Plant Science Bulletin Spring 2020 Volume 66 Number 1
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PLANT SCIENCE BULLETIN SPRING 2020 VOLUME 66 NUMBER 1 A PUBLICATION OF THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA Workshops Advocating Traditional Ecological Knowledge at the Legislature in Guåhan IN THIS ISSUE... BSA President Linda Watson Bartram’s Garden: a legacy of Colonial BSA student reps share opportuni- on graduate education in the American botany....p.16 ties for students.... p. 38 21st century.... p. 3 PLANT SCIENCE BULLETIN From the Editor Editorial Committee Greetings, Volume 66 Welcome to 2020! As we kick o a new year, a new decade, and a new PSB editorial term, I am pleased to share my thoughts on the future of Plant Science Bulletin on page 13 of this issue. As you may know, every issue of Plant Science Bul- letin can be found on our website https://botany. Shannon Fehlberg org/PlantScienceBulletin/issues.php. While look- ( 2020) ing through the issues from 1970, I was especially Research and Conservation struck by Arthur Galston’s Address of the Retiring Desert Botanical Garden BSA President, from which I have included an Phoenix, AZ 85008 excerpt in the “From the Archives” section. His [email protected] words about the role of plant scientists in world af- fairs seem especially timely today, and I encourage you to read his remarks in full at https://botany. org/PlantScienceBulletin/psb-1970-16-1.php. e goal of PSB is to keep a record of the important David Tank issues facing botanists, and we continue the tra- (2021) dition of publishing articles developed out of the Department of Biological lecture given by each BSA President. In this issue, Sciences University of Idaho you can nd Linda Watson’s remarks from Botany Moscow, ID 83844 2019 on the eectiveness of graduate education for [email protected] training students for 21st Century careers. is is a must read for anyone who is training students. Fur- ther, in the Policy Section, you will nd the report of the 2019 Botanical Advocacy Leadership Grant, Else Demeulenaere, on her work with the legis- lature of Guåhan (Guam). Moving back in time, James McDaniel from the 21st to the 18th Century, Marsh Sundberg’s (2022) article discusses the history of Bartram’s garden Botany Department and its place in the context of Colonial and Early University of Wisconsin America. ese articles remind us that there are Madison Madison, WI 53706 many ways to eect change in the world. It is safe [email protected] to say that botany and botanists have always played an important role in the public sphere. Seana K. Walsh (2023) National Tropical Botanical Garden Kalāheo, HI 96741 [email protected] Spring 2020 Volume 66 Number 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS SOCIETY NEWS Is Graduate Education Keeping Pace with the Dynamic Nature of 21st Century STEM Careers? - Remarks from Botany 2019 by President Linda Watson ................3 Public Policy Quarterly: Workshops Advocate Traditional Ecological Knowledge at the Legislature in Guåhan ....................................................................................................................9 Plant Science Bulletin: A Vision for 2020 .....................................................................................................13 SPECIAL FEATURES Bartram’s Garden: A Legacy of Colonial American Botany ..............................................................16 SCIENCE EDUCATION How do BSA members assist or direct people interested in plant careers? .........................34 STUDENT SECTION Update on Botany Conference, Student Opportunities, and More! ..............................................38 ANNOUNCEMENTS In Memoriam - Robert B. Kaul ............................................................................................................................40 In Memoriam - Michael S. Kinney .....................................................................................................................42 In Memoriam - Lee W. Lenz .................................................................................................................................43 BOOK REVIEWS ..................................................................................................................................................45 July 27 - 31 1 PSB 66 (1) 2020 Special Notice Regarding the Plant Science Bulletin e articles in this issue of Plant Science Bulletin were written and prepared in early 2020---just as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the planet. In an eort to control the spread of the virus, universities and institutions were forced to quickly adapt to a world of stay-at-home orders, disrupting the teaching, learning, research projects, and even occupations of countless students and members of our community. e next issue of the PSB will look into the eects of the pandemic on our members---the adaptation of online teaching and learning, concerns and opportunities for the near future, and expectations for the 2020-2021 school year. Stay tuned to the BSA social media feeds on Facebook and Twitter, as well as the PSB home page, for more information on the issue this summer. 