Last winter and spring, SEFS undergrad Linnea Kessler spent two quarters in Tanzania with the School for Field Studies, a study-abroad program that offers students immersive experiences through field-based learning and research. In addition to taking a range of courses, from Swahili to environmental policy and wildlife management, Linnea got to carry out a research study on the chestnut-banded plover, a near-threatened species that’s endemic to the area.
Linnea, back left, and her classmates running transects and counting mammals at the Manyara Ranch Conservancy.
Linnea, who grew up in Cheney, Wash., is an ESRM major in the wildlife option, and she says she had always wanted to study abroad in Africa. The field-heavy nature of this program is what especially attracted her, and the students were based in a village near Lake Manyara National Park in central Tanzania. They lived in an enclosed camp that included a dining hall, classroom and six cabins. She had three roommates, slept in a bunk bed, had spotty electricity and took a lot of cold showers. “It was basically like summer camp,” she says, except you were across the world in a totally unfamiliar environment.
The other highlight, of course, was the hands-on research experience. Linnea’s plover project involved looking at the birds’ distribution around Lake Manyara, part of which extends out of the park. Working with Bridget Amulike, a Tanzanian doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts who is working with grey crowned cranes, they discovered a positive correlation between pH levels in the water and abundance of the plovers. Levels in the lake can vary pretty widely, says Linnea, and they found more plovers in areas with an elevated pH (but none within the park). They also found the plovers were more abundant in mudflat habitats, potentially because the tiny birds have short legs and don’t thrive in marshy areas or deeper water. With more time and a bigger team, Linnea says they would be able to test these other variables to determine the drivers of plover distribution, and also compare their findings against data from another lake in northern Tanzania where the plovers have greater numbers.
Linnea’s study area in Lake Manyara National Park, where she took water samples for her plover research.
When they weren’t in the field or in the classroom, the students also got to take a few memorable side excursions, including a camping trip to Tarangire National Park, as well as visits to Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti, where Linnea had the incredible fortune of seeing an elusive serval cat.
The program is fairly expensive, she says, but she highly recommends it, from the great people involved to the unforgettable experiences in Africa. “I was worried about not knowing anyone,” she says, “but the other students were awesome and I made some really close friends.”
Now back on campus for her senior year, she’s wrapping up her final courses this fall and might have one or two more classes in the winter—including, if it works out, the weeklong Yellowstone field course during spring break. After that, she’s considering pursuing a master’s or doctoral degree, and her long-term goal is to return to Africa to study one of the big cats (leopards are her favorite).
Whatever path she takes, Linnea has accumulated tremendous field experiences here and abroad, and we are excited to see where she goes!
Linnea, second from right, conducting a scat identification field exercise in a ranch area of Lake Manyara, where wildlife is protected but livestock and grazing are also allowed.
The largest national park in the country, Wrangell-St. Elias features terrain that ranges from sea level up to more than 18,000 feet.
A major goal of this study is to determine how snow conditions affect Dall sheep movement and survival rates. So they put up 22 snow-monitoring stations in an area of the park where their agency collaborators will be putting GPS collars on sheep later this fall. Each monitoring station consists of a camera mounted on a t-post that will take a photo of a snow stake every hour all winter. Their ground-based snow monitoring will be used to improve a model of snow conditions based on satellite remote sensing and meteorological data. Then, combining this model with the GPS location data from collared sheep will allow the researchers to determine—for the first time—how snow conditions like depth and hardness affect Dall sheep movements.
Joining Laura and Madelon for the fieldwork were her co-PI at Oregon State University, Professor Anne Nolin, and Anne’s doctoral student, Chris Cosgrove. The four of them flew to the Wrangells in a small plane—a Piper Super Cub—to reach their little cabin, well above the tree line on a large, alpine mesa. They then set up the snow-monitoring stations along elevational transects, which Laura says was extremely challenging work due to steep and rocky terrain. Their packs were also quite heavy and awkward, weighing more than 40 pounds, as they had to pack around the steel t-posts, PVC snow stakes, cameras and two 16-pound post drivers.
