Eyes (and Ears) Wide Open
Senior Jason Troutman references a list of bird species in Keuka's ornithology field lab, taught by Dr. Bill Brown, at right. (All photos by Brett Williams).
Bundled warm in hoodies against the morning chill at Keuka Lake State Park, the students are standing still, listening intently. From the branches of trees nearby come chirps, calls and sing-song melodies, rising over the sound of the waves lapping the shore.
“What do you hear?” asks Bill Brown, assistant professor of biology and environmental science, who holds a Ph.D. and specializes in ornithology, the study of birds. Binoculars hang suspended from the students’ necks, but Brown wants them to listen first.
Seniors Steve Stout and Justin Henry record bird species they've identified during an outdoor field lab.
Pencils poised over palm-size waterproof notepads, the handful of students lower their heads and jot down four-letter codes for different species as they respond with the names: Mourning dove. American robin. Cardinal. Canada goose. Carolina wren. Downy woodpecker. [Eastern] Pheobe. House finch.
This is ENV/BIO 331, Keuka’s ornithology class, where one of Brown’s primary objectives is teaching students to master identification of some 104 different species of birds by sight. Thirty-nine of those species must also be identified by sound. And those are just the birds found here in New York state.
According to Brown, almost 90 percent of “birding” is done by ear; the rest comes from knowing what to expect in a given setting, whether that may be a small cluster of trees near a building, along a road, or deep in a forest fragment. (more…)
What’s New: Traditional Faculty
An interest in teaching smaller classes in order to foster greater student interaction is part of what brought Ithaca resident Laurel Hester to a new post at Keuka College this fall.
The small-college feel got in the assistant professor of biology’s veins during her own undergraduate studies at Swarthmore College, where she double-majored in biology and history. As a graduate student, Hester discovered she had a love of teaching, especially teaching biology, and as she worked toward her Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, she began putting that passion into play. She went on to teach at the University of South Carolina, and later Cornell, where she taught as many as 400 students at a time in large lecture halls.
“The chance to teach smaller classes where I can really get to know the students and teach a wider variety of classes in a more interactive way is really what drew me here,” Hester said.
(more…)
Meet New Faculty: Dr. Bill Brown
Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series of profiles on new, full-time faculty members.
Bill Brown and the bird display at Jephson Science Center.
Bill Brown is eager for spring semester and the opportunity to get his biology and ecology students outdoors, to look for salamanders under rocks, go bird-watching, and collect scores of data on “critters” in the wild.
“We’ll get outside every day possible,” said Brown, who specializes in ornithology (birds), but also has training in entomology (insects), general ecology (the environment), bio-statistics and applied statistics. A visiting professor last year, the Penn Yan resident joined the Keuka faculty full-time this year, taking over several environmental courses formerly taught by Tim Sellers, who became an associate vice-president for academic programs last year.
As an undergraduate at Cornell University, Brown worked at the Finger Lakes National Forest identifying birds. Later, he worked as a field tech studying birds literally across the country, before completing master’s and doctoral work on the wood thrush, a migratory forest songbird, at the University of Delaware.
“We put bands on them, tracked who they mated with, what tree species they nested in, how high, etc. It piqued my interest in statistics,” he said.
As such, Brown is eager to offer an ornithology course, which he will teach this coming spring. While students are snowbound indoors, he’ll get them up to speed on taxonomy, the relationships of bird groups, their biology and ecology, and by the time the snow melts, students can get outside to put that knowledge to work.
Rising Senior Conducts Cancer Research
Barnhart conducting research in the science lab.
For Katie Barnhart, the third time was the charm when it came to Field Period, the 140-hour real-world internship every Keuka College student conducts each year.
After working at a hospital for her freshman year Field Period, Barnhart, a member of Keuka’s Class of 2012, discovered she did not want to become a doctor. Between the high pressure environment and cautions from many hospital staffers that doctor’s hours would conflict with any desire to raise a family, “it wasn’t appealing to me,” she said.
