News-News-News

a) Graduating this Quarter?
Please note, if you are planning to graduate this quarter, then your application to graduate needs to be turned in to the Graduate School by the second Friday of the quarter (that?s next Friday, April 4th). Of course, this form needs to be signed by the ESGP Graduate Studies Chair, Dr. Richard Moore. Since Dr. Moore is sometimes based in Wooster, the program admin Nancy Tresch can sign the form in his stead. However, it will only be signed if a course audit has been done before hand by the ESGP office, and you have completed your core courses, seminars, etc., as proscribed by the handbook.

Have you requested a course audit? If not, better get to it.

Jobs & Internships

2) Jobs and Internships

a) Extension Educator – OSU, Morrow County

Posted:  April 19, 2008

Deadline:  May 18, 2008

Screening Interviews:  June 9, 2008

Morrow County

Extension Educator, Agriculture/Natural Resources

Requisition Number - 338555

For full position description and application procedure, please go to: 

http://extensionhr.osu.edu/jobs.html

b) Hydrogeologist

CH2M HILL's Dayton, OH office is growing and we are currently looking for an experienced Hydrogeologist to join our Environmental Services Group. The candidate will work under the direction of a manager and will be responsible for managing project tasks and small projects, serving as field team leader and performing the planning and implementation, including field oversight, of environmental sampling and hydrogeologic testing, evaluation of data to develop site conceptual model and report writing. Strong technical background in hydrogeologic test results and conceptual site model analysis is required. Typical field activities the candidate will task-manage, plan and implement include: sampling various media (soil, groundwater, surface water, sediments, and air), hydrogeologic testing, completing field paperwork and documenting site activities, and directing subcontractors. Typical office tasks the candidate will task-manage, plan and implement will include: chemical and hydrogeologic data entry and evaluation and report writing. This position consists of approximately 50% fieldwork that will require travel. Over time, the office to field work ratio will shift to become predominantly office work.

Requirements:

* B.S. in Geology or Hydrogeology.

* The candidate must have 5+ years of field experience, field team leadership, and task management in site

   investigations.

* OSHA 40-hr HAZWOPPER training.

Preferred Qualifications: BS and MS in Hydrogeology.

* 7+ years of relevant experience.

* Candidate should be a versatile hydrogeologist that wants to work on a variety of different projects and has the

   ability to learn new skills quickly with minimal guidance of others.

* Candidate should be able to interact with teams spread over multiple offices.

* Strong communication skills are required to communicate effectively with contractors, project team, project

   manager, and other stakeholders.

back to top

Seminars & Courses

a) ES798 Seminar Series

Fridays, 3:30-4:48, 244 Kottman Hall, with video-broadcast to Wooster, 121 Fisher

Moonlight on the Marsh Distinguished Lecture

***This lecture will be at the Heffner Wetland Building at the Wilma H. Schiermeier Olentangy River Wetland Research Park***

May 1st                            Dr. Mary Kentula, EPA, “Assessing the Condition of the Wetland Research: Mitigation                                           to National Survey and In-Between”

b) SENR Seminar Series

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Time: 3:30 p.m.

Location: 103 Kottman Hall with video link to 123 Williams Hall

Speaker: Greg Hitzhusen, OSU School of Environment and Natural Resources

Title: Religion and Ecology: Religious Environmentalism in North America

Complete schedules for SP08 are available online at http://snr.osu.edu/news/seminars.html

c) SSES Seminar Series/Discussion Group

During Spring Quarter 2008, the Program in Spatial Statistics and Environmental Sciences (SSES) is organizing a series of events on the role of statistics in climate change studies.  These events will include formal seminars, as well as weekly discussion group meetings, and began on Thursday (Apr 3rd).  This seminar will be co-sponsored by OSU's Climate, Water, and Carbon Program.  In addition, the first meeting of the weekly discussion and reading group will be on Friday from noon-1PM in CH212.  Everyone is welcome to attend both the seminar and discussion group meetings.

Below are key details on the seminar and the quarter-long weekly discussion group.  More information on the Quarter on Statistics and Climate Change is available on the SSES Program's website --

http://www.stat.osu.edu/~sses/events_climate.html

--- WEEKLY DISCUSSION GROUP ---

DATES:   Fridays, April 4, 2008 to May 23, 2008 (inclusive)

TIME:   12-1PM

LOCATION:   Cockins Hall, Room CH 212

SCHEDULE:  see http://www.stat.osu.edu/~sses/events_climate.html

This seminar is jointly sponsored by the Program in Spatial Statistics and Environmental Sciences (http://www.stat.osu.edu/~sses) and the Climate, Water, and Carbon Program (http://www.cwc.osu.edu ).

d) Cyberinfrastructure for International Collaborative biodiversity and Ecological Informatics

La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica

May 31 -- June 12, 2008

The University of Kansas and Florida International University, working with the University of Costa Rica and the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS), are hosting a two-week course in biodiversity and ecological informatics at OTS's La Selva Biological Station in northeastern Costa Rica from May 31 through June 12.  Thanks to a PanAmerican Advanced Studies Institute Award from the Office of International Science and Engineering at the US National Science Foundation, full scholarships plus airfare are available for US and Latin American graduates. All participation costs will be covered by the award.  The program will be in English.

