Welcome to SNRE for the 2008-2009 Academic Year!
It's exciting to see all the activity as we gear up for another semester and academic year. New students, I hope you enjoyed our orientation at the Bio Station as much as I did - it was great to get to know each other. Returning students, faculty and staff, we're glad to have you back.
I'm looking forward to serving as your dean this year while Rosina is on leave. We have worked hard over the summer to ensure a smooth transition. Michael Moore has agreed to step into the role of Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and Dan Brown will continue as Research Associate Dean to round out our administrative team.
It promises to be a busy year. We welcome Allen Burton, our new faculty member and director of CILER, and his wife Paula to the SNRE family. Landscape Architecture and Terrestrial Ecosystems are both preparing for important site visits from their respective accreditation boards, and the University as a whole is also preparing for accreditation. We plan to add 2 new faculty members over the coming year: one water/energy nexus position, for which the search is already under way, and one in Landscape Architecture. The cluster hire competition will take place again in the coming year - we successfully captured a position during the last competition, in energy, which we will search in 2009-2010, and we should start planning soon to take advantage of the next opportunity.
We have an intriguing lineup of speakers for the F08 Dean's Speaker Series, with more to come. As SNRE's newly named Theodore Roosevelt Professor, Professor Mike Wiley will present his TR lecture on September 16; Herbert Dreiseitl, renowned landscape architect and water hydrologist whose firm specializes in designing to manage surface water runoff in a sustainable manner, will present the JJR lecture on September 25; and Susan M. Cischke, Group Vice President, Sustainability, Environment and Safety Engineering at Ford Motor Company, will present the Homecoming Lecture on October 3. I'm hoping to add another lecture or two, so check our website (http://www.snre.umich.edu/) regularly for updates.
With Student Government, we'll continue to offer opportunities to build community through outings, community coffees, informal seminars, speaker series, "take a faculty member to lunch" opportunities, etc., to build community in SNRE. Please mark your calendar and plan to join us for our first Community Coffee Sept. 8 at 10 am in the Ford Commons, and don't forget our annual SNRE Campfire at Saginaw Forest on October 3 and the Solstice Party on December 5.
I personally look forward to the coming year as an exciting opportunity to get to know faculty, staff and students better, and to learn how I might help with your opportunities and concerns. I will schedule time to be in the faculty lounge to meet faculty, I will be happy to meet with student government, and with any of you individually.
Again, welcome to the first official day of classes. I look forward to working with all of you throughout your academic career at SNRE (and beyond!) - I think it will be a rewarding year for us all. We are committed to making your graduate experience the best it can be.
BioStation Orientation Recap
About 150 new students, staff and faculty participated in new student orientation at the UM Biological Station on Douglas Lake this Tuesday-Thursday. It was a wonderful event. Ice-breakers led by Student Government, an introduction to SNRE, the core courses and fields of study led by a number of faculty, plus systems thinking, electro-fishing, greening the Biostation, river rafting, forest hikes, a GPS scavenger hunt, an archaeological tour, and more.
We all owe our thanks to Sondra, Adam, OAP staff, as well as student government leaders who worked hard to make this event so successful, and to the faculty and returning students without whom we could not have this rich diversity of activities.
To appreciate what went into this event, below is my list of those who gave generously of their time and expertise. My apologies to anyone I may have omitted: OAP Director Sondra Auerbach; Recruiting & Admissions Coordinator Adam Ancira; Web Designer and photographer David Brenner; Grad Students Rachel Chadderdon, Solomon David, Kate Ennis, José Gonzalez, Joe Nohner, Emily Plews, Rebecca Van Wieren, Alexandra Wilson, and all of Student Government; SNRE faculty David Allan, Rosina Bierbaum, Dan Brown, Jim Diana, Tom Gladwin, Mark Hunter, MaryCarol Hunter, Inéz Ibáñez, Michael Moore and Don Scavia; UMBS Director Knute Nadelhoffer, Bob Vanderkoppel and the UMBS staff (especially the kitchen staff!)
J. David Allan, Professor and Acting Dean
U-M School of Natural Resources and Environment