Last week my laboratory attended the Entomological Society of Canada’s annual meeting, held in Guelph. I was so proud of the whole lab - we had an impressive showing at the meeting, and I was especially impressed with the three undergraduate students who presented their research to Entomologists from across Canada. Wow - I don’t think I had that amount of confidence when I was an undergrad!
I am THRILLED to announce that three arthropod ecology students were recognized for their excellent presentations.
First, Master’s student Étienne Normandin was awarded first prize for his oral presentation in the Biodiversity section. His talk was titled Biodiversity of wild bees in two urban settings: Montreal and Quebec city. He’s co-supervised by Valérie Fournier at Laval University. Here’s a photo of Etienne doing some field work:
Field work!
Second, PhD student Dorothy Maguirewas the runner up in the the same Biodiversity section. Her oral presentation was on Insect herbivory in fragmented forest landscapes: linking land use with changes in biodiversity and ecosystem function. Dorothy is co-supervised by Elena Bennett. Here’s a photo of Dory doing what she loves!
Tree climbing!
Finally, PhD student Raphaël Royauté was runner up in the student poster competition, for his work titled Does physiological state affect individual variation in boldness in a jumping spider? Raphaël is co-supervised by Dr. Charles Vincent, from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Here’s an older photo of me and Raph, not long after he first came to the lab for a short internship.
The latin name discussion came in part from the best hashtag I’ve seen in a while - #ReplaceWordsWithBugs. This also made it difficult to highlight a tweet of the week. Even though there is debate about how to pronounce “…..dae” at the end of family names, this is still a winner, from Adrian Tchaikovsky:
Liz Neely writes about ‘warmth’ in scientists and in science communication - very thought provoking.
In the spirit of Halloween… BLOODY FINGERS! Yum yum.
Students text a lot during class.In my opinion, this means there’s also a problem with the content and/or instructor. Students need to engage, but Profs must also adapt. Right -so I will have to write blog post on this (stay tuned)
Last year, my field biology course took part in an amazing project - we used mobile technology in a field setting, and combined that with social media tools. This was done in collaboration with Teaching and Learning Services at McGill, McGill Libraries, and the tablets were generously provided by Toshiba. I am immensely thankful for the support and an truly honoured to be able to explore these adventures in teaching and learning. More specifically, Laura Winer, Adam Finkelstein and PhD student Crystal Ernst helped make this project a success.
One of the ‘products’ of this pilot project is this 5 minute video about using social media to engage students in inquiry-based learning:
We are continuing with these kinds of initiatives, and a Brown-Martlet Foundation grant has allowed my Department to purchase some of the tablets originally used last year. This is terrific, and as the video illustrates, the students end up benefiting.
This term, the course is again using social media, and you can find details in this post, and follow along with twitter using the hashtag #ENVB222.
Good Monday morning to all! I’m excited to be attending the Entomological Society of Canada’s annual meeting(you can follow along on twitter using the hashtag #ESCJAM2013). Hope you have a good week ahead, and to help you start it right, here are some discoveries from the past while.
Poor spiders. So much bad press. Time for a lovely photo, perhaps? This one is a lynx spider from Crystal Ernst (Thanks, Crystal, for letting me post it here)
I know you want it… the tweet of the week goes to the Logical Narwhal.
Death of an order. (insect order, that is). An intriguing paper about Termites and their relatives (thanks to students in my introductory Entomology class for pointing out this paper, and the associated controversy)
It’s been a difficult week (and it’s not over yet). Despite a lovely weekend away, and gorgeous autumn weather, the world of science communication is being ripped apart by two very serious, and related, situations. First this, involving D.N Lee . She was called a whore and this is never acceptable and in a professional context, unheard of. In my opinion, the reaction from Scientific America was slow, and didn’t feel right. And now this with Bora Zivkovic. Sexual harassment of any kind is never OK, and in this context, it was done by a ‘high profile’ man in a position of power. This piece in the Huffington Post, in particular, really grabbed my attention. It spoke to the issue that the broader scientific community must pay attention. Although some people are actively discussing this issue, most are not. That’s a shame. It also rattled my world because I know of women who have been abused by men in position of power, and the decision of when to be silent, and when to be vocal, is extraordinarily difficult – for them, and for me.
