 16)

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The sad rise of education by "box checking"

By Dr. Chris Parsons,

Editor “Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”

― both by Albert Einstein A little while ago I got nominated for a university teaching award. The first stage for nomination was a number recommendation from students and colleagues. Check. The finalists would be chosen from this group of nominees by the next stage of evaluation - you submit documents discussing your teaching strategy. All nominees received a copy of the grading rubric for this document - this was literally a series of teaching theory buzz words for which nominees would be scored if they provided evidence of these buzzwords. It didn't matter if your field was not applicable to said buzzwords, it did not matter if you used different methods from those included in the rubric. Use of technology in your teaching got you a lot of points - so those who taught outside of a class room or computer lab setting were immediately at a disadvantage. Innovative and exciting field trips in the natural settings, or imbedding students in communities to study, scored few points compared to use of software or gizmos. There were no categories for issues that science com-municators recognize as being important pillars for science communication - such as cutting-edge studies, relevance to real world problems and concerns, or emotionally engaging with your target audience via methods such as, for example, storytelling or portraying scientific discovery as an intriguing "mystery story". Nowhere in the evaluation process were nominees actually assessed for teaching in a class room. Assessment was purely a box checking exercise for those that could slavishly cover every buzzword in their documentation, regardless whether they used these teaching methods or not. I consider teaching to be more of an art than a science. There are certainly scientific studies which show which methods can be more effective than others, but teaching in front of a class involves many similar skills to a musician or comedian playing in front of an audience. You need to be able to read your audience to be able to engage with them; you need to quickly work out common ground from their reactions and what interests them and what they are under-standing or what confuses them, in order for you to pass on the information you are trying to impart. I often suggest to students that dabbling in the performing arts - amateur dramatics, stand-up comedy and “improv”, debate teams, or even dancing, can greatly aid their teaching skills. It struck me that the teaching evaluation noted above, was a little like reducing the art of teaching to an irrele-vant formula, like assessing the impact of a painting by the number of shades of blue it contained, or a musical composi-tion by the number of middle Cs played. As I said above, there is science behind teaching - some approaches work better than others. For example, "experiential learning" with hands on exercises or immersive experiences can help students to better understand mate-rials - for example photographs of rain forest in text books is no substitute for a student to actually walk through one and see the complexity of the layers of the rainforest canopy, the feel the temperature and humidity and to see and hear the vast number of species living in such a habitat. But as I said above, teaching experiences such as this would have given you zero points in the teaching evaluation rubric. It was like a court case where the case is judged purely on statements by the accused, without any requirement for evidence. Evidence of teaching success (from class evaluation scores or student interviews or comments) was not part of the evaluation process.

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Evidence of teaching success should be part of the teaching evaluation procedure. This is somewhat a contro-versial subject in many schools where evaluations are made purely on scores students obtain - scores based on rote learning of facts, rather than how much students have improved; or whether they have been encouraged to innovate, develop unique arguments or think critically for themselves. But assessing students by rote-learnt standardized tests is easy. If faculty are given credit for teaching by the administration it is more likely be in relation to the number of students that they can cram into a classroom, or in other words, the amount of profit they can earn by increasing tuition credits per salaried faculty member. In large classes, the ability for faculty to test understanding true understanding of a subject verses memorization of what basically amounts to memorizing facts, figures or "subject trivia" becomes much more onerous. It's difficult, if not impossible, to have a discussion session about complex issues that involves every student in a class of 300 students. Essay papers that could test whether students can pull together information from varied sources, or to develop coherent and critical arguments Reliance on standardized tests for acceptance into graduate programs is particularly problematic when it comes to students for whom English is not their first language. These students are particularly marginalized as they don’t un-derstand the subtleties and nuances of the English language. I have a student from a developing country for whom Eng-lish is their third language, but despite their brilliance as a scientist and conservation practitioner, they were almost re-jected from our graduate program because of a marginal GRE score in English. Truly exceptional individuals may perform badly at standardized tests as they can see answers and patterns that others cannot see. Early in my teaching career I once used a “test bank” of questions provided by a textbook publisher. I noticed that one of my brightest students performed badly in the test and going through the answers with her I realized that the questions were over-simplifying and “dumbing down” a complex subject, and that they were correct, but the test book questions were wrong. Frequently, exceptional students have to try to interpret what the testers consider to be the correct answer, rather than the factually correct one. I’ve certainly found that several times that I’ve tried to get inside of the head of the examiner Einstein performed poorly in several standardized tests during his education. Studies have shown that standardized tests like SATs really aren’t really good predictors of ability when it comes to college students – their subject grades are a much better evaluator of academic ability, because unsurprisingly they evaluate students across skills over a period of time, and not just a snap shot. Standardized tests are increasingly being criticized by educators. They are often in place more for the benefits of administrators than educators. The insistence of standardized tests scores by many universities is more related to financial kickbacks from testing companies and “best college” evaluations that use standardized scores in their formulae. Although standardized math/English scores can give you a general idea of competence, tests that are on individ-ual subjects are better, GPAs better again, and specifically designed essay exams better still. There is a very good reason why Oxford and Cambridge don’t use standardized tests (or even subject grades) to pick the students they really want but rather are going back to their essay-based exams that often require students to think critically and “outside of the box” because of frustration at Oxford University’s Director of Admissions justified their approach by saying: “‘the idea is basically to check whether the student can take knowledge that they should have and apply it to new material, rather than having learnt a particular formula and then just regurgitating it” (quote from this article). My students don’t realize it, but their final exams are usually based on the structure of Oxford and Cambridge exams as these really let the crea-tive and innovative students really show what they know and think, whilst penalizing those students that try to do the bare minimum. Most teachers know the latter type of student, the ones who are constantly asking “will this be on the test?” Albert Einstein is quoted as saying “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid” and there is a danger that standardized tests can pigeon hole students into categories and miss many important skills and talents. Painting by numbers does not produce great art, neither does teaching by numbers.

