BULLETIN FALL 2004 VOLUME 50 NUMBER 3 Botany at Miami University...................................................................................................70 News from the Society Botany 2004 Eugenie Scott, Forum Keynote Address.................................................74 Rita R. Colwell, Plenary Address...........................................................74 Allison Snow, President-Elect’s Address...............................................75 BSA 2004 Merit Awards........................................................................................77 BSA 2004 Graduate Student Awards.....................................................................77 BSA 2004 Young Botanist Awards.........................................................................78 New BSA Corresponding Member, Professor Hugh Dickinson.............................78 in Memorium, Alicia Lourteig, 1913-2003..............................................................78 Announcements Harvard University, Bullard Fellowship.................................................................79 Botany References Available...................................................................................80 International Society of Environmental Botany......................................................80 Brooklyn Botanic Garden Launches Premier Issue of Urban Habitats Electronic Journal....................................................................................80 Brooklyn Botanic Garden Florilegium Society: Portraits of a Garden....................82 Symposia, Conferences, Meetings XVII International Botanical Congress....................................................................83 Second Global Summit on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants.....................................86 Third International Conference on Plants and Environmental Pollution.................86 Books Reviewed......................................................................................................................85 Books Received.......................................................................................................................98 The Botanical Society of America: for ALL Plant Biologists BSA Contact Information........................................................................................................99 BSA Logo Items....................................................................................................................100 PLANT SCIENCE Editor: Marshall D. Sundberg Department of Biological Sciences Emporia State University 1200 Commercial Street, Emporia, KS 66801-5707 Telephone: 620-341-5605 Fax: 620-341-5607 Email: [email protected] ISSN 0032-0919 Plant Science Bulletin 50(3) 2004 A “take-home message” from Dr. Rita Colwell’s Botany at Miami University Plenary Address at this years annual meeting (see Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) is a liberal arts summary on p74 of this issue) is that it is important college with a capped enrollment of 16,000 for the public to understand the significance of undergraduate and approximately 4000 graduate botany and that the major burden for this public students. It has three life science departments education falls on most of us – botanists in academe. including Botany, Microbiology, and Zoology. The The following article features another one of our Botany Department has a long history and will successful departments where botany has a long celebrate its Centennial in 2006, despite declines and distinguished history and where it continues to in the number of botany departments nationwide. thrive and attract undergraduate and graduate We are among the largest botany departments in students to the study of plant science. the U.S in terms of faculty size, number of majors, and success of our graduates. The University and One of the themes emerging from this series of Department have been transformed over the past articles is that successful departments have the 20 or more years from an emphasis on teaching at backing and support of their administrators - - but the undergraduate level to a research university that support is earned by departments through with graduate programs where excellent credit hours generated and numbers of majors. We scholarship and teaching are expected. While our must become proactive in promoting our courses mission has shifted, our commitment to quality and curricula to gain the support we need from education and training has not wavered. And, while administration. Hopefully you’ve been finding ideas the breadth and focus of Plant Biology has changed in the articles of this series that you can adapt to your significantly in the past 100 years, our departmental home institution. The critical step, however, is to leadership has always strived to keep pace with commit the time and effort necessary to implement emerging fields while staying grounded in core these ideas. Being good, or even great, as botanists areas. The following is background information on is no longer a guarantee that a botany program will the Department, and our curricula and programs survive. Just look at the number of formerly highlighting things that we believe contribute to our outstanding botany departments that no longer exist. vitality. However it is difficult to provide a recipe for We cannot afford only to concentrate on our own success since there are historical factors as well research and teaching. Somewhere in our busy as current practices that contribute to the total schedules we must make the time to self-promote package. Nonetheless, perhaps our structure, and reach out to the public to enhance botanical approach, and philosophy may provide useful literacy and indirectly recruit students. information to other Botany departments. President Snow addressed this need for self- We have both undergraduate and graduate promotion in her banquet address at the annual programs with 20 faculty members on 4 campuses meeting. Specifically, she encouraged us to become with Oxford being the primary campus. We have more involved in promoting botany directly to the three additional affiliate faculty whose home public though the news media. A summary of her departments are in Zoology, Geography, and talk, on p. 75 of this issue, addresses the issue and Chemistry. Six faculty members have additional provides some helpful strategies. Lets give it a try! administrative duties with reduced teaching loads -editor and three are on regional campuses with reduced PLANT SCIENCE BULLETIN ISSN 0032-0919 Published quarterly by Botanical Society of America, Inc., 4475 Castleman Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63166-0299. The yearly subscription rate of $15 is included in the membership dues of the Botanical Society of America, Inc. Periodical postage paid at Columbus, OH and addi- tional mailing office. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Address Editorial Matters (only) to: Botanical Society of America Marsh Sundberg, Editor Business Office Dept. Biol. Sci., Emporia State Univ. P.O. Box 299 1200 Commercial St. St. Louis, MO 63166-0299 Emporia, KS 66801-5057 email: [email protected] Phone 620-341-5605 email: [email protected] 70 Plant Science Bulletin 50(3) 2004 research expectations. Regional campus faculty than 1200 students take Introductory Biology each are full participants in the Department. They sponsor semester, and we try to put our best Graduate graduate students, maintain research programs, Teaching Assistants into these laboratories since serve on departmental committees, attend faculty they are often very effective at recruiting. We actively meetings, and are tenured by the Oxford Campus. attempt to capture the undeclared biological science Our faculty have primary expertise in one of three students at the end of each term in Introductory core areas, often with additional expertise in a Biology classes and many botany courses by second area: 1) Ecology, Taxonomy, & Systematics; providing forms to all students to direct them to a 2) Cell Biology, Molecular Biology, Genetics, & specific Botany advisor. We have just begun tracking Physiology; and 3) Anatomy, Morphology, & the precise source of these majors, so we don’t yet Development. We have been approved for two new have definitive data on particularly enlightening tenure-track searches in 2004-05 in Plant courses or faculty, however, a large number come Evolutionary Biology and Bioinformatics, and the from the Middletown campus, historically and administration has promised that we will be presently. We are also developing a series of approved another search in the near future for one informational brochures for University and College recent retirement. Thus it is reassuring that the level academic advisors that channel undeclared administration appears to appreciate the quality of students into Botany (such as genetics, our department and continues to invest in it by biotechnology, environmental science) who may authorizing new positions. not otherwise be aware of it as a track. A few students transfer in from other universities, which We currently have about 60 majors, which may also may be related to our high profile in Botany. We fluctuate to 100 or more in any given year. Most of our also host a variety of venues for interaction among majors come from Ohio and throughout the Midwest, faculty, graduate students, majors, and undecided/ particularly Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. undeclared undergraduates, such as picnics, Approximately 1/3 of our undergraduates declare special seminars, and opportunities to meet