These are not isolated incidents. The world science is fraught with tales of abuse, manipulation and intimidation. In particular, men in positions of power use and abuse this power. It sickens me, and makes me very, very sad.
It’s also very complicated. Good people sometimes do very bad things. Bad people sometimes do very good things. We appreciate the good because we have a benchmark for it. We know what is bad because there is a gradient from good to bad, and because some behaviours are, without a doubt, wrong. The problem is that behaviours cannot always be mapped easily onto people and vice versa.
It’s also complicated because knowledge about or exposure to abuse and harassment in the workplace does not always mean direct action is possible. There are sometimes unknown and long-term consequences when these situations are brought to light – they affect people’s jobs, mental and physical health, families, and friends. I remain particularly concerned about the victims – until he or she is willing to name the abuser, there is sometimes a limited number of things that a friend, colleague, Chair, or Dean can do. Additionally, a victim may wish to wait for some time before naming an abuser, as was the case with Monica Bryne. Despite how uncomfortable, frustrating and difficult it is to remain ‘quietly supportive’ of a victim, sometimes it is necessary.
Autumn’s here. It’s OK if you want to cry.
After this reflection, and despite sometimes being quietly supportive, there are still things that I can do, and that I will try to do. There must not be a ‘deafening silence’ surrounding sexual harassment. I pledge to be a more active advocate for the rights of, notably, female scientists. They are facing a serious uphill battle in the Academic milieu.
When it is possible and in the context of abuse and harassment, I will:
a) Call out wrong-doing when I see it;
b) Listen to others who call out wrong-doing;
c) Strive to make my workplace a safe and welcoming environment;
d) Work to create openness for talking about abuse of power;
e) Learn what I can do about it (rules, policies, procedures);
f) Be proactive rather than reactive.
I want everyone to talk seriously about harassment, abuse, and abuse of power. I want all of us to speak out when we can, and be supportive. We need people like Monica Bryne and Hannah Watersto be courageous, and to know that there is a lot of support from a broad community – from colleagues, friends, peers, family. Many of us will help in whatever way we can.
Yes, it’s a difficult week, but there are important positives that we must keep in mind. The students that I interact with every day lift my spirits. My field laboratory earlier this week confirmed that.
Some McGill students walking to their study sites during my Field Biology class.
Let’s hope that when these students enter they enter the workforce and that they don’t put up with the crap we’ve heard about this week. Let’s hope they stand up and shout with a loader voice than my own. They can do it: they are intelligent, articulate, thoughtful, hard-working, and confident. I see the world as a better place when I spend time with these students.
I’m also hopeful when I interact with my children, and see they already have a maturity and sense of respect for their fellow citizens, and a very strong moral compass. I want them to grow up in a world where stories of abuse in the workplace are virtually non-existent because they’ll be non-existent. I want the next generation to walk down pathways lined with colourful trees, leading to a village filled with people who respect each other, support each other, and work together to be in the best world possible. I don’t think that’s too much to wish for, and we can work now to help create this kind of world for them.
(a BIG thanks to four amazing people who helped me pen this post - you know who you are)
Today is Thanksgiving Monday in Canada (yes, quite a bit earlier than the US version!). This time of year is my favourite: the cool, crisp air, fall colours, and the striking sense of decay and change. It’s also a nice opportunity to eat yummy food and spend time with family and friends. I’m currently away enjoying this time with my extended family, and therefore decided to bring you a few of my favourite photographs of autumn in my part of the world.
Hiking in a local forest.
Pumpkin season!
Some of the local fauna - active on warm fall days!
Last week, during our laboratory meeting, we worked to develop a laboratory mission statement. My real inspiration for this came from my friend and colleague Elena Bennett - she also got me connected to Jessica Hellmann’s excellent post on the topic.A mission statement is really just a way to clearly define who we are, what we do, and why we do the sorts of things that we do. From a research laboratory’s point of view, the goal of the exercise is (in part) to help all members of the laboratory feel part of something bigger. Something that has broad relevance to a community that extends far beyond the walls of our institution, and far beyond the boundaries of our own specific research projects.
