UConn – Uncommon Ground

Celebrating 50 years of the H. Fred Simons African American Cultural Center @UConn #aacc50th

Cover of the program for the AACC 50th Anniversary Gala I was privileged to attend to 50th anniversary celebration of the H. Fred Simons African American Cultural Center on Saturday night, and to sit next to Dr. James Lyons, Sr., a UConn alum and the first director of the Center. You can see a few photos that were posted during the event on Twitter. I was also asked to say a few words during the celebration. Here’s what I said:

Thank you Willena.

It is a pleasure and a privilege to greet you tonight, although it is a little odd to welcome you when you’re already eating dessert. It is also dangerous for anyone to give me a captive audience, so I also congratulate Willena on her courage in trusting me, and I promise that I will be brief. I know that the real program comes after me, and I also understand that there may be a party you want to get to.

We live in frightening times, but 1968 (when the African American Cultural Center was started) was also a frightening time. Our country was embroiled in the Vietnam War, student protests were exploding, and our cities were burning. There were riots at the Democratic National Convention, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, and on April 4th the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was gunned down in Memphis.

But 1968 was also a year of hope and promise: The Civil Rights Act was signed into law, the 3rd season of Star Trek featured the first interracial kiss on national TV, and perhaps most important of all, LL Cool J was born on January 14.

1968 was also the year when students, faculty, and staff at UConn came together to establish the African American Cultural Center.

For the last 50 years, the Center has been a vital part of campus life at UConn. Its dedication to cultural preservation, leadership, and academic excellence is a vital part of making UConn one of the nation’s leading public universities.

As a nation we were founded on the principle that all people are created equal and that we all have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I don’t need to tell anyone here that we have often fallen short of this lofty principle. Indeed, I need only to mention the names of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, or Laquan McDonald to remind us how far we have to go.

But at a time when violent political rhetoric seeks to divide us, the work of the African American Cultural Center is more important than ever. It enriches us all by showcasing the culture, history, and traditions of people of African descent. It binds us together as people and inspires us to imagine a future in which everyone is valued for their unique contribution and in which the culture, history, and traditions of all people are treated with the respect they deserve.

I am honored to play a small part in celebrating the Center’s 50th anniversary this evening, and I am delighted to have the privilege of welcoming you to this celebration.

Thank you.

kent October 29, 2018 Public remarks, UConnUConn 0 Read more >

Made it to Brisbane

It’s among the longest stretch of (planned) travel that I’ve done.¹ I

left Hartford at 11:45am EDT on Thursday, April 19
arrived in Cinncinnati at 1:53pm,
left Cinncinnati at 2:45pm,
arrived in Los Angeles at 4:45pm PDT,
left Los Angeles at 10:30, and
arrived in Brisbane at 5:30am Australian Eastern time on Saturday, April 21.

There’s a 14 hour time difference between Brisbane and Hartford. That makes the total travel time 27 hours, 45 minutes gate to gate. I arrived at my hotel about 2 1/2 hours ago. Remarkably, they had a room they could give me, even though the official check in time isn’t until 2:00pm. It’s a very comfortable room in what appears to be a very nice part of the city. I don’t have any meetings until tomorrow. Once I’ve finished up a couple of things I want to do, I’m going to put on some comfortable shoes and go for a walk around town with my camera. First stop, the City Botanic Gardens. I’ll miss the farmer’s market, which is held tomorrow, and I’m not sure what I’ll visit after the botanic gardens, but I’m going to keep going all day. If I can go to bed at something resembling a normal time, there’s a good chance I’ll escape the worst effects of jet lag tomorrow.

The photo is the view from my hotel room.

A few years ago it took me 3 1/2 days to get home from Capetown. I was stranded in Amsterdam for 2 nights. Yes I mean stranded. The first night I was stuck in the airport. The second night I was at an airport hotel, but I didn’t get there until 3 in the afternoon – too late to go into the city and enjoy anything. ↩

kent April 20, 2018 PersonalGraduate education, UConn 0 Read more >

On my way to Brisbane

UConn is a member of Universitas 21, an international group of universities dedicated to excellence in research and education. Every year Deans and Directors of Graduate Studies (DDoGS) of U21 universities gather at one of the member universities to exchange ideas about improving graduate education. This year the discussions will include sessions on providing support for career planning, advising and mentoring graduate students and postdocs, and entrepreneurship. The meetings begin Sunday morning and continue through Tuesday – three very full days of vigorous discussion.