For her second Field Period, she went to a forest region of Kenya, Africa, participating in field research on the Colobus monkeys, seeking to learn how deforestation was impacting the animals’ behaviors.
“I realized that field research was great and fun, but I really love the lab setting more,” she said.
So she spent her third Field Period in the research labs of the University of Rochester (U of R) Medical School, working with mitochondrial cells and yeast over the summer between her sophomore and junior years.
“I loved it,” Barnhart said, adding that proper research simply requires extended periods of time, making a summer Field Period, where there is ample time to log those extra hours, a better option than the five weeks of winter break.
This summer, she wanted to repeat the magic with another research lab and was delighted to find an ally in Dr. Carolyn Klinge ’79, professor of biochemistry at the University of Louisville School of Medicine in Kentucky. (more…)
Dreyfus Grant Funds Cell Culture Lab
Professor of Biology Joan Magnusen says the new laboratory will benefit all biology majors and provide opportunities for independent research.
Keuka College has received a $25,000 grant from the Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation to fund a cell culture laboratory.
According to Professor of Biology Joan Magnusen, the funds will provide equipment to grow and maintain living cells and conduct research on those cells within a carefully controlled lab environment that keeps cells alive. This scientific process is known as “culturing” cells.
The laboratory will benefit all biology majors and provide opportunities for independent research, according to Magnusen.
“In our Microbiology course, students have learned how to culture and study living bacteria cells,” explained Magnusen. “Now, they will also learn how to culture and study cells from humans. Working with living human cells is a key feature of modern biology.”
Previously, several students have completed Field Periods in research laboratories at other institutions and practiced these techniques, but now “all of our biology majors will be able to work with living human cells at Keuka,” explained Magnusen.
“Let’s say we want to know how cancer skin cells are different from normal skin cells,” added Magnusen. “We can buy cultures of both types of cells and grow them under the same conditions and determine how they are alike and different. We can treat cancer cells with different concentrations of a chemical we think will change their rate of growth and determine how they are alike and different. The key is that a cell culture lab will allow us to keep the cells alive and keep other things from growing in the culture medium.”
Magnusen said the new laboratory will help students develop “a more realistic sense of cell biology and learn new techniques and ways of thinking.
“These opportunities are also resume builders,” added Magnusen. “When applying for a job or graduate or professional school in the sciences, applicants should list the laboratory experiences, proficiencies, and research projects they have completed. Being familiar with cell culture can help a student get a placement in a competitive undergraduate research program, get a job as a technician, and be taken more seriously by a graduate program. Professional schools—medicine, veterinary, dental, and pharmacy—are more impressed by a student with research experience than one without.”
The grant from the Dreyfus Foundation will allow the College to purchase:
- A CO2 incubator. “The incubator is somewhat like a low temperature oven; it keeps the cells growing at about human body temperature,” said Magnusen. “This provides an environment that will favor growth of the cells we want and not cells we don’t want, such as bacteria or mold.”
- A sterile hood. “It is a metal box,” explained Magnusen, “that allows us to transfer cells from an old culture into a new one without also introducing the bacteria or mold.”
- Three microscopes.
- Fluorescence capability for one of the College’s existing microscopes, which will allow students “to practice another technique, with cell culture applications that they have previously only learned about in theory,” said Magnusen.
The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation (Washington, D.C.) has been a longtime benefactor of Keuka College, most recently via grants for the Field Period program ($45,000) and The Campaign to Save Ball Hall ($20,000).
“We are grateful to the Dreyfus Foundation for its continuing support,” said COO/Executive Vice President Carolanne Marquis. “The foundation’s generosity has, and will continue to, enhance the education we provide our students.”
Keuka Administrator, Limnologist Appointed to Finger Lakes Museum Board
Tim Sellers has been a vocal fan and supporter of the Finger Lakes Museum, almost from Day One.
And now, he will advocate for the Museum in an official capacity, as a member of the Board of Trustees. Sellers, associate vice president for academic programs at Keuka College, will serve a three-year term.