“We all had pretty sore muscles,” says Laura, “but it was worth it! The scenery was breathtaking, weather was great, and we saw lots of sheep, pikas, ptarmigan and some arctic ground squirrels.”
On Sunday, October 2, some 200 friends and colleagues gathered in the Washington Park Arboretum to celebrate Professor Emeritus John Wott at the dedication of a trail—John Wott Way—in his honor. The afternoon dedication included a Scottish bagpiper, speeches, ribbon cutting, cake and champagne, and a procession along the trail, which runs through the New Zealand Forest in the Pacific Connections Garden.
John Wott with Paige Miller from the Arboretum Foundation.
John, who earned his bachelor’s in agricultural education from Ohio State University in 1961, and then his master’s (1966) and Ph.D. (1968) in ornamental horticulture from Cornell University, joined the faculty of the College of Forest Resources in 1981. He took over as director of the Arboretum from 1991 to 2004 and continues to serve—as director emeritus, long after his retirement in 2006—as a passionate leader, teacher and advocate for the park.
Guests and speakers at the dedication ranged from Harold J. Tukey, who became the first director of the Center for Urban Horticulture in the spring of 1980 (John was one of his first faculty hires); to Paige Miller, executive director of the Arboretum Foundation; to Michael Shiosaki, director of planning and development for Seattle Parks and Recreation; to Professor Emeritus Tom Hinckley and many other friends, students, staff and faculty from SEFS.
Congratulations, John, for so many years of wonderful leadership and support for the Arboretum—and now literally offering a path for others to follow in your footsteps!
Last Wednesday, October 5, we hosted the largest Salmon BBQ we can remember! The weather turned beautiful after a dodgy forecast in the morning, and record numbers turned out—and waited patiently in line for a shot at the salmon!—for a joyful afternoon among friends and colleagues. Seriously, such a good time, and a huge thank you to everyone who chipped in to make our annual feast a wonderful success.
This September, Professor Aaron Wirsing joined his doctoral student Shannon Kachel in Kyrgyzstan for a couple weeks of field research. Working in collaboration with Panthera and the local managers of the Sarychat-Ertash State Nature Reserve in the Tian Chan Mountains, Shannon is exploring interactions between snow leopards and wolves, which compete for prey (argali and ibex) amid the regions’ towering peaks.
Doctoral student Shannon Kachel.
“During my stay, we weathered a tornado, forded rushing rivers on horseback, and hiked hard every day in a truly herculean effort to capture and collar these elusive carnivores,” says Aaron. “I left the field camp without seeing a leopard, but not without indelible memories of stunning alpine scenery and the bumps and bruises to show for some truly challenging field work at 3,000 meters (~10,000 feet). I am also happy to report that, merely a week after my departure, Shannon and company captured their first snow leopard of the season, a male!” (Read more about their first successful collaring last fall.)
Prior to returning to Seattle, Aaron also enjoyed a once-in-a-lifetime visit with his father, Robert, in the Kyrgyz capital city of Bishkek. Through an incredible coincidence, Robert—a recently retired professor—was doing his own research in the area, and they were able to rendezvous for two nights (though it took nine hours, in turns by horse and by car, for Aaron to reach the rendezvous point!). The highlight, says Aaron, was a trip to Ala Archa National Park, which offers majestic alpine vistas just 40 kilometers outside of the city.
A few years ago, Helene Fowler inherited the unpublished manuscript of her late uncle’s autobiography, The Book of Daniel. Its author, our alumnus Daniel Gellermann (’39, B.S.), passed away on October 3, 2012, less than a month shy of his 96th birthday. He had transferred to the College of Forestry in 1935 and then went on to a long career in forestry in California from 1940 through the late 1960s—including stints with the Consolidated Timber Company, U.S. Forest Service and Setzer Forest Products—and we were hugely grateful to Helene for sharing the text with us.