As Jessica states clearly in her post, a Mission Statement “…is a description of the purpose for your organization, primarily as it now is and/or will be within the next few years. A good mission statement should accurately explain why your organization exists and what it hopes to achieve in the near future. It articulates the organization’s essential nature, its values, and its work. The statement should resonate with the people working in and for the organization, as well as with the different constituencies that the organization hopes to affect. It must express the organization’s purpose in a way that inspires commitment, innovation, and courage.”. A mission statement should be short, easily remembered, jargon-free, proactive, and readable to people outside of our organization.
Here’s what we did to come up with our (draft) statement:
1) We each wrote down a few words or a short sentence on an index card. We tried to write things that we felt described what the laboratory does in a broader sense (i.e. beyond our own specific interests). Here’s an example:
2) We mixed up these cards and each person took someone else’s card. We then went around the table and read what was on the cards. This allowed us a terrific jumping off point for the discussion and generated the necessary words and ideas.
3) The ‘scribe’ (in this case, it was me) wrote down each descriptive word (in our case, things like ‘arthropods‘, ‘human disturbance‘, ‘biodiversity‘ came up a lot), and as a group, we wrote down some verbs to help us think about the ‘action’ that we take with the things we do. Here, verbs like ‘explore‘, ‘quantify‘, ‘share’ came up a lot.
4) We wrote the mission statement - in two parts. (a) We tried to provide a few sentence of context, and to ground our laboratory in the ‘why‘ and the ‘what‘; (b) We wrote a few sentence of ‘how‘ we do our research.
5) Edit, edit, edit. This was done during the lab meeting, but also over email
Here’s the end result:
Mission Statement:
Arthropods (insects, spiders and their relatives) comprise most of the known biodiversity on the planet. Human activities are rapidly changing our environment, from climate change to landscape fragmentation and urbanization, with unknown consequences for local and global biodiversity. Arthropods have profound effects on ecosystem function, human health, goods and services, and culture. Our well-being is connected to this “smaller majority”, yet we know little about where they live, what they do, and how their diversity is changing. In our laboratory we: 1) Quantify patterns of terrestrial arthropod biodiversity across a suite of ecosystems, over a range of spatial and temporal scales; 2) Explore how arthropods respond to and are affected by human-induced environmental changes; 3) Investigate the interaction between arthropods and ecological processes; 4) Share our knowledge, ideas, and passion about arthropods.
How did we do? We would love your feedback on this.
Here are a few thoughts and reflections:
This was a very worthwhile process - it was an amazing discussion and gave as opportunity to really delve into areas that were well beyond our individual research interests.
I have always believed that ‘patterns in terrestrial arthropod biodiversity’ was really what I spend my research time thinking about; it’s good that the collaborative process of developing a mission statement ended up reflecting that!
Any specific habitat (e.g., canopy systems, the Arctic), or even any type of arthropod (e.g., beetles, spiders) never remained in our final mission statement. This is terrific, and shows well that the laboratory has diverse interests, but more importantly, that we encourage research in different places and with different model taxa.
Yes, jargon remains. This is difficult. We agreed, as a laboratory, that our mission statement would be aimed at a ‘scientifically literate’ audience.
I’m an ecologists and we do ecology, yet that word did not end up in the final product. Curious.
We ALL agreed about the importance of ‘sharing’ and engagement with a broader audience -many of us do various kinds of outreach, from blogs and tweets to volunteering to talk about insects in local elementary schools. I was extremely pleased and proud that our laboratory sees this is a core activity.
This process if far from over: the next step is a “Vision Statement“. As Jessica points out, a Mission statement is more about what we “do” and why, whereas a Vision Statement “...looks at least five years into the future and defines a future state. It is an articulation of a world that the organization and people are working toward, not what is expected to happen now“. Ok, that’s a task for a future lab meeting!
(BIG thanks to my amazing laboratory for helping develop a mission statement)