Dr. Chris Parsons is an associate professor and director of the undergraduate program in the Department of Envi-ronmental Science & Policy. He’s a Governor of the Society for Conservation Biology and a writer for the leading marine science blog Southern Fried Science.

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Ecologists study many types of ecosystems for their patterns and processes to understand ecosystem functions that are critical to create, maintain, and deliver ecosystem services. They learn and report how nature works through their both obser-vational and experimental works that involve in a variety of field conditions and settings. They are often further driven to work with engineers, landscape architects, and/or restoration practitioners to tease out a piece of knowledge that may involve mimicking natural patterns and processes (Benyus, 1997) in designing human infrastructure for sustainability. It is not much different in the works of artists, especially eco-artists who are interested and concerned about local and global environmental conditions, and who take their art-making to creating and providing functional insights and solutions to real-world problems. Both approaches from ecologists and eco-artists are intended to improve the human relationship with the natural world. Ecologists and eco-artists often work on the same topic that is about the relationship between “structure and function”, which is a critical part of both studying and creating ecosystems and eco-art product and experience. Understanding science or scientific processes are neces-sary for artists to design functional processes, systems, and landscapes that provide socio-economically valuable solutions for challenges of sustainability we face these days. Ecosystem scientist’s laboratory, both indoor and outdoor, is not much differ-ent from the artist’s studio where open-ended inquiries constantly occur by a feedback loop between thinking and doing (Maeda, 2013). I created a new initiative called “EcoScience + Art” at George Mason University in 2013. The initiative supports student-faculty and faculty-faculty interactions across the campus, while bringing the environmental sciences, arts, engineering, and humanities together with the intention of finding an innovative approach for college general education and university research. I found and approached a professor from School of Art who was an eco-artist himself and has taught ecoart class on the cam-pus. Not long after we found our mutual interests and collaboration in the initiative and that is how the EcoScience + Art start-ed. The main goal of the initiative is to provide students with an opportunity to experience, learn, and actively participate in creative interdisciplinary activities of education and scholarship that can come up with sustainable solutions for Mason. The fundamental idea is about collaborations between scientists and artists at both faculty and student levels that can result in re-search projects, pedagogical innovation, and learning experiences on the campus. Furthermore, the EcoScience + Art intends to bring together individuals working across the boundaries of ecosystem science, ecological restoration, the arts, engineering, and sustainability to provide not only Mason, but surrounding communities with the opportunity to share knowledge, under-standing, and discussion concerning the pressing environmental and cultural issues we face in the pursuit of a sustainable fu-ture. A website for EcoScience + Art was and has served the community by providing useful resources, promoting events, and providing a venue for conversation in the effort to design a sustainable campus. Speaker series The EcoSciece + Art initiative started as a speaker series which introduce innovative, original, and pioneering figures of the boundary of arts and ecological sciences to students and faculty to motivate and inspire their creative collaboration. The speaker series was also designed to bring together professionals working locally in the interdisciplinary area. We all know how challenging it is often to create and conduct interdisciplinary projects. The attempts for interdisciplinary efforts often drain out

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EcoScience + Art Initiative

By Dr. Changwoo Ahn, GMU ESP Associate Professor

Learn more about EcoScience + Art

Website: http://ecoscienceplusart.wordpress.com/

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without structural and systemic support and encouragement from the administration. To host a speaker series I put together a proposal and applied for University Life Programming Fund which promote faculty/staff/student interaction, and increase col-laboration across units within the university. The fund covered honorarium and travel costs for a speaker as well as a small mis-cellaneous cost for the event, including some foods for a reception. The speaker series is open to public. In designing the sub-ject matter for speaker series, scientific methods and artistic design are considered in ecosystem restoration projects, including discussion on potential green infrastructure and environmentally-friendly developments on and off campus. During and after each seminar, I had participants fill out a questionnaire to figure out their backgrounds and opinions about the initiative and the lecture series. The entire lecture part got also filmed and the media sources were uploaded onto our web blog, a place where students and faculty can express and exchange their opinions and ideas based on what they learn from each seminar. I believe this encourages further discussion on ideas and approaches that will become education resources to design more inter-disciplinary courses and sustainable living on the campus. The inaugural event and seminar was during the fall semester for 2013, and successful with a pioneer eco-artist, Patri-cia Johanson with her talk titled “Art, Ecology, and Infrastructure”. Attendance and participation of faculty and student came from a number of different disciplines across the campus, including art, biology, environmental science, civil engineering, cul-tural studies, communication, film and media studies, women studies to a name a few. Patricia Johanson’s major projects (Kelly, 2006) combine art, ecology, landscaping, and functional infrastructure. They include Fair Park Lagoon in Dallas (1981-86), a municipal flood basin, and “Endangered Garden”, San Francisco (1987), a transport-storage sewer whose roof provides public access to restored habitats and is part of the Bay Circuit Trail. Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility in Petaluma, California utilizes sequential wetlands to process sewage into recycled water, while framing infrastructure as a public park and homes for local wildlife. “The Draw at Sugar House”, Salt Lake City, incorporates a major highway crossing for Parley’s Trail with a sculp-tural dam, whose floodwalls and spillway recall the Mormon journey through Echo Canyon. And “Mary’s Garden” in Scranton, Pennsylvania reclaims mine-scarred land, where water drops through seven levels of underground mines, restoring surface flow and providing geothermal energy, storm water treatment, restored ecological communities, and sculpture, within the con-text of a public park (Kelly, 2006). Johanson’s work shows how art can enhance a large-scale industrial project. Since the 1960s Johanson has lent an artistic perspective to such facilities as water treatment systems, municipal flood basins and sewers in Utah, California, Texas and Pennsylvania (Kelly, 2006). In spring 2014, the initiative hosted the second event with T. Allan Comp (http://www.tallancomp.com/). Prominent in reclamation art literature, the work of historian T. Allan Comp is widely recognized as a model of innovation in multidisciplinary approaches to ecological and cultural revitalization (Reece, 2007). Allan’s first major implementation of his idea took place in a community-based project called AMD & ART in Vintondale, PA (Reece, 2007) and was presented in the seminar. AMD & ART combined community-development, history, public art, and natural resources sciences to create a vital public space in the heart of a community devastated by pre-regulatory coal mining and its environmental and social consequences (Reece, 2007). Moreover, the participation of the college students in the AMD & ART project from all different disciplinary backgrounds was amazing. All the examples presented by two speakers also showed clearly that artists’ involvement in the process of ecological inquiry and research could enhance the application and communication of scientific research outcomes. The Rain Project – a special project under the EcoScience + Art initiative I have very recently designed a project called “The Rain Project” as an experiment and case study of what EcoScience + Art holds for now and the future for college education, scholarship, and service. It is a student participatory project with a pro-ject-based learning approach aiming at developing innovative interdisciplinary education and scholarship. The goal of the pro-ject is to raise awareness of stormwater issues for Mason community that are currently critical, and carry out an interdiscipli-