This year, the University of Queensland is hosting the meeting, hence my travel to Brisbane. I’m sitting in the departure lounge at Bradley as I type this, and I expect to land in Brisbane about 36 hours from now. If time permits, I’ll send an update or two from the DDoGS meeting. If not, expect a short report after I return.

kent April 19, 2018 Graduate educationUConn 0 Read more >

Universitas 21 3-minute thesis competition winners announced (@U21News)

Universitas 21 is a global network of research intensive universities, founded in Melbourne in 1997. It aims to enhance global citizenship and institutional innovation. Since 2012, Universitas 21 has sponsored a Virtual 3-minute thesis competition in which videos of local 3-MT competition winners are judged against one another for a network-wide prize. Last year, one of UConn’s own PhD students, Islam Mosa, won the People’s Choice award. This year First Prize and the People’s Choice award went to Samuel Ramsey of the University of Maryland. Here’s his presentation.

Here’s how a press release from U21 describes his award:

In his winning presentation, Samuel described his research which has focused on the parasitic mite, varroa destructor, which is one of the main reasons for the decline in the honey bee population. Samuel’s research has centred on finding out how this parasite is so destructive; focussing on what the parasite is eating and where on the honey bee they feed. His results have shown that the parasite only feeds on one specific part of the honey bee, the fat body tissue, an important tissue that controls nine major functions within the organism, including the storage of nutrients, the detoxification of pesticides and the production of the immune response. Now he knows what they are feeding on, he is investigating whether it is possible to introduce an agent into this fat body tissue that can disrupt the reproductive cycle of the parasite and eliminate this pest once and for all.

Samuel spoke of his experience of taking part in the 3MT® competition: “I would characterize this experience as challenging but in the best way possible. Ph.D. programs teach us complex technical terms and opaque jargon. Reliance on them can make our entire field inaccessible to the people most in need of our insight. Being forced to explain your work simply, forces you to approach it differently; to understand it better.

So many ground-breaking scientific discoveries never move beyond the pages of journals to public consciousness or public policy, partly because it’s difficult to explain things briefly without sacrificing accuracy. That’s why I’m so glad that I entered this contest. It forced me to refine this skill; one that I’m certain will serve me well throughout my career in science.

I’m so grateful to the University of Maryland for encouraging us to be a part of this competition! I think I’m a better communicator and a better researcher as a direct result. I want to thank everyone who participated in the contest by watching and sharing the videos. I also have to thank my advisor Dennis van Engelsdorp for all of his support, my mentors Kathy and Dr. Kevin Hackett, and my incredible parents who have constantly encouraged my interest in science and who are always so interested to hear what I’m up to in the lab. I had no idea at the time but dinner with them was the best possible practice for this competition.”

Dr Steve Fetter, Interim Dean of the Graduate School and Associate Provost for Academic Affairs at the University of Maryland, spoke of the university’s delight in Samuel’s achievement: “We are thrilled that Sammy Ramsey won both the U21 3MT® Judge’s Prize and the People’s Choice Prize in this year’s competition. Sammy’s presentation is a wonderful example of how researchers can describe their work to a general audience in a clear, compelling, and engaging manner.”

The international judging panel noted that Samuel’s presentation was really engaging, that Samuel presented clearly and with confidence, and that he articulated his research very well. The general public clearly agreed with the judges and voted Samuel’s presentation top in the People’s Choice competition which took place online during mid-October. With around one third of the overall votes, Samuel clearly impressed the public with his research on the how the parasitic mite, varroa destructor, is affecting the honey bee population and how this could be stopped. Entrants from the University of Nottingham and University of British Columbia were second and third respectively, in the public vote.

kent October 31, 2017 Science communicationUConn 0 Read more >

Plants, People, and the Mother City

Tanisha Williams, Fulbright 2015-2016, South Africa, at Boulders Beach visiting the penguins.

Some of you know that Carl Schlichting and I co-advise Tanisha Williams. If you know that, you almost certainly know that Tanisha spent the 2015-2016 academic year as a Fulbright Fellow in South Africa. She was based at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, and she used her time not only to collect seeds of Pelargonium and establish experimental gardens at Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden and Rhodes University but also to work with two non-profit environmental organizations. She posted an article about her experience on the blog of the Fulbright Student Program. Here’s an excerpt to whet your appetite:

Among the many experiences I had, I must say the residents from the Khayelitsha township have taken a special place in my heart. This is where I taught girls and young women math, science, computer tutoring, life skills, and female empowerment through a community center program. It was such an impactful experience, as these girls are growing up in a community with high rates of unemployment, violence, and other socioeconomic issues. It was empowering for me to see the curiosity and determination these girls had for learning and changing their community. They thought I was there to teach them from my own experiences being raised in a comparable situation and now working on my doctorate as a scientist, but I know I was the one that gained the most from our time together. I learned what it truly means to have hope and persevere. These lessons, along with the ecological and evolutionary insights from my academic research, will be ones that I always remember.