Daniel, in a photo dated 1937, two years before he graduated from the University of Washington.
The printed manuscript is dated 1987, and it’s an incredibly detailed, nearly week-by-week account of his life, from as early as he can remember up through school, work, family and retirement. Within that narrative, Daniel dedicates about 20 pages to his time as an undergraduate at the University of Washington, and his writing style opens an intimate and unvarnished window into his thoughts and experiences as a student in the 1930s. We wanted to pull out and share a few lines and memories that especially stood out to us, including the entirety of his great introduction!
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Introduction
“Writing a life story is really a series of hits and misses, inclusions and exclusions, remembereds and forgottens—simply a subjective cross-section of one’s time on this mortal coil. I do have the advantage of being the sole survivor of my generation of Gellermanns, and so I can make it up as I go along. In the process of recall my memory has moved back and forth in time amid parents, siblings, classmates, playmates, church, school, friends, coworkers, jobs, towns, forests, homes, and thoughts and opinions and precepts and attitudes; this is obviously reflected in this account.
It seems to me that for most of us life comprises the early years, a time for education and the pursuit of knowledge; the middle years, a time for occupation and the pursuit of experience; and the retirement years, a time for contemplation and the pursuit of wisdom. I believe we all have our ups and downs and that life balances out for most of us; I have been fortunate in that my down years were my early years and my life’s curve has been on a steady upswing ever since.
Money was always tight for Daniel as a student, so he carried a paper route—first for the Seattle Times, and later a double route for the Post-Intelligencer, that earned him $40 to 50 a month.
My first marriage provided me an education in the liberal arts; my second marriage afforded me an education in the fine arts. I am grateful for both. And I am indeed thankful I could have a handsome and strong and bright son. Life has been good to me.
From here on out my time will be occupied with continued scribbling. I have quotations—some three thousand—to assemble in book form, a book of personal precepts and opinions, and other various essays yet to prepare.
My anagram can provide my epitaph: Deign All Men Learn.”
Time at the College of Forestry
“In the fall of 1935 I transferred to the College of Forestry at the University of Washington and a whole new world seemed to open up to me. The college had a great tradition and there was a comeraderie among the “foresters” that gave us an identity. We were given to understand at the outset that the curriculum was strenuous and that our physical and mental energies would be taxed to the limit; subsequently they were. We were told to take a look at our fellow students both to our left and to our right; the odds were that only one of three of us would be on hand to graduate four years hence. And that is the way it worked out.”
“The Foresters had a blind date dance with the Nurses each year. I could only look with envy at the signup list on the bulletin board since I knew not how to dance and I was too timid to even meet a girl.”
“My two best friends in forestry college were John Connell and Robert Myer … Sad to say, John’s success never quite met his ambitions, so he has never been able to relax and enjoy it. In his later years he has sought refuge in religion; for what good that may be I know not.”
“Fletcher Daniels was a forestry classmate; his father was Dean of the College of Mines. Fletcher was a seemingly happy-go-lucky sort, but he had a lightning-sharp mind and understood everything the first time around. I admired his quick intelligence. I understand that Fletcher was killed in WWII, so I was never to see him again after our graduation.”
To supplement his studies as an undergrad, Daniel had sent for bulletins from the Government Printing Office, and he also subscribed to the West Coast Lumberman.
“The Dean of the College of Forestry in the beginning of my time there was Hugo Winkenwerder. He was strictly an armchair forester (I would add that the woods are full of armchair foresters!).”
“Professor Alexander was the one who taught our frosh courses in silviculture and mensuration. His knowledge was considerable, but his talent for teaching was sadly lacking. In addition to being a poor communicator of information he was a patsy for apple-polishing; consequently he graded on the basis of student attitude rather than ability. Intellectual honesty was a worthy trait totally lacking in dear Professor Alexander.”