Board President John Adamski announced Sellers election at the board’s July meeting. Retired Rushville businessman John Meisch, husband of 1958 Keuka graduate, Kay Meisch, was also named to the board. Adamski compared the appointments to “hitting two home runs” in terms of advantages to the museum’s development.
“Tim’s expertise as a limnologist and professor of biology and environmental science will be a tremendous asset in planning the natural history component of the museum,” Adamski stated. “We are all very excited to have him aboard.”
Organizers of the project plan to bring an earth-friendly, 40,000-square foot museum showcasing the wildlife, natural and cultural history of the Finger Lakes to Keuka Lake State Park, a short drive from Keuka College. Sellers was a vocal advocate for locating the museum near the College two years ago when the board was deciding whether to build on Keuka or Seneca Lake. (more…)
A Veterinarian in the Making
Editor’s Note: This is the 2nd in a series of stories saluting members of the Class of 2011. We asked division chairs for story ideas and they in turn contacted faculty members for ideas. We believe they came up with some terrific profiles.
Emily Credit
Andrew Robak, assistant professor of chemistry, liked Emily Credit from the first class in which she took with him “because she did as much teaching as I did, and helped solve problems in the chemistry lab.
“Since then, I have gotten to know her better, and I only became more impressed,” said Robak.
Credit, a biology major from Canandaigua, chose Keuka because she liked the small class sizes, and the individual instruction she would receive from her professors.
Can’t Hide Those Spider Eyes
In a show-and-tell presentation format several generations advanced over the traditional science “fair,” four Keuka students will share their scientific research projects at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR), hosted at Ithaca College March 31 – April 2.
Since 1987, NCUR has held its yearly conference promoting scholarship, research and creative study for undergraduates and now more than 2,000 students and their faculty mentors present individual projects through posters, oral presentations, and more.
Each of the Keuka students has created an oversize poster detailing specifics of their project, with illustrations and findings from their research. (more…)
Zebra Mussels Focus of Summer Institute
Keuka College was one of nine colleges and organizations selected to host a Rochester Area Colleges’ Center for Excellence in Math and Science (RAC-CEMS) summer institute.
The Keuka institute, designed for high school science teachers, will be held July 26-29. It marks the second straight year that the College was chosen as an institute site.
The purpose of the Harris Rochester STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Teaching Institutes is to provide high quality professional development and establish a regional professional learning community committed to continuous improvement in STEM education.
“Using Zebra Mussels for Good, not Evil: Hands-on Experiments and Modeling Activities” is the title of the Keuka institute.
“We will provide teachers with a tool to transform a real world, local problem into an opportunity to engage in active, on-going, hands-on research with their students while increasing their understanding and use of science, mathematics and technology,” said Michael Keck, chair of the Division of Natural Sciences, Mathematics, and Physical Education and associate professor of chemistry.
Keck and Tim Sellers, associate professor of biology and environmental science will lead the workshop. Joining them will be Barb Demjanec, laboratory coordinator.
The Keuka Institute is free and high school teachers taking part will receive a $100 stipend.
For more information, or to register, visit the RAC-CEMS Web site at http://www.raccems.org/. Contact Keck at mkeck@keuka.edu or Sellers at tsellers@keuka.edu.
Representatives from Malaysian College Visit Campus
Two representatives from Methodist College in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, visited campus May 6-7 to discuss a variety of potential educational linkages with Keuka College, according to Vern Larson, associate vice president of the Center for Global Education.
Moey Yoke Lai, CEO and Leow Lee Lin, director of academic studies, met with President Burke; Larson; Vice President of the Center for Professional Studies Gary Smith; Vice President for Academic Affairs Anne Weed; Diane Burke (chair of the Division of Education); Tim Sellers (associate professor of biology and environmental science); and Neil Siebenhar (chair of the Division of Business and Management).
They also had the opportunity to talk with Keuka China Program students.
President Burke and Larson visited the Methodist campus last fall.
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