Environmental Educators of North Carolina Recognizes Forestry Graduate Student with Outstanding Service Award

Posted on November 30, 2009 by kmfaber2

News Release – November 30, 2009
Media Contact – Elizabeth Burke, 703.281.6626

The Environmental Educators of North Carolina (EENC) recently honored Shelby Gull Laird, Ph.D. candidate in the Forestry and Environmental Resources Department at NCSU, with one of the organization’s two awards for Outstanding Service. The Environmental Educators of North Carolina is the state’s professional organization representing environmental educators including classroom teachers, state and national park rangers, museum educators, and educators working in other non-formal settings.

Laird has served as EENC’s policy chair and is currently the organization’s president-elect. She has also been instrumental in creating EENC’s successful bid to host the 2011 conference of the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE). This conference, calendared for October 11-16, 2011, will bring 1,200 of the world’s environmental educators to North Carolina for a professional development conference highlighting the best of our state’s natural and cultural resources.

The NAAEE conference includes a research symposium, promising a mix of plenary presentations by well-known researchers, discussions about the future of EE research, and submitted presentations from the North American and broader international EE research community, and provides opportunities for graduate student professional development.

Over the past eight years, Laird has had the opportunity to promote environmental education in two related roles. For four years, she taught earth/environmental science at Garner Magnet High School. Subsequent to that, she developed the highly regarded “It’s Our Water” professional development program, working with the nonprofit North Carolina based Environmental Education Fund.

Commenting on her commitment to environmental education, Laird sees it as an effective tool for helping children achieve benchmarks established in North Carolina’s Standard Course of Study. “For example,” she notes, “teachers can take their students outside to monitor water quality or conduct wildlife inventories on their own school grounds. These lessons promote retention better than reading from a textbook.”

She emphasizes that environmental education isn’t just about achieving science standards. “Environmental education can be a part of every subject area, from language arts to social studies.”

“In receiving EENC’s Outstanding Service Award, I am proud to serve Environmental Educators across North Carolina to help get our citizens of all ages outdoors.”

EENC’s second Outstanding Service Award was presented to Renee Strnad, the state coordinator for Project Learning Tree (multi-disciplinary environmental education program for educators and students in PreK-12), and a liaison between the College of Natural Resources at NC State University and environmental educators.

For more information about EENC membership, please visit our website at eenc.org.

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Below: Shelby Gull Laird accepting her award from North Carolina Superintendent for Public Instruction, Dr. June Atkinson
Shelby accepting her award from June Atkinson

Grant supports recruiting of high quality, diverse park & recreation management graduate students

Posted on November 30, 2009 by kmfaber2

Challenging curirculum prepares students for exciting careers in park and recreation management On November 5, 2009 the NC State University Graduate School announced that the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management Graduate Program received a grant to implement a campaign to recruit outstanding students from under represented populations in the disciplines of park and recreation management. The department received a grant of $1,400 to assist in developing recruiting materials and to cover travel costs for potential graduate students to meet PRTM faculty and students and tour the campus. According to the National Recreation and Parks Association, racial and ethnic minorities account for less than 20% of professionals in the recreation and parks field.

All three departments in the NC State University College of Natural Resources are committed to helping make natural resource careers available and welcoming to a diverse population. Visit the website for the College’s Community for Diversity in Natural Resources to learn what we are doing to increase diversity in all related natural resources disciplines.

Learn more about graduate education in the NC State University Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism Management.

Wood & Paper Science's Jameel Honored with Teaching Award

Posted on October 5, 2009 by kmfaber2

News Release – September 28, 2009

Dr. Hasan Jameel NC State Dept of Wood and Paper Science Dr. Hasan Jameel, Ellis Signe Olssen Professor of Chemical Engineering in the Department of Wood & Paper Science at North Carolina State University, has been selected by the College of Natural Resources to receive the Board of Governor's College Award for Excellence in Teaching. Along with a cash award and recognition at a campus-wide event in the Spring, Jameel will be a nominee for the University Board of Governor's Award.

The Board of Governors Awards for Excellence in Teaching were created in 1994 to underscore the importance of teaching and to encourage, recognize, and reward outstanding teaching. Nominees for the award must be tenured professors who have spent at least seven years at the nominating institutions and who have “demonstrated excellent or exceptional teaching ability over a sustained period of time.”

Jameel joined the NC State Department of Wood & Paper Science in 1987 following a career with International Paper. He has received numerous honors and awards for his work, including recognition as NCSU Outstanding Teacher (1990 and 2005), NCSU Alumni Distinguished Professor (1999), and NCSU Outstanding Advisor (2006). In 2005 Dr. Jameel received the Johan C.F.C. Richter Prize from the TAPPI Pulp Manufacture Division. Other TAPPI honors include the David Wetherhorn Award (1994), TAPPI Outstanding Instructor (1995) and the Wayne Carr Best Paper Award (2002).