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The ESP Graduate Student Association (GSA) co-hosted seminars with the ESP Department through-out the spring semester, including ones from Dr. Kristy Lewis on addressing the land-loss fish produc-tion paradox and Dr. Jennifer L. Salerno on diversity, distribution, and dynamics of coral reef bacterial communities across the Hawaiian archipelago. For information on fall seminars, visit http://esp.gmu.edu/news/events/seminars/ once the fall semester begins.

Winners of the ESP GSA Travel Grant for the spring

semester included Amanda Sills, Dana McCoskey, Rachel Golden and Manuela Dal Forno. To view their presentation topics, previous winners and in-formation on the travel grant, visit http://esp.gmu.edu/students/graduate-students/esp-gsa-club/esp-gsa-travel-grant-award-recipients/.

Dr. Changwoo Ahn and ESP students launched a

floating wetland on Mason Pond in May 2015 as part of The Rain Project. Ahn and the students hope to create sustainable stormwater management in the era of climate change.

ESP Graduate Student Sarah Kuppert won the first Mason Science Slam Grand Slam. Kuppert’s presenta-tion, Environmental DNA- detecting species with mo-lecular methods, won against student researchers from different College of Science departments at GMU.

Recent GMU grad Dr. Mike Hallworth won the Best

Doctoral Dissertation Award from the ESP Depart-ment for the Spring 2015 semester. Heather Abra-hams won Best Master’s Thesis. Zachary Combs, Wil-liam Norfolk, Jenell Wlash-Thomas and Joe Villari won the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistantship Awards.

The Office of Sustainability, the Center for Ocean-

Land_Atmosphere Studies, and the College of Sciences at GMU hosted Earth Day Lightning Talks in April, fea-turing several students and faculty from ESP.

By Richard Groover,

GMU PhD Candidate

George Mason University and the Department of Environmental Science and Policy had an important roles in the Virginia Academy of Science Symposium (VAS), “The State of Virginia’s Environment.” Dr. Chris Jones, Director of the Potomac Environmental Research and Ed-ucation Center, provided a presentation on Water Quality in Virginia. Recent GMU ESP graduate Dr. Jennifer Sevin presented on amphibians. Both are recognized experts in their fields of study. The symposium occurred May 21, 2015, at James Madison University. Other speakers from other Virginia universities or colleges covered the topics of air quality, mammals, insects, birds, plants, forests, Central Virginia rivers, mollusks, geology, reptiles, fish, tidal wetlands, oceans and marine environments, and land use. Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Molly Ward was a fea-tured speaker. This Symposium provides an important look at much of Virginia’s environment. It is a great summary, a snapshot of where these disciplines are today, and a baseline for future studies and comparisons. Attendees were encouraged to attend the Annual Virginia Academy of Science Conference the following day, also at James Madison University. For more information about the symposium and future events, contact the VAS headquarters, 804-864-1450.

Campus:

@ Mason

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Six Environmental Science and Policy (ESP) students (three graduate students and three undergraduates) are part of an incredible group at George Mason University called the Amazon Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WaSH) Project. We are preparing for our fourth trip to the Peruvian Amazon this summer to work with the Maijuna (pronounced my-HOON-a) in-digenous group. This year, our team will spend two weeks in the Maijuna communities of Nueva Vida and Puerto Huamán, along the Yanayacu River, to build water filters and conduct sanitation and hygiene workshops in each household. These two communities contain 200 individuals living in 50 households.

Everyone in our group is a volunteer and receives no salary or academic credit for the work. We have been fundrais-ing for about a year and just completed a very successful crowdfund-ing campaign that raised $20,100 - which was 109% of our original goal! Any extra money we have raised will go toward building filters and conducting sanitation and hygiene workshops in the Maijuna vil-lage of San Pablo de Totoya. On April 21st we will also collaborate with the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being (CWB) for a “Well-Being in Action Fundraiser” on the SUB I lawn (rain location is the Gold Room of the Johnson Center). The event will include storytelling, yoga, and tai chi, in addition to the acceptance of donations. The team is led by New Century College (NCC) Professor Mi-chael Gilmore and consists of an interdisciplinary group of 25 under-graduate students, 4 graduate students, and 4 alumni. Dr. Gilmore has been working with the Maijuna for the past 15 years on community-based conservation projects. The Maijuna had expressed to Dr. Gil-more their desire for clean drinking water for the well-being of their children and elders many times over the years. Children and elders in

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Student Group Raised Over $20,000 for Water,

Sanitation & Hygiene Project in Peru

By Chelsie Romulo,

GMU PhD Candidate

The Amazon WaSH Project team. (Photo by Dave Huh)

Gabe Stonebraker, one of The Amazon WaSH Project founding members, giving filter building directions.

