AN OPEN INVITATION TO ACS Faculty to attend the POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWS-MENTORS CONFERENCE

Please mark your calendars for June 1-4, 2010, when the first annual Post-Doctoral Fellows-Mentors conference will be graciously hosted by Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. The conference is designed for all Environmental Postdoc Fellows and their Mentors, but we welcome all interested ACS environmental faculty. One conference goal is to bring Fellows together with peers and faculty and give them opportunities to learn more about interdisciplinary pedagogy, to make connections between research and teaching, and to share research. Another major goal is to fine tune the Postdoc Fellows program and improve it for next year and for the second round of Fellows (2011-2013).

Please plan to arrive by around 4pm on June 1st in order to participate in our field trip to Bracken Bat Cave, where we will watch thousands of bats leave the cave at sunset. As Bat Conservation International describes it:
“First, a few bold bats fly up from the cave's dark entrance. The trickle becomes a flood as more high-speed flyers corkscrew upwards. The vortex of bats looks almost like a single organism as it gains speed on its way upward. Countless wings spread a whispered flutter and the hint of a breeze over the landscape. By dawn, Bracken's colony alone will have consumed some 200 tons of flying insects, many of them pests that wreak millions of dollars in damage on the region's corn and cotton crops. Witnessing an evening emergence of the Bracken bat colony is an unforgettable experience. Nothing compares for demonstrating the magic of bats.” (more at  http://www.batcon.org/index.php/get-involved/visit-a-bat-location/bracken-bat-cave.html)

Missions Tour Field Trip

We will take a walking tour along the San Antonio River to visit the historic missions (which include the Alamo).
In addition to a fascinating piece of history, the region is undergoing extensive environmental restoration as the
Mission Reach Ecosystem Restoration Project is recreating the riparian habitat along almost fourteen miles of river
through the center of San Antonio.

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS!  

The conference is still in the planning stages, and ACS solicits your participation in making the agenda the best it can be. IF YOU ARE WILLING TO PRESENT YOUR RESEARCH OR BE PART OF ANY OF THE TOPICS BELOW, ACS WILL COVER YOUR TRAVEL AND HOTEL.

Below are some possible agenda items.

1. Keynote speaker
   
2. A talk from TU’s academic dean Michael Fischer --confirmed
   
3. Qualitative evaluation of the program (open discussions and anonymous surveys on the process itself, lessons learned, and suggestions for the next flight of Fellows-Mentors)
   
4. Panel on interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity
   
5. Davidson faculty discuss their ES intro and capstone courses --confirmed
   
6. Outside speaker on interdisciplinarity and/or learning and pedagogy
   
7. Best teaching practices
   
8. Panels to share research
   
9. Session on the ideal intro ES course
   
10. Mentor panel—challenges and best practices
    
11. Panel on careers and the job search, maybe with faculty who have been on search committees, with some emphasis on the complexity of being an interdisciplinary scholar in a discipline-specific job market
    
12. General discussion between/among postdocs, topics such as syllabus sharing, course ideas
    
13. How to communicate and coordinate with faculty from other disciplines
    
14. the incorporation of community-based learning into courses
    
15. balancing your career and the rest of your life
    
16. publishing
17. skills session by Mentors/Postdocs

     

Please contact Elizabeth MacNabb at emacnabb@centre.edu or 859-238-6234 to discuss your possible presentation or for more information.