kent October 11, 2017 Botany, EcologyUConn 0 Read more >

2017 Graduate Commencement Ceremonies @UConn

The University of Connecticut celebrated its 138th Commencement exercises last weekend.¹ The Graduate School now confers so many degrees that we have two ceremonies, a ceremony for recipients of master’s degrees on Saturday afternoon and a ceremony for recipients of doctoral degrees on Monday evening. Stuart Rothenburg, who received his

Stuart Rothenburg, who received his PhD in Political Science from UConn, addressed the graduating class at the master’s ceremony. If you’d like to see his remarks, follow the link below, click on “Graduate School Ceremony: Masters Candidates, May 6, 2017”, and then click on “Commencement Address” at the left.

I addressed the graduating class at the doctoral ceremony on behalf of Elizabeth Jockusch, this year’s winner of the Edward C. Marth Award for Mentorship, and Takiyah Harper-Shipman was our student speaker. If you’d like to see my remarks, follow the link below, click on “Graduate School Ceremony: Doctoral Candidates, May 8, 2017”, and then click on “Welcome Remarks” at the left. After a brief welcome from Interim Provost Jeremy Teitelbaum, you’ll see me. If you’d like to see Takiyah’s remarks, click on “Commencement Address” instead. If for some reason you’d like to read my remarks, keep scrolling down (or click through if you’re on the home page).

University of Connecticut Commencement Ceremonies 2017 (from Total Webcasting)

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kent May 10, 2017 Academics, Public remarks, UConnUConn 0 Read more >

Climate change and biodiversity loss in the Cape Floristic Region

Jasper Slingsby is the lead author on a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describing some of the work he, John Silander, and others did as part of our recently concluded Dimensions of Biodiversity project. Here’s the abstract. Follow the links below to find the full paper and a story about it in UConn Today.

Prolonged periods of extreme heat or drought in the first year after fire affect the resilience and diversity of fire-dependent ecosystems by inhibiting seed germination or increasing mortality of seedlings and resprouting individuals. This interaction between weather and fire is of growing concern as climate changes, particularly in systems subject to stand-replacing crown fires, such as most Mediterranean-type ecosystems. We examined the longest running set of permanent vegetation plots in the Fynbos of South Africa (44 y), finding a significant decline in the diversity of plots driven by increasingly severe postfire summer weather events (number of consecutive days with high temperatures and no rain) and legacy effects of historical woody alien plant densities 30 y after clearing. Species that resprout after fire and/or have graminoid or herb growth forms were particularly affected by postfire weather, whereas all species were sensitive to invasive plants. Observed differences in the response of functional types to extreme postfire weather could drive major shifts in ecosystem structure and function such as altered fire behavior, hydrology, and carbon storage. An estimated 0.5 °C increase in maximum temperature tolerance of the species sets unique to each survey further suggests selection for species adapted to hotter conditions. Taken together, our results show climate change impacts on biodiversity in the hyperdiverse Cape Floristic Region and demonstrate an important interaction between extreme weather and disturbance by fire that may make flammable ecosystems particularly sensitive to climate change.

Slingsby, J.A., C. Merow, M. Aiello-Lammens, N. Allsopp, S. Hall, H.K. Mollman, R. Turner, A.M. Wilson, and J.A. Silander, Jr. 2017. Intensifying postfire weather and biological invasion drive species loss in a Mediterranean-type biodiversity hotspot. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (early edition) doi: 10.1073/pnas.1619014114

The new game of Russian roulette for fire-prone ecosystems, UConn Today, 17 April 2017

kent April 21, 2017 Climate change, Conservation biologyUConn 0 Read more >

3-minute thesis @UConn @U21News

In 2008, the University of Queensland started the 3-minute thesis competition, in which advanced doctoral students are challenged to summarize their dissertation research for a non-specialist audience in three minutes. As they put it on the 3-MT website,

An 80,000 word thesis would take 9 hours to present.

Their time limit… 3 minutes

UConn has sponsored a local 3-minute thesis competition since the fall of 2013. Each year we send a video recording of the winner of our local competition to a “virtual” competition sponsored by Universitas 21. Judges in the international competition award a first prize and a highly commended prize. In addition, visitors to the U21 website can vote for their favorite presentation, with the presentation receiving the highest number of votes being given the Peoples Choice award. More than 3400 votes were cast in this year’s competition, and I’m delighted to report that Islam Mosa, a PhD student in Chemistry at UConn, is the 2016 People’s Choice award winner. Take three minutes of your time and watch his presentation below. You will be inspired.

kent November 1, 2016 AcademicsUConn 0 Read more >

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