(Photo by Mike Gilmore)

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Since I just started as Associate Professor at ESP in Janu-ary, I thought it would be nice to introduce myself to you through GREENovation. In this article, I will present my research program and ongoing projects. My research program focuses on international biodiversi-ty governance. With this, the program studies intergovernmental policies, hybrid (public-private) instruments, and private initiatives relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of natural re-sources. The total of these initiatives is defined as the international biodiversity governance system, and the different types of initia-tives are viewed to contribute in their own unique manner to bio-diversity governance. Since the middle of the 20th century, the international biodiversity governance system has grown increas-ingly complex, with numerous intergovernmental agreements be-ing developed until the early 1990s, and the emergence of an ex-tensive number of hybrid and private initiatives since then. As all of you know, effective biodiversity governance is urgently needed, with many species threatened with extinction, and all ecosystem types having been dramatically transformed by human actions. The research is embedded in the ongoing debates on international environmental regimes and global environmental govern-ance, and is organized around two main theoretical themes, integrative environmental governance, focused on the relationships be-tween different international biodiversity governance instruments, and performance of international biodiversity governance. Since the relationships between different policies and their performance are of course related, the two themes overlap and influence each other, even though they are presented separately here. Empirically, my research currently focuses mainly on partnerships (collaborations be-tween state, market, and/or civil society actors), landscape governance, certification, REDD+1, tourism & conservation, illegal logging, and climate smart agriculture (CSA). While the point of departure of the research is usually at the international level, where internation-al initiatives and trends are born, the research program also includes analyses of their roles and impact in different regional, national and local contexts.

Integrative environmental governance The complexity and fragmentation of global environmental governance has become widely recognized. Over the years, social scientific scholars from different disciplines have discussed regime complexity, with some proposing to embrace it, highlighting the vari-ous contributions different policies can make, and others criticizing regime fragmentation. However, the academic debate on regime fragmentation is itself rather fragmented, with discussions circling around various scientific concepts. Besides the terminology of regime complexity and fragmentation, related concepts include inter-organizational relations, policy networks, environmental policy integration (EPI), coordination, mainstreaming, coherence, integrated management, smart regulation and policy mixes, governance architectures and systems, regime complexes, institutional interaction and interaction management, and metagovernance, just to name a few… (Visseren-Hamakers, forthcoming). The topic of relationships between different policies remains a current theme, not only increasingly discussed by scholars, but also as part of the policy processes themselves, where the call for synergies is increasingly heard. The United Nations Environment Pro-gramme Governing Council has been central in this debate and decided already back in 2002 to enhance synergies and linkages among multilateral environmental agreements. The UN has set up different coordination mechanisms, e.g. on energy, environment and water issues, and especially the conventions working on chemicals, but also the biodiversity-related conventions are taking initiatives to en-hance synergies. These debates among policy practitioners, however, also take place in relative isolation from the scholarly discussions. This first theme of the research program brings together these relatively separated academic and policy debates under the common heading of integrative environmental governance, which is defined as the theories and practices that focus on the relationships between

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Serving as the scientific observer on the Dutch delegation to Con-vention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Parties 10

(Photo courtesy of Ingrid Visseren-Hamakers)

Meet New ESP Faculty Member:

International biodiversity governance

By Ingrid Visseren-Hamakers, GMU ESP Associate Professor

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(1) (environmental) governance instruments, and/or 2) governance systems. Such an overarching integrative environmental governance perspective highlights that the different individual contributions to the literature are actually part of a larger, overarching debate on the relationships between instruments, and enables common insights and lessons learned, thereby furthering the debate theoretically, con-ceptually and empirically. Such a perspective is urgently needed, given the current calls for enabling synergies and addressing trade-offs, and the knowledge gaps on the best ways to do so.

Performance The research under the second research theme, performance, builds on the work by academics studying international environ-mental regimes around the turn of the century, who, among others, performed comparative studies on the effectiveness of different regimes, aiming to find factors explaining this effectiveness. The research under this theme continues this work, as the performance of intergovernmental environmental conventions is still not fully understood, and the regimes themselves have developed since the large-scale evaluations around the turn of the century. The research also looks at the performance of hybrid and private governance instruments. Now that the earliest governance instruments, such as certification systems like the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) have come of age, their performance can be studied, applying the approaches from regime literature. With these analyses, we can further our understanding on what the different types of public, hybrid and private instruments can contribute and what they can’t - insights that are needed to contribute to improving the performance of international biodiversity governance. Interdisciplinary approaches are necessary in these evaluations, since contributions from both the social and natural sciences are required for a comprehensive analysis (Visseren-Hamakers et al., 2012b).

Ongoing research projects All ongoing research was started at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and is being continued in collaboration with differ-ent colleagues there. Research under the integrative environmental governance theme includes different analyses of the relationships between various public, hybrid and private policy instruments, with a strong focus on the relationships of REDD+ with other policy instru-ments (see e.g. De la Plaza Esteban et al., 2014; Ochieng et al., 2013; Somorin et al., 2012; Visseren-Hamakers et al., 2012a). Research under the theme of performance includes evaluations of various policies and governance instruments at the global, national, landscape and local level. Recently finalized research includes analyses of the conservation and livelihood impacts of tourism partnerships in Kenya (Nthiga et al., 2015), and the governance capacity of national forest devolution policy in Vietnam (Dang, 2014). Current research projects include the analysis of sport hunting policy in Uganda (Ochieng et al., 2015), the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture (GACSA) (PhD project of Cinthia Soto), the institutional capacity for forest monitoring in REDD+ (PhD project of Robert Ochieng), and the role of partnerships in the governance of the Amboseli landscape in Kenya (PhD project of Tabitha Mugo). Several research projects are done in collaboration with partners. The research on the institutional capacity for REDD+ forest monitoring is done together with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR); a post-doc project on REDD+ is done in collabo-ration with WWF (Bastos Lima, 2014); and the research on CSA is a collaborative effort with the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. Sev-eral research projects are especially meant to not only have an academic, but also a societal impact, such as the work done through the Working Party on Forest Policy Learning Architectures of the International Union for Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) (Visseren-Hamakers et al. 2013). With this, the research program aims to contribute to enhanced international biodiversity governance, and more effective con-servation and sustainable use of natural resources, not only by doing research on important current social scientific questions on biodi-versity governance, but also by collaborating with scientists from various backgrounds and other partners to make academic research more relevant to policy processes and conservation efforts on the ground.