2 SOCIETY NEWS Is Graduate Education Keeping Pace with the Dynamic Nature of 21st Century STEM Careers? Remarks from Botany 2019 by President-elect Linda Watson With the career landscape for Ph.D.s traditional model in STEM under which most continuing to shi away from academia, doctoral students are trained, and (3) relevant students and universities alike are asking training and career resources available to if the current model of graduate training is faculty and students, respectively. is paper is sucient to meet the needs and demands not a detailed review of careers or professions for a workforce in the private sector and in in plant biology; instead, the goal is to raise government agencies. While STEM doctorates awareness of the complex issues that students have been trained to have extensive technical and faculty may face in understanding the and critical thinking skills and they acquire a various dimensions of skills needed for a deep and broad knowledge of their discipline, diverse array of careers. to what extent are these skills transferable and are their professional skills suciently ST broad to successfully pursue careers outside of 21 CENTURY CAREER academia? e foci of this paper are to explore the: (1) educational pathways to the primary PATHWAYS employment sectors that biologists generally To better understand the employment pursue, (2) data available on the relative trajectories of U.S. biology doctorates in eectiveness of what may be labeled as the general, the American Society for Cell Biology compiled data from several sources (Polka, 2014 and references therein; https:// www.ascb.org/careers/where-will-a- By Linda E. Watson biology-phd-take-you/) and generated the Department of Plant Biology, following statistics that serve to illustrate Ecology, and Evolution the most prevalent career pathways. On Oklahoma State University average in the United States, a Ph.D. in any Stillwater, OK 74074 subdiscipline of biology requires seven E-mail: linda.watson10@ years to complete, and only 1 in 12 of these okstate.edu graduates (8%) obtains a tenure-track 3 PSB 66 (1) 2020 position in academia—rendering tenure- A survey by the American Association of track faculty positions the alternative career Plant Biologists (ASPB) was conducted to path. Yet greater than 50% of biology doctoral specically understand career goals of plant students have academia as their career goal. scientists (Binder, 2015 and references therein; https://blog.aspb.org/plant-science-careers- Of the 63% of doctoral biology students survey-summary-and-infographic/). ese who complete their degrees, 70% accept survey data are similar to those for biology postdoctoral research positions, which doctorates (Polka, 2014) in that approximately average four years in length with most 50% of entering plant biology graduate doctorates completing more than one postdoc students have a professional goal of obtaining experience. Of these postdocs, approximately a tenure-track faculty position at a top-tier 15% ultimately obtain a tenure-track faculty research university, but only 25% report position. e remaining 85% of these postdocs obtaining one (this gure is reported for at all primarily obtain research positions in industry career levels across generations and cohorts, and government, and to a lesser extent in non- so is not representative for recent doctorates). research, science-related jobs. Of the 30% of Careers forged outside of academia that were biology doctorates who do not work and train reported in this survey included government as a postdoc, approximately 20% obtain non- (37%) and industry research (25%), as well as tenure track positions in academia, and the non-prots (10%), science publishing (9%) remainder secure research or non-research and government policy (6%); the remaining positions or science-related jobs outside of 10% to 12% reported jobs in a variety of non- academia. ese data (Polka 2014) clearly science careers. Approximately 200 of the illustrate that completing a postdoc is critical 800+ respondents for this survey were from to obtaining an academic position on the the United States and included the primary tenure track; however, these summary data do specialties of the ASPB membership such as not account for the occasional individual who plant physiology, cell and molecular biology, successfully moved directly from a graduate genetics, and genomics, but also included program into a tenure-track position or for a small subsample from plant systematics, dierences