Re: {Human Ecology @ ESA} Symposium Proposal Submitted

[John Anderson]

well done you Rob,

how/when do we need to solicit "endorsements" -that seemed a Big Deal last year...

John G.T. Anderson
W.H. Drury Professor of Ecology/Natural History
College of the Atlantic
>>> Rob <rob.d...@anu.edu.au> 09/21/09 21:52 PM >>>

Dear All
I submitted the section's symposium proposal to ESA. It is essentially
as per previous version, but modified to fit ESA rules. I have
uploaded it as a file. I think it looks good and thank all who were
involved in putting it together.
There is no great urgency, and of course no guarantee our proposal
will be accepted, but can you make others aware of this initiative
please. Once we know if we are on we should all drum up as much
support as we can for our section and try to make sure we have a
decent turn out in Pittsburgh. In the meantime if would be good to do
some recruitment onto this list.
In due course we can discuss what the section's future contribution to
ESA might be and what other activities we might pursue.
Cheers
Rob

[Tom Fleischner]

John, You crack me up! Great description of ESA. tom

Thomas L. Fleischner, Ph.D.
Professor of Environmental Studies
Prescott College
220 Grove Avenue
Prescott, AZ 86301
(928)350-2219

Web Page: http://www.prescott.edu/faculty_staff/faculty/tfleischner/index.html

President, Natural History Network
http://www.naturalhistorynetwork.org <http://www.naturalhistorynetwork.org/>

Imagination is better than a sharp instrument.
To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.
--Mary Oliver

________________________________

From: human_ecol...@googlegroups.com on behalf of John Anderson
Sent: Wed 23-Sep-09 3:53 AM
To: human_ecol...@googlegroups.com
Subject: {Human Ecology @ ESA} Re: Symposium Proposal Submitted




Natural History DOESN'T have a section -It was ironic, they rejected our Symposium as "not exactly cutting edge" and then I gatehr our Organized Session was the best attended in the entire conference... oh well. I guess I am a leetle leery of the ESA/SHE thing. ESA seems to me very much like an enormous creature with a very low iq -the individual parts are smart enough, but it doesn't really seem to have a focus or a sense of direction & i get the sense that they have gotten TOO big & are rather thrashing around to find something that they can really latch onto. I also think that there are a LOT of very conservative people who haven't really goten over Ecology circa about 1973, except that now they have new shiny tols & new shiny statistics, BUT their intellectual energy stopped developing when they left grad school & its been a while. SOOO I would hate to see us swallowed up as part of their attempt to "get relevent". sooo i say "let's dance, but no slow dances yet" by the way, you do know that you are PERFECT as Chair! You have done a jillion times more in a month than I did all year! Thanks

John G.T. Anderson
W.H. Drury Professor of Ecology/Natural History
College of the Atlantic

>>> Rob Dyball <rob.d...@anu.edu.au> 09/22/09 21:31 PM >>>

Hi John
We went for Agroecology Section and I will probably have a shot at Urban
Ecology. Natural History doesn't have a section, does it?

Any thoughts on the involvement with ESA as per the other thread? I am
not unaware that it could also have pitfalls. I think Scott is
particularly wary

Cheers
Rob

Dr Robert Dyball
Lecturer, Human Ecology Program
Fenner School of Environment and Society
The Australian National University
Room 2.05 Building 48a, Canberra 0200
Australia
Phone: +61 (0)2 6125 3704
Fax: +61 (0)2 6125 3770
Email: rob.d...@anu.edu.au

[Yasmin Lucero]

I'd say John's assessment is harsh but not without merit. ESA is what it is. If you want a rich intellectual discussion, you pretty much need to create a meeting within the meeting. So, why bother with ESA at all? I don't have numbers, but this is my totally subjective assessment of who attends ESA, ranked in order of numerical strength:

1) grad students

2) post-docs and new faculty (looking to raise their visibility)

3) the marginalized (adjunct faculty and small teaching faculty)

4) (looking for a neutral way to say this) the "popular" circle, a few well known names and their large number of former students and postdocs who use ESA for reunions

5) The open-minded: those who are actually looking for something new, novel, synthetic

6) The ESA journals editorial staff

Groups 2 and 5 are more likely to show up if you give them a specific reason in advance, i.e. invite them to a symposium. 