Looking forward to working with you!

Endnote: 1. REDD+, negotiated under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), formally stands for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degrada-tion in developing countries; and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries.

References: Bastos Lima, M., J. Braña‐Varela, A. Gupta, I.J. Visseren‐Hamakers, T.B. Huyhn, H. Kleymann, M. Belecky. 2014. Promoting Non-carbon Benefits in REDD+ Actions. WWF-Wageningen University Policy Brief No.1. Dang, T.K.P. 2014. The governance capacity of forest land allocation policy in Vietnam. PhD Thesis Wageningen University. De la Plaza Esteban, C., I.J. Visseren-Hamakers, W. De Jong. 2014. The legitimacy of certification standards in climate change governance. Sustainable Development 22: 420-432. Nthiga, R.W., Van der Duim, V.R., Visseren-Hamakers, I.J., Lamers, M. 2015. Tourism-conservation enterprises for community livelihoods and biodiversity conservation in Kenya. Development Southern Africa. Published online. DOI: 10.1080/0376835X.2015.1016217. Ochieng, A., Ahebwa, W.M., Visseren-Hamakers, I.J. 2015. Hunting for conservation? The re-introduction of sport hunting in Uganda examined. In: Van Wijk, J., Van der Duim, R., Lamers, M. (Eds.) Conservation, Development and Tourism in Eastern and Southern Africa: a Dynamic Perspective. Dordrecht, The Netherlands, Springer: 139- 155. Ochieng, R.M., Visseren-Hamakers, I.J., Nketiah, K.S. 2013. Interaction between the FLEGT-VPA and REDD+ in Ghana: Recommendations for interaction management. Forest Policy and Economics 32(0): 32-39. Somorin, O.A., Peach Brown, H.P., Visseren-Hamakers, I.J., Sonwa, D.J., Arts, B., Nkem, J. 2012. The Congo Basis forests in a changing climate: Policy discourses on adaptation and mitigation (REDD+). Global Environmental Change 22(1): 288-298. Visseren-Hamakers, I.J. Forthcoming. Integrative environmental governance: Enhancing governance in the era of synergies. Under review at Current Opinion in Environmental Sus tainability. Visseren-Hamakers, I.J., M. Wang, W. de Jong, B. Cashore. 2013. How can REDD+ foster local livelihoods and rights? Lessons and insights from Peru. Issues and Options Brief. IUFRO Task Force on Forest Governance.

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I finally got them in the mail: a whole box of endangered species condoms.

Free condoms!? Yes, but these are even more exciting. Endangered species condoms are distributed by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), an environmental non-profit group based in Arizona. Condom distribution is part of their population and sustainabil-ity campaign, which focuses on raising awareness of the issue of human population growth. I applaud the CBD in general for this approach; many groups lack the guts to approach this issue in a formal way. Funders tend to shy away from backing population-focused campaigns. Other organizations simply avoid talking about this issue. However, the CBD approaches the problem of human population growth head-on: by sending out endangered species condoms to people like me, a volunteer distributor. What's the angle here? What is the connection between condoms and endan-gered species? Great question. As human population growth accelerates beyond 7 billion, we use more land, natural resources, and energy to keep our own species alive and prosperous. We de-plete the resources required by the millions of other species on the planet to survive. These impacts are not distributed equally across the planet or across species, but they can have a serious influence on species that are already vulnerable. Endangered spe-cies, formally defined in the U.S. as those species listed on the Endangered Species Act, are species whose populations have been compromised and depleted as we know it. By being listed on the ESA, species are afforded special protections; it is illegal to "take" an endangered species, including kill, harm, or disturb the animal or its habitat. As such, the ESA is an incredibly powerful piece of legislation. It has seen many days in court with heated arguments on all sides, from the famous spotted owl debate to the cur-rent controversies surrounding wolves in Yellowstone. Despite the power of the ESA, it still takes the reduction of threats to these species, including resource consumption and human population growth, for the ESA to truly work and for extinction to be prevented. Hence, by helping reduce human population growth rates and not having Amish-level amounts of children, we can do our part to protect endangered species and biodiversity in general. Why do people care enough about endangered species to put them on condom wrappers? Endangered species are special. They have been formally recognized as having lower than historic populations. Many organizations have spent countless hours petitioning to list species, keep species on the list and perhaps upgrade their status to afford additional protec-tions. It may also be argued that endangered species are intrinsically valuable: they are simply important because they exist. Endangered species are possibly on the brink of extinction, so focusing on conserving endangered species with already low populations is one way to avoid species extinction and ultimately achieve the highest goal in conservation biology. Some may argue that the endangered species ap-proach to conservation is simplistic; by focusing on species that are already on the way out, we may be forgoing efforts to save other, more abundant but no less threatened species. However, we are only human. As zoos and aquariums realize, it can be manageable to focus on one species at a time. Breeding, reintroduction, and single-species population monitoring in the wild are all worthy efforts to conserve bio-diversity. But will this be enough? As dozens to hundreds (or more) species become extinct each year, many of them unknown or un-described, will the one-species-at-a-time approach yield efficient benefits for saving species? Will it really allow us to get a hold of the ex-tinction crisis in the age of the Anthropocene? It should be noted that the critical habitat approach to conserving species under the ESA is absolutely vital. By designating critical habitat for a hellbender or a polar bear, the ESA provides protections not only to the individual species, but to the ecosystem on which they depend. Naturally, the surrounding ecosystems also support other critters. Hence, the designation and enforcement of critical habitat pro-

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Endangered Species Condoms:

A great conversation starter

By Rachel Golden, GMU Graduate Student

Endangered Species Condoms, complete with catchy phrase.

