NEW YORK, July 14, 2005 (AScribe Newswire) -- Using the Hudson River as a classroom and laboratory, professors and researchers from 14 New York State colleges and universities will steer their research vessel into New York Harbor Monday, July 18 through Wednesday, July 20 for the urban segment of “River Summer,” a cooperative and broad-based learning venture to prepare students to deal with environmental issues.
Organizing around an environmental agenda, 36 professors from participating New York colleges, universities and research institutes are traveling and living together for a month to create a college-level course that will be offered to students from the schools in the summer of 2006. The program integrates natural and social science with history, law and the arts. The consortium may be the largest of its kind formed to develop a broad- based environmental course for college students.
Ten New York City colleges and universities are involved. Aboard the Seawolf research vessel surrounded by the river’s landscape, ecosystem and culture, the scholars are creating learning modules covering the Upper, Mid and Lower Hudson. Their focus will turn to New York Harbor, urban water quality, maritime history, river visual culture and other relevant metropolitan environmental issues July 18-21, from their base aboard Seawolf docked at Pier 63 in Manhattan. Professors from Barnard College, Fordham, Pace and Columbia universities will lead lectures over the three-day period on NYC maritime history, the effort to renew the river’s water quality, the Hudson’s importance to visual artists, and on sediment coring. Some members of the team will overnight in Barnard residence halls.
The project is supported by a $76,000 grant to Barnard from the Teagle Foundation (www.teaglefoundation.org) and funds from the Rivers and Estuaries Center. Professor Stephanie Pfirman, chair of Barnard’s Environmental Science Department, is leading the project, in collaboration with John Cronin, managing director of the Rivers and Estuaries Center and Scholar in Residence at Pace University
"The Hudson River is an extraordinary natural environment that is rich in cultural and environmental significance," said Pfirman. "Our goal is to reveal this remarkable territory to students at our colleges and universities."
Next summer the course will be offered to 30 undergraduates as a five-week interdisciplinary and inter-institutional summer field program.
The final leg of this summer’s project, July 24-30, will be focused on the Adirondacks, at the Huntington Forest Research Center, Colgate University’s Outdoor Education Program, the Blue Mountain