He has been a TAPPI Member since 1987 and has been involved with several Divisions and Local Sections. Dr. Jameel is also a Fellow of the International Academy of Wood Science, TAPPI and a member of AIChE. He holds three patents and has authored two books and more than 100 conference papers.

Jameel’s professional specialties include pulping and bleaching, process optimization and simulation, and bio-energy and gasification. He earned his Bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering from Texas A&M University and his Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from Princeton.

Popular with students in the paper science & engineering program and noted for his enthusiasm for his subject matter, this is Jameel's third Board of Governor's College Award of Excellence in Teaching, earning it previously in both 2003-2004 and in 2008-2009.

More information about Dr. Hasan Jameel

Natural Resources Dean Robert Brown Receives Wildlife Society Fellow Award

Posted on October 1, 2009 by kmfaber2

News Release – October 1, 2009

Robert Brown acceptsf plaquereconizing his recognition as a TWS Fellow from Tom Franklin, President of The Wildlife Society Dr. Robert D. Brown, dean of the NC State University College of Natural Resources was recognized as a Fellow of The Wildlife Society (TWS) at the Society's 2009 annual meeting in Monterey, CA. The career award recognized Dr. Brown’s contributions to science and to The Wildlife Society.

After receiving a B.S. and Ph.D in animal nutrition, Dr. Brown served on the faculty of Texas A&I University in Kingsville and then as a research scientist for the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute at that institution. Dr. Brown’s research focused on the development of antler growth in deer as a model for osteoporosis in elderly humans and on comparative wildlife nutrition and physiology. He has published over 120 articles and has edited three books on such species as White-tailed, Axis and Sika deer, Nilgai antelope, Javalina, and Bobwhite quail, as well as on higher education and conservation policy.

In addition to his research and classroom teaching, Dr. Brown has served as Head of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries at Mississippi State University and the Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences Department at Texas A&M University. There he also served as Director of the Institute of Renewable Natural Resources (IRNR) and Coordinator of the Gulf Coast Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit.

Dr. Brown served The Wildlife Society as Southwest Section Representative, then national Vice President, President-Elect, President and Past President. He chaired numerous TWS committees including a successful $ 3 million fund-raising campaign. He has also been President of the National Association of University Fisheries and Wildlife Programs, Chair of their Section on Fish and Wildlife and their Board on Natural Resources, and Chair of the External Review Panel of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. He has served on the Board of the Texas Nature Conservancy and in an advisory capacity to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

In 2006, Dr. Robert Brown was appointed Dean of the College of Natural Resources at North Carolina State University, where he also serves on the Board of the North Carolina Forestry Association, the North Carolina Forestry Council, and the Center for Paper Business and Industry Science at Georgia Tech

What a Deal! NC State Ranks As Higher Ed Best Value

Posted on August 27, 2009 by kmfaber2

From the NC State Bulletin – August 2009

The bustling Brickyard at NC State University By Dave Pond

Families still struggling through the economic recession received some good news this month.

Both the Princeton Review and U.S. News & World Report ranked NC State as one of the best values in higher education.

Each year, Princeton Review staffers spend countless hours poring over survey results from students and faculty at more than 2,500 North American colleges and universities. They found that NC State offers its students the sixth-best value of any public university located in the United States or Canada. U.S. News ranked NC State as the third-best value of any public university in the country.

NC State offers students one of the best values in higher education, according to the Princeton Review and U.S. News.

“I think students recognize that NC State offers the kind of hands-on learning opportunities and relevant experience that will enable them to be valuable contributors to society upon their graduation,” NC State chancellor James Woodward said. “In a time of economic uncertainty and technological evolution, NC State remains uniquely positioned to produce future leaders with the knowledge and the skills to help solve the world's problems. “It's not surprising students would seek out the opportunities available to them at NC State in hopes of reaching their personal, educational and career goals.”

In its profile on NC State, the Review praises the university not only for the academic quality of its student applicants, but their extracurricular activities and altruistic endeavors as well.

No other North Carolina-based institution – public or private – made the Review’s “Top 10” list, featured in the 2010 edition of the Review’s popular guidebook, The Best 371 Colleges.

In addition to being one of the nation’s best values, NC State also received high scores based on admissions selectivity as well as the university’s “green rating,” a measure of the university’s commitment to environmentally related policies, practices and education.

“It's always nice for NC State to earn this kind of recognition,” Woodward said. “The true measure of a university is its people, and I truly believe that our faculty, students, staff and alumni are among the nation's best.”

The Princeton Review is a New York City-based education services company known for its annual rankings based on surveys conducted of higher education institutions and of students attending the schools, in addition to its test-prep courses, college and graduate school admission services, books, and education programs. U.S. News, a news magzine published in Washington, D.C., has released its annual rankings of colleges and universities since 1985.