(Photo by Rachel Golden)

Continued on page 14

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The Patriot Tree Project is an interactive way to become more in-volved with the ecology of George Mason University. Although the Fairfax campus is becoming increasingly urbanized, there are dozens of both native and ornamental tree species found all over the property in natural and land-scaped settings. I speak from experience when I say that it is easy to miss almost everything interesting about this campus when school and work are the first things on the mind. We want to encourage people to stop looking down and start noticing all the natural beauty that Mason has to offer through the utilization of an informative, self-guided walking tour of our cam-pus trees. Our end goal is to have a map with educational resources and tree descriptions available for use on the Sustainability Office’s website as well as a simplified version of this information available in brochure format for visi-tors to access in the Johnson Center. Since this endeavor was funded through a Patriot Green Fund grant there is potential for the project to evolve to in-clude database information on wildlife interactions, research projects, or for classes in any department to use the resource for teaching and learning. Self-guided walking tour? Will I get lost? One of the most important goals of the Patriot Tree Project is to figure out a way to make this resource as user friendly as possible. Out of all the trees on campus, only trees near walking paths were considered for the self-guided tour. Of these, only about 70 trees will make the final cut and be chosen as representative species for the project. These trees are not only being considered for their natural beauty, but to show the diversity found on the Fairfax campus. Additionally, several of these trees that add value to our campus are close to older buildings that face development pressure in the near future. Each tree on the walking tour will be labeled with a small sign to clearly identify the tree. The sign will include information with the tree’s its common and Latin names, and a symbol to show if it is native. This information will be available for anyone on campus to observe, not just people following the map’s walking tour. In order to further aid in usability, we have separated the trees into three “trails” which loop around the Mason campus. Each trail starts and ends in the Johnson Center. The length of these trails varies in order to encourage both those with limited time as well as those who want a more extended ac-tivity. If one is looking for a real Patriot Tree challenge, we encourage you to walk all three trails in a row!

What are these trails? How long are they? For those wanting a shorter scenic walk with high wildlife sighting potential, the Green Heron Trail will only have about 20 trees. This trail goes around Mason Pond and we encourage those wanting to get the full experience to take some time to do some bird watching or to observe wildflowers in the wetland behind the student apartments that are across from the RAC. The second longest trail we have planned will be the Nature Bridge Trail that goes through President’s Park, takes users for a quick fly-by of the bee hives, and finally ends at the southern entrance of the Johnson Center. My favorite tree, the Chinese chestnut, is located on this path. The most in-depth trail is the Historic Mason Trail. This trail most impressively showcases the functionality that nature can provide to urbanization. When Mason was created, several of these massive trees were already here. Rather than cut them down, it was decided to build around them. Some of these trees are approaching county champion size, a distinction given to the largest tree of its species within Fairfax, and we plan to nominate

:

Patriot Tree Project

By Romaric Moncrieffe, GMU Undergraduate Biology Student

A stop on the Patriot Tree Project walking tour.

(Photo courtesy of Romaric Moncrieffe and Dana

McCoskey)

Continued on page 14

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Graduate Essay (continued from page 9)

Maijuna lands regularly suffer from illnesses due to contami-nated drinking water and unsanitary practices. In some tragic cases, these illnesses have even been fatal. The response of the Amazon WaSH Project has focused on two areas: the construc-tion of biosand water filters and hygiene and sanitation lessons. Each year, we visit different Maijuna communities to help empower them to improve the health and well-being of their communities. Our biosand water filters are a modified version of a design successfully used around the world. The components of the filters are affordable and easily obtained, making the filter a sustainable solution to drinking water prob-lems in remote and economically challenged communities like the Maijuna villages. After an initial trip, we revisit the commu-nity to assess the conditions of the water filters and the general success of our work. During the filter building workshops team members sit down with each household and describe the workings and com-ponents of the filter, and then walk the family members through building the filters themselves. This process not only familiarizes the household with the filter, but also gives them a sense of ownership, which is vital to ensure the family’s trust in the technology. All of the families were extremely grateful and were very proud of the filters that they built. The sanitation and hygiene workshop, held in conjunction with the filter build-ing, teaches concepts such as proper hand-washing techniques, germ transmission, illness prevention measures and proper oral hygiene. Although this may seem like basic information to us, the Maijuna do not have access to proper hygiene and sanita-tion education and for many families this is the first time that they are exposed to this critically important information. Such a unique teaching experience proved to be enriching for the Maijuna, as well as the team members. However, the project’s success was not only due to the team members of the Amazon WaSH Project. The Maijuna work tirelessly alongside the team in a concerted effort to guarantee their best shot at long-term success with the project.

Chelsie Romulo is a PhD candidate in the Environmental Science and Policy Department at GMU. She is a co-project manager for the Amazon WaSH Project. Her dissertation research focuses on sustainable management of aguaje fruit harvest in the Peruvian Amazon.

Graduate Article (continued from page 12)

-tections may have an umbrella effect on the protection of as-sociated organisms. Right, so back to the condoms.... The endangered species condoms are absolutely awe-some. They are bright and colorful and contain fun catch phrases, like:

"Safe intercourse saves the dwarf seahorse" "In the sack? Save the leatherback."

I will be distributing them over the next few weeks to colleagues and peers. So far, I have had some interesting reac-tions and conversations about them. One of my professors was gracious enough to allow me to distribute them to my fellow classmates (...hey we're all adults here). I can pitch them in a few ways, depending on the audience: 1. Simple: free condoms in cute boxes! 2. Intermediate: simple + did you know that (insert species) is endangered? Check out the factoids about the species in the box! 3. Advanced: simple + intermediate + let's talk about the connection between exponential population growth and human impacts on endangered species. So far, all of the folks who have received them have been interested enough to get to level 3 of the conversation. These condoms are a great tool to get people talking about endangered species and human population growth. I wonder how the CBD measures the "impact" of this program. Is it simp-ly measured by the number of condoms distributed? The geo-graphic regions reached? The demographics of the recipients? All in all, I applaud the Center for Biological Diversity for their population campaign and would love to see more pro-grams focused on population in the future.

