SEEDS: Newsletter > Volume 4, Issue 2 - March 2006

SEEDS Highlights

Campus Ecology Chapter Highlight: Johnson C. Smith University & Advisor Dr. Joseph Fail, Jr.

The JCSU SEEDS Chapter seeks to generate minority ecologists who will go on to further their education, help their communities through environmental work, and generate new generations of minority ecologists. This attempt consists of three basic ecological efforts which include:

1) SEEDS scholars concentrate on their academic preparation to pursue ecological studies following their undergraduate studies. One way they do this is by ‘infusing ecology into their curriculum.’ In these efforts students keep journals recording their perceptions of connections between their courses and ecological themes; for example the connection between English and African-American literature and nature. By this means, the hope is that ecological thinking will become a mind-set that won’t be later lost. Another way is participation in the ‘Ecology Journal Club’ where papers devoted to ecological themes are discussed.

2) The Chapter seeks to provide SEEDS students with experiences in the field by taking them on weekend field trips to areas of ecological interest. We try to arrange visits to ‘Fail Farm’ – a recovering old cotton farm in Georgia where students spend a night and a day exploring a southern forest and its relation to the impacts of agriculture. We also visit the U.S. Forest Service Experiment Station in Huger, South Carolina where we collect data on growth and recovery of an oak-pine forest since its encounter with Hurricane Hugo in 1989. We are trying to set up a new overnight field experience at the Beidler Old Growth Cypress Forest in central South Carolina. Here we would study a wetland forest and its relation to its unique water source. We also have an arrangement with a local environmental company – Carolina Wetland Services – whereby we send a student over there once per week and they learn hands-on environmental work by assisting professionals with their work, such as restoring wetlands around Charlotte.

In the summer we take our ‘Southeastern Biomes Tour’ to explore the different biomes of the south. We also encourage SEEDS students to apply for summer internships.

It is felt that the most effective tool for teaching about nature is by being in nature and exposing students to nature and that is what these field trips and internship seek to do – provide experiences in nature that are so intense that students never forget them and that bring them back to nature again in their future work.

3) The Chapter seeks to recruit new students in two ways: (1) on campus through the work of SEEDS scholars educating their fellow student biologists of ecological work they are doing; and, (2) by teaching ‘no-holds-barred ecology’ to students at a nearby minority elementary school with the long-term goal of encouraging a mindset of ‘ecological thinking’ in very young students that will perhaps lead to their study of ecology in the future.

Campus Ecology Chapter Advisor: Joseph Fail, Jr., PhD

Dr. Joseph Fail, Jr. teaches botany, ecology, and evolution at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, NC. Dr. Fail is interested in the impacts of humans on nature in agricultural and urban systems, hurricane impacts on forests and their long term recovery from those impacts, and in environmental education of elementary children. Dr. Fail’s interest in ecology and plants was sparked by a botany professor from the University of Marburg, Germany, whom he met during a trip to Europe in 1973. Dr. Fail was amazed that the botanist knew so much, not just about plants, but about interactions within the entire natural system he was working in. It is after this encounter that Dr. Fail decided to try studying botany and plant ecology himself. After earning a Masters Degree from the University of Alabama and a doctorate in Botany from the University of Georgia., he joined the faculty at Johnson C. Smith University in 1989. He has helped to teach “No-holds-barred Ecology” to elementary kids since 1995 and has graduated several students with training in that area. Dr. Fail hopes to write a primer on ecology for non-bio-major students and to stimulate more interest in infusing ecology into elementary education curricula. Dr. Fail became involved with the SEEDS program by offering a proposal to UNCF-ESA/SEEDS about three years ago. The heart of the proposal was an idea to increase the number of minority students studying ecology/environmental science at his school by offering a substantial financial ‘carrot’ to students who would agree to ‘infuse ecology across their curriculum.’ This infusion would lead to a mindset of ecological thinking about academics that would lead both to further work in graduate school and also in the students’ own day-to-day lives. Students would also transfer their ecological thinking to other students through their interaction with them and, by this means, hopefully increase the pool of students thinking about ecology as a course of study. The program has been quite successful with a continual flow of minority students into the program and has resulted most recently in two students, who are now SEEDS alumni in graduate school, being selected to mentor undergraduate SEEDS students at the 2005 ESA Annual Meeting. The program’s philosophy then, is that by interacting their academic pursuits with ecological thinking students come to think of themselves as capable biologists, ecologists, and naturalists, and teach others by example.