Graduate students, postdocs and early-career faculty are strongly encouraged to apply.  About 25 participants, half from the U.S. and half from Latin America will be accepted. Only students/researchers from Latin America and from the United States are eligible to apply. The online application and further information, including a draft curriculum is available at: www.ciara.fiu.edu/eco/index.htm

Please note that the application date is rapidly approaching, potential participants need to act quickly.

There is also some opportunity for additional resource faculty from the U.S. and from Latin America in the area of bioinformatics who could join the course for various periods during the two week schedule.

Please contact Jim Beach, University of Kansas, beach@ku.edu , or Julio Ibarra, Florida International University, Julio@fiu.edu , for more information but see the web site for details.

e) STATS 504-The Role of Statistical Concepts in Guiding and Enhancing Academic Research

The OSU Department of Statistics and the Statistical Consulting Service (SCS) is pleased to announce a new course for graduate students preparing for research related to their Master's thesis or Ph.D. dissertation. The course is aimed at graduate students who will use statistical methods of analysis in the context of their research activities. This is not a technical course. The goal is to help prepare students for the statistical analysis activities they will be engaged in, and to better prepare them to work with consultants in the SCS if they decide to take advantage of that service.

For additional information about this course go to the SCS website www.scs.osu.edu .

f) AEDE/ENR 531 – Environmental and Natural Resource Economics

Instructor: Matt Interis

T-W-R, 2:00-3:18 pm

104 Kottman Hall

AED Econ Call #00267-3

ENR Call #15490-1

Credits: U G

Should a forest be cut down to put up an apartment complex, build a public park, or is it better to leave the forest standing? What is the value of the wildlife habitat the forest provides? What is the value of cleaner water?  Cleaner air? If we agree that clean water and air are valuable, how can we prevent pollution levels from becoming too high?  Environmental and natural resource economics attempts to answer questions such as these. With the answers, policy-makers are better equipped to make decisions about how to manage and use natural resources and the environment.  This course teaches students the main issues surrounding environmental and natural resource decisions and how to begin answering these difficult questions using economic modeling and analysis. Key applications of environmental economics include: air, water, forests, land, fisheries, energy, and climate change

Funding & Papers

a) PhD Fellowship at OSU
A Ph.D. Fellowship is available in Soil Microbial Ecology for qualified students. This Fellowship is funded by a grant obtained from the USDA National Needs Fellowship Program. The Fellowship provides payment of tuition and fees at The Ohio State University and a monthly stipend. The Fellowship is open only to US Citizens or those with a green card. Interested students should contact Dr. Warren Dick directly at dick.5@osu.edu . The Fellowship research will focus on understanding and manipulating soil microbial communities to produce practical solutions for bioremediation, biosecurity or biogeochemical cycling.

b) CWC Funding
The Climate, Water, and Carbon program, an OAA TIE, is pleased to announce funding opportunities for helping the CWC meet its goals. Please see the MSWord and PDF documents located on the CWC web page. These explain how to propose new core projects and new seed grants. The CWC is hosting a campus-wide meeting on Monday March 10 where we will further discuss these funding opportunities. Please feel free to email your questions to me and we will be certain to address these during the meeting. We will also be pleased to meet with you in small groups or one-on-one.

Web page with Guidelines:
http://bprc.osu.edu/dev/cwc/projects/

back to top

Miscellaneous

Today in History: March 13, 1946
UAW takes on General Motors

The end of World War II, and America's concurrent shift to a peacetime economy, stirred the ever-simmering tension between labor and management. After tightening their belts, and forgoing the right to strike during the war, workers sought higher wages and a better standard of living when the war was won. Business leaders responded by looking to roll back the government and unions respective efforts to shape post-war wages and prices.

These competing desires were on full display in the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike against General Motors (GM) that stretched from November 1945 until March of 1946. The walkout was engineered by UAW chief Walter Reuther, who was not only agitating for higher pay for GM's 320,000 employees, but also looked to consolidate his power in the stratified world of the auto union. With his eyes on both these prizes, Reuther took a hard line stance at the negotiating table: he demanded that GM open its ledgers to the union, which, theoretically, would reveal that the company had prospered during the war and could easily afford a boost in wages. Leaders for the auto giant flatly refused to "open the books" and mounted a propaganda campaign aimed at branding the request as another example of labor's ever-intrusive tendencies. Finally, on March 13, 1946, the two sides quit their bickering and the 175,00 strikers agreed to head back to work. Although GM caved in and handed out a wage hike, the coming months hardly made the strike seem like a victory: business leaders in various industries proved successful in their drive for price increases, which opened the floodgates of inflation and in turn wiped out the workers' wage gains.

Quotes of the Week: " The really potent part of love is that it allows you to carry around beliefs about yourself that make you feel special, desirable, precious, innately good. Your lover couldn't have seen [these qualities] in you, even temporarily, if they weren't part of your essential being."  Martha Beck, O Magazine, February 2003

back to top

Mail Server Information: Users may subscribe to the ESGPNEWS list by sending e-mail to listserver@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu with the following message: subscribe ESGPNEWS Firstname Lastname. This message has to be sent from the user's own e-mail account and should not include anything else than the above message. Contributions to the Newsletter can be sent by mailing enviro@osu.edu.