Rachel Golden is a first year Ph.D. student at in the Environ-mental Science and Public Policy department at George Mason University. She is interested in the effectiveness of conservation interventions, especially protected areas. rachelegolden.com

Undergraduate Article (continued from Page 13)

them to see how they compare.

Where can I learn more? How can I help? If you want to become more involved in the Patriot Tree Project, contact Dana McCoskey at dmccoske@gmu.com.

Romaric Moncrieffe is a Biology student of George Mason University and a work-study research assistant through the OSCAR Office for the Patriot Tree Project. He has a strong interest in ecology, marine wildlife, and ocean acidification. While working on his minor in Applied Conservation, Ro-maric enjoys being a part of the various research programs available at the university.

Learn more about The Amazon WaSH Project

Website: http://amazonwash.gmu.edu

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gmuwash

Twitter: https://twitter.com/gmuwash

Indiegogo Campaign (closed): https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-amazon-water-sanitation-hygiene-project

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Faculty Article (continued from page 7)

-nary education and scholarship. The goal of the project is to raise awareness of stormwater issues for Mason community that are currently critical, and carry out an interdisciplinary year-long (from Fall 2014 through Summer 2015) project by stu-dents and faculty through collaboration among science, engi-neering, arts, and humanities to design and implement green infrastructure (i.e., floating wetland, FW) on the campus pond. We live in an era of climate change and climate change is a story of water, especially rainwater. The water is the way in which people feel the effects of climate change especially through cycles of droughts and floods. Stormwater issues and management along with an urgent need for being a storm-ready community demands our creative solutions with sustain-able water management on the campus. Currently many US cities turn to green initiatives, looking out for some new tech-niques and innovative green infrastructure that mimics the way nature collects and cleanses water. Specific objectives of the Rain Projects are 1) to involve undergraduate students across the campus to build a FW over a year period to improve water quality and stormwater management in Mason ponds, and 2) to form a student leadership group campus-wide to work on varying aspects of the project that require student participation in designing, implementing, documenting, and outreaching activities of the project. The processes of this project will involve several steps in research inquiry and hands-on experiential learning to build a FW. The FW wetlands require structural rigidity with enough buoyancy and sturdiness structurally, yet flexibility that would harness a variety of ecological/biogeochemical processes that should be facilitated to clean the water by removing nutrients (e.g., nitrogen and phosphorus), too much of which often leads to algal bloom and degraded water quality in stormwater ponds. Therefore, artful design can be only functional when it is materialized based upon the understanding of scientific pro-cesses and patterns involved. Each step of the activities of the project is currently being recorded and/or documented during the project to share the experience and information to be learned. The project out-come will test and showcase a new model curriculum incorpo-rating arts, environmental science, and infrastructure engineer-ing as research and scholarship intensive, green course for un-dergraduate capstone experiences that can start in the future semester as earliest (e.g., SP 2016). The course will be a new example and a showcase of project-based curriculum that can be taught with professors from different disciplines that would require a sort of coordination of academic administration. Based on students’ interests the new course can be a platform for self-designed and guided learning experience with a team of faculty members eventually enhancing academic performance. The outcomes of the project may show how to tie activities of education and scholarship to service for campus community, addressing a timely issue of sustainable stormwater manage-

ment in this case. Some students from communication and film/media majors working on the project can also participate in documenting and videotaping major activities and processes during the project to build a ground for community-oriented environmental film and documentary for the university media and beyond. Not only scientific and technical learning out-comes, but also pedagogical and educational ones will be re-viewed and evaluated, and made into peer-reviewed journal publications, which is a critical step for research and scholar-ship experience for undergraduates. I am planning a workshop to share the experience and outcomes of the project with the entire campus and local community after the project gets com-pleted.

Future of the EcoScience + Art initiative I hope that the EcoScience + Art initiative at GMU will continue to grow engaging people working both on and off campus in the boundaries of the ecosystem science and the arts through a variety of events –seminar, exhibits, talks, tours, films, fairs, and more. I envision the initiative will grow to serve the campus and local community by providing useful resources and being the venue for further conversation and discussion of creative ways of education, scholarship, and university service. Once we start talking to one another across the academic boundaries, especially between sciences and arts it would be much easier to be creative in developing new ways of living and designing sustainable future, as well as of educational agenda and pedagogical framework. I look forward to your interests and participation. With the Rain Project on and ahead I am already de-signing the next subject for the initiative, Dirt (soil), the most critical element of life like water (rainwater). The two major elements of life will be explored in a variety of student learning activities continuously through the collaborative efforts be-tween arts and science to seek answers and solutions for big questions our society is facing.

Dr. Changwoo Ahn is the founder and director of EcoSci-ence + Art. He is an Associate Professor in Environmental Science and Policy, and an affiliated faculty member with Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering and Biologyat GMU. He is a wetland ecosystem ecologist and an ecological engineer. He believes that innovation emerg-ing from the interaction of the sciences, engineering, arts, and humanities can transform our learning contexts.

References: Benyus, J. 1997. Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. William Morrow, New York, NY. 308 pp.

Kelly, C. 2006. Arts and Survival: Patricia Johanson’s Environmental Project. Gulf Islands Institute, 180 pp.

Maeda, J. 2013. Artists and Scientists: More Alike than Different. July 11, Scientific American.

Reece, E. 2007. Reclaiming a Toxic Legacy Through Art and Science: Putting art to work. November/December issue, Orion magazine.

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Many people want to both eat healthy and live sustainably.

