SEEDS Students Publish in ESA Bulletin

Charlee Glenn (Rex), a recent Clayton State graduate, and Serge Farinas (Stockbridge), both members of the Clayton State University SEEDS (Strategies for Ecology, Education, Development, and Sustainability) chapter, were contributing authors on, “Voices of Hope in a Rapidly Changing World,” an article published in the peer-reviewed Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America (ESA).

"The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, issued quarterly, contains announcements of meetings of the Society and related organizations, programs, awards, articles, and items of current interest to members,” says Dr. Jere Boudell, assistant professor of Biology at Clayton State. “The bulletin is read by many of the members. I'm proud that our SEEDS chapter members accepted this challenge to write this article.”

“The publication compiled all of the ideas that were generated and presented at the 2008 ESA Milwaukee conference and the conclusions that were drawn from the other breakout groups,” says Glenn. “I submitted all that my awesome group came up with, with the rest of the information on SEEDS Alumni, Anthropogenic Biomes and Education and Outreach.”

SEEDS, “promote ecological awareness and the importance of ecological science to biology students, prospective biology students, faculty and individuals everywhere.” The group seek to expand and diversify the biological and ecological fields by raising awareness of careers in ecology and of the opportunities that are available to underrepresented students.”
Glenn and Farinas admit that completing the publication posed some challenges.

“My main challenge then and now is projecting my passion through an application. Not always will your GPA and GRE scores be a good indication of your passion and determination,” says Glenn. “Ecology, since I became aware of it, was what I want to do in life and it’s hard to sell yourself on paper to get accepted for opportunities such as the ESA Field trip and internships.

“It’s even harder now that I am in the process of applying for graduate school. I know what I want to do; now it’s a matter of someone taking a chance on me and allowing me the opportunity to show what I can bring to the field.”

“The challenges, of course, had mostly to do with time. Being a full-time student and having to work leave you with little time to work with,” Farinas explains. “We worked on different versions over the span of a few months and sent them back and forth with revisions. In the end, I think it turned out to be a strong publication.”

Despite of some of the challenges both found the experience to be extremely rewarding.

“I count myself blessed that Melissa Armstrong, diversity program manager at the Ecological Society of America, and Teresa Mourad, director of education and diversity programs at the Ecological Society of America, took such a chance and allowed me to display just how passionate I am about what I do,” says Glenn.

“The rewards were in creating a great piece and having publication experience, which will help me in graduate school,” says Farinas.”Having that under my belt, along with some other projects that will result in publications, has already helped me find potential scientists to work with.”
For more information on The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America go to http://www.esa.org/history/.

A unit of the University System of Georgia, Clayton State University is an outstanding comprehensive metropolitan university located 15 miles southeast of downtown Atlanta.
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