Cheers,

Yasmin

[Erle Ellis]

An interesting assessment of ESA- and not without good evidence.

Having not been to a human ecology conference – what is the makeup of those conferences, in 6 categories?

-Erle

 

From: human_ecol...@googlegroups.com [mailto:human_ecol...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Yasmin Lucero
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 1:20 PM
To: human_ecol...@googlegroups.com
Subject: {Human Ecology @ ESA} Re: Symposium Proposal Submitted

 

I'd say John's assessment is harsh but not without merit. ESA is what it is. If you want a rich intellectual discussion, you pretty much need to create a meeting within the meeting. So, why bother with ESA at all? I don't have numbers, but this is my totally subjective assessment of who attends ESA, ranked in order of numerical strength:

[Rob Dyball]

An interesting exchange, started you might notice by an inadvertent
cross-threading of completely separate conversation about whether the
(relatively small) Society for Human Ecology (SHE) could or should
engage with the (relatively large) Ecological Society of America.
For what it is worth - not that much - I think that if these assessments
have elements of truth in them then perhaps it suggests our section
could develop as a vehicle for a modest but positive contribution to an
aspect of ESA's future direction. Before that can happen there is some
work we are going to need to do to get our ducks lined up behind what we
think Human Ecology is, what contribution it can make and how this might
best be done. It will be an interesting discussion and one I look
forward to.

Cheers
Rob

Dr Robert Dyball
Lecturer, Human Ecology Program
Fenner School of Environment and Society
The Australian National University
Room 2.05 Building 48a, Canberra 0200
Australia
Phone: +61 (0)2 6125 3704
Fax: +61 (0)2 6125 3770
Email: rob.d...@anu.edu.au

Erle Ellis wrote:
> An interesting assessment of ESA- and not without good evidence.
>
> Having not been to a human ecology conference – what is the makeup of
> those conferences, in 6 categories?
>
> -Erle
>
>
>

> *From:* human_ecol...@googlegroups.com
> [mailto:human_ecol...@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Yasmin Lucero
> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 23, 2009 1:20 PM
> *To:* human_ecol...@googlegroups.com
> *Subject:* {Human Ecology @ ESA} Re: Symposium Proposal Submitted

> >>> Rob Dyball <rob.d...@anu.edu.au <mailto:rob.d...@anu.edu.au>>

> 09/22/09 21:31 PM >>>
>
> Hi John
> We went for Agroecology Section and I will probably have a shot at Urban
> Ecology. Natural History doesn't have a section, does it?
>
> Any thoughts on the involvement with ESA as per the other thread? I am
> not unaware that it could also have pitfalls. I think Scott is
> particularly wary
>
> Cheers
> Rob
>
> Dr Robert Dyball
> Lecturer, Human Ecology Program
> Fenner School of Environment and Society
> The Australian National University
> Room 2.05 Building 48a, Canberra 0200
> Australia
> Phone: +61 (0)2 6125 3704
> Fax: +61 (0)2 6125 3770

> Email: rob.d...@anu.edu.au <mailto:rob.d...@anu.edu.au>

>
>
> John Anderson wrote:
> > well done you Rob,
> >
> > how/when do we need to solicit "endorsements" -that seemed a Big Deal
> last year...
> >
> > John G.T. Anderson
> > W.H. Drury Professor of Ecology/Natural History
> > College of the Atlantic

> >>>> Rob <rob.d...@anu.edu.au <mailto:rob.d...@anu.edu.au>>

[Erle Ellis]

Hi Rob,
This sounds like a good idea- an electronic exchange on "What is human
ecology?". We can do some of this by email, but I suggest that given the
goal of coming up with a relatively brief description useful for people
OUTSIDE of our group, that we work together by editing a common document on
this.

The next email to the group has a link to an editable page that all of us
can edit- and please do!

Onward,
-Erle
-----
Erle C. Ellis
Associate Professor
Dept. of Geography & Environmental Systems
211 Sondheim Hall
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250 USA
Tel: 410 455-3078 | Fax: 410 455-1056
->http://www.umbc.edu/ges/people/ellis
-->http://ecotope.org/people/ellis

> Having not been to a human ecology conference - what is the makeup of