While there are many different ways to try to obtain those goals,

one I want to talk about is aquaponics. For those, unfamiliar with it,

aquaponics is the marriage of aquaculture (raising fish for food) and

hydroponics (raising plants in water). Taken alone either of these

practices can be environmentally damaging. Hydroponics systems

are usually more efficient than traditional agriculture in space and

water use but it relies entirely on external sources of nutrients,

which usually come from fossil fuels. Fish in aquaculture produce a

lot of waste. This waste is a major source of pollution in open aqua-

culture systems, or a major source of hassle in closed systems. With

the marriage of these two processes the problems of one become

the solution of the other. In aquaponics the fish waste becomes the

nutrients which feed the plants. The inherent efficiency of the sys-

tem intrigued me so much that I decided to try out an aquaponics

unit in my own home. What follows is a chronicle of my aquaponics

adventure.

An aquaponics unit needs 6 things: the tanks, the plumbing

system, the grow medium, bacteria, fish and plants. Since I don't

have a lot of space and am not in the habit of eating fish I decided

that I did not need to raise fish for food. Instead the fish I raise are

pets/decoration for my house. This affected many of my decisions.

Instead of 100+ gallon drums or tubs I used a five-gallon fish tank, a

cooler and some up-cycled plastic juice bottles. Since my system hangs in the window I needed a more powerful pump to

get the water up the 7 feet from the floor to the top of the system. From there the water drains through the plants and

down to the cooler/sump tank. Water pumped from the sump tank splits between the plants and the fish tank. An over-

flow pipe on the fish tank drains excess water from the fish back to the sump tank. Thus the whole system is powered by

one pump on a timer. I did all the plumbing with PVC pipe which won't leech anything into the water and is quite easy to

work with. It did take a bit of trial and error to get the system functioning smoothly and not leaking, since its in my dining

room.

Once the physical system was set up I needed to get the biological system running. The bacteria are the master-

:

The entire system. Blue arrows show the direction of water circulation when the pump is running. Some of the

plumbing is not visible from this angle. (Photo by Elly Roland)

A Home Aquaponics Adventure!

By Elly Roland, GMU Graduate Student

17

minds of the whole system. Nitrifying bacteria convert the ammo-

nia, which is a major waste product of fish, into nitrates which

plants can use. There are many methods of cycling the tank to get

happy colonies of these bacteria. The simplest method is to set up

the tank well under its fish capacity (I started with two guppies)

and let it go. By measuring the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels

I was able to track the growth of the bacteria to know when my

system was cycled and I could add more fish and plants. Since I

made a mistake in sexing one of my guppies I didn't bother adding

more fish since I had a male and a female in the tank already. Soon

there were four. Then each of the two female guppies had about

20 babies, in my 5 gallon tank! Not all the babies survived (some

became snacks for the adult fish). I removed the adult females to

stop the breeding cycle but I still have about 18 maturing fish in my

tank. Since the bacteria and plants are doing their job to filter the

water, the levels of ammonia/nitrates/nitrites in the system are so low I can't measure it with an aquarium test kit.

Not knowing what would grow well we started off the plants of the system with a variety of options. I started a

cherry tomato plant, a bunch of watercress, spinach, kale, basil, and

cilantro. I found that it was simplest to start seeds directly in the aq-

uaponics unit as seedlings don't like the transfer from soil to aqua-

ponics. The cherry tomato took a while to get started, but once it did

it didn't stop. The plant grew 6 feet to the ceiling then curled around

after it ran out of vertical space. It didn't produce a single flower un-

til I started adding phospohric acid to the system (I originally added

the phosphorus to help balance the pH). Then the cherry tomato

produced tons of flowers but only two tomatoes. Eventually I gave

up and killed the thing in favor of more kale. The kale grows happily

and produces something I can eat! The basil grows really well but

has decided to grow HUGE leaves so until I kill it off to make pesto

I'm only harvesting one leaf at a time. However it is one leaf I can

make an entire dish with.

Now that the system is mostly set the only things I add are

fish food and water to replace what evaporates or gets consumed by

the plants. It does use a noticeable amount of electricity to run the pump but the next project can be hooking it up to solar

panels. Any produce I grow in the system is completely organic and pesticide free. As the system is inside it doesn't get any

bugs, so no pest control is necessary. So my system is fairly sustainable and certainly healthy. Additionally it was a great

learning experience and a lot of fun.

Elly Roland is an Environmental Science PhD student at George Mason University. She is studying marine mammals acoustics. She already completed an MS in Environmental Science studying bottlenose dolphin population dynamics.

The fish. This is my tank full of guppies. Despite the higher than recommended number of fish my water is very high

quality. (Photo by Elly Roland)

Monster Basil. This is normal sweet basil. The large size of the leaves is due to the extra nutrients it’s getting. The cilantro is hanging down from above, the basil is growing

from the lower bottle. (Photo by Elly Roland)

GMU Environmental Science & Policy

Graduate Student Association

http://esp.gmu.edu/students/graduate-students/esp-gsa-club/

The ESP-GSA is a GMU organization, open to all graduate students in the ESP de-partment as well as any graduate student interested in environmental science and environmental policy. A membership application can be downloaded from the ESP-GSA website.

ESP-GSA Goals

To foster a sense of community To increase communication within the ESP department and with other GMU

departments To advocate for graduate student interests and concerns To provide a unified voice for members To provide extracurricular activities and have fun! To provide special academic events relevant to student interests To showcase graduate student achievements To foster graduate student and faculty interaction

ESP-GSA Committee 2014-2015 President – Chelsie Romulo (cromulo@gmu.edu) Vice President - Advair Jukar (until Fall 2015) Secretary – Jenell Walsh-Thomas (until Fall 2015) Treasurer – Adrian Dahood-Fritz (until Fall 2015) Social Chair – Vacant (Casey Pehrson starting Fall 2015) Student Representative – Sarah Kuppert (until Fall 2015) General email : espgsa@gmu.edu Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/893164057378986/ Faculty Advisor: Dr. Chris Parsons