In 1936, while assisting “a coed in rescuing her car from a mudhole,” Daniel tore ligaments in his knee, which later kept him out of military service. “I reported to Fort Lewis for initial assembly and physical examination but I was rejected on account of my knee injury and sent home; I felt bitter despondency and defeat.”
“I felt fortunate then and ever since to have had Walter H. Meyers for my major professor; he was a gentleman and a scholar.”
“This, my first summer in the brush I had my first taste of sin; i.e., I tasted beer for the first time! It tasted to me a bit like green olives. I very much liked green olives and so I was able to learn to like beer in due time with assiduous practice. The boys took up rolling their own Bull Durham; some gained great proficiency. It was the logger-like thing to do.”
“I was disinterested in cigarette smoking; I had tried that at the age six (dried maple leaves) and again at age twelve (Philip Morris samples) but it didn’t appeal to me; no doubt smoking retained its connotation of sinfulness for me. Eventually I decided that, were I to smoke at all, I would smoke a pipe. And so I tried that. Prince Albert at ten cents a tin was my brand. I acquired a variety of pipes, and in time settled on one with a slightly bent stem which I felt revealed proper sophistication, and enjoyed that from time to time as I wandered about. But it tended to bother my teeth, so I gave up on the entire endeavor and I am glad I did. Some of the boys took to chewing snooze (another loggermania), but I could not even stomach the thought of that for myself.”
“When I went back to school in the fall of 1937, at the start of my junior year in forestry, I was full of piss and vinegar. I had gained weight and strength, and confidence in myself.”
The week before classes started this fall, I was at our new graduate student orientation in the Douglas Classroom at the Center for Urban Horticulture. It was a beautiful day, and I was absorbing the excitement and enthusiasm in the room; it was palpable and even more electric than usual on the eve of a new quarter. Afterwards, as I was leaving Douglas Hall, I remember thinking I might run into Professor Sarah Reichard in the parking area or over at Merrill Hall. Sarah always thrived on and reflected student energy and passion, and I was eager to share with her my impressions of this new crop of students.
I was struck with a deep sadness and emptiness, though, when I remembered we’ll never get a chance to bump into Sarah in these halls anymore, or among the plants and parks and gardens she loved so much. That’s been a fairly constant feeling, as I’ve thought about her nearly every day since she passed away at the end of August. When I’m out for a run in the Arboretum, walking under the big sequoia outside my office, or biking past the UW Farm, I can’t help thinking about Sarah and all she brought to the school, the UW Botanic Gardens, our students and the greater Seattle community.
I can vividly picture her leading her plant identification class in front of Anderson Hall, students buzzing around her as she showed them our giant rhododendron and quizzed me on an unusual cedar (which I didn’t properly identify, earning giggles from the students). I remember last year’s Earth Day event, when Sarah pulled me aside to see the then-fledgling progress on the Arboretum Loop Trail. She confided how much she cherished those stolen moments to walk, without purpose or haste, through an overlooked grove that housed a special shrub or tree she absolutely loved. She seemed to know every nook and knoll of the Arboretum and had a story to share around every turn.
There are so many different scenes and memories to sort through, yet all of them capture a sense of Sarah’s tremendous vitality and vision. She lived her passion every day and shared it with everyone around her. She was a consummate scholar and devoted teacher of plants and plant communities, and her travels and research touched scores of lives around the world. She loved working with students of all ages, and she brought that energy and advocacy to all of our meetings and discussions. You couldn’t help but learn from Sarah. She was brilliantly forthright in her approach and never shied from saying what was on her mind.
Sarah, in short, served as an inspiring model for the kind of educator, scientist and colleague we all aspire to be—and hope to cultivate in our students. We’ve lost a dear friend, and the loss feels even greater since we never had a chance to say goodbye. Yet if we take cues from the way Sarah lived her life and career, she will live on with us as a treasured mentor and guide for our community.
Tom DeLuca School of Environmental and Forest Sciences
On Wednesday, October 5, we are very pleased to welcome Professor Randy Dahlgren (’84, M.S.; ’87, Ph.D.) from the University of California – Davis to give our annual Distinguished Alumni Seminar: “From Subduction to Salmon: Geologic Subsidies Drive High Productivity of a Volcanic Spring-Fed River.” The talk is open to the public and will run from 3:30 to 4:20 p.m. in Anderson 223.
About the Speaker
Randy is a Distinguished Professor of Soil Science and Biogeochemistry in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources at the University of California – Davis, where he holds the Russell L. Rustici Endowed Chair in Rangeland Watershed Sciences. Randy received his Ph.D. and M.S. in forest soils from SEFS (then the College of Forest Resources), and his B.S. in soil science from North Dakota State University. His research program in biogeochemistry examines the interaction of hydrological, geochemical and biological processes in regulating nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems and surface and ground water chemistry. He is a fellow of the Soil Science Society of America, fellow of the UC Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute, and has received several awards, including the UCD 2008 Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award, 2012 UC Davis Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarly Achievement (considered the UC-Davis Nobel Prize), and the West Lake Friendship Award from the Governor of Zhejiang Province, China.
About the Talk
Critical habitats necessary to support cold-water species in lotic ecosystems are anticipated to diminish as global climate change reduces summertime availability of cold water in streams. Volcanic spring-fed streams may prove an exception to this habitat loss as large aquifers with high residence times produce reliable stream flow for sustaining cold-water species. Here, we identify a hitherto overlooked exceptionally productive and resilient environment in which large groundwater springs located within volcanic arcs provide consistent cold-water stream flow and ecologically significant nitrogen and phosphorus inputs from geologic sources. In the spring-fed Shasta River of northern California, steelhead trout take advantage of abundant food and stable year-round flow and water temperature regimes to accrue a substantial growth advantage over individuals from an adjacent non-spring-fed stream, exhibiting a six-fold increase in mass and two-fold increase in length. Results demonstrate that geologically derived nutrients in spring-fed streams are driving aquatic ecosystem productivity and resiliency, making these habitats exceptionally important for conserving cold-water species impacted by global climate change.
We are thrilled to welcome Randy for the Distinguished Alumni Seminar, and we hope you’ll be able to join us!
The first part of the celebration will be at the Washington Park Arboretum from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Guests are asked to meet in Wisteria Hall at the Graham Visitor’s Center at 2 p.m. From there they will be given a map indicating three separate areas around the park where guest speakers will be sharing stories of Sarah. The speakers will remain at the areas and will be giving informal chats. Each chat will last approximately 15 minutes.
Later that afternoon, we will host a more formal celebration at the Don James Center in Husky Stadium. This program will begin with a reception from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., followed by a formal presentation featuring several speakers from 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Please mark your calendars to join us in honoring Sarah, and we hope you’ll RSVP as soon as possible. We look forward to seeing you there.
This October, we are excited that local photographer John Tylczak will be hosting his third exhibition in the Forest Club Room!
John grew up in Shelton, Wash., where four generations of his family have lived since 1885 (his grandfather, in fact, was the executor of Agnes Anderson’s estate). The black-and-white portraits he will be showcasing come from his broader collection,Views from the Northwoods: 1983-1995, which captures the faces of the Washington timber industry in the mid-1980s and early 1990s—from fallers and rigging crews, to loaders and transport workers, log scalers and mill workers. John’s collection includes more than 1,500 photographs, and the 10 images he’s sharing this year will focus on shots from shake and shingle mills that have all since closed.
The exhibition will kick off on Wednesday, October 5, and run through the end of the month. It will be open to the public during normal weekday business hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
We heartily encourage you to come by and enjoy John’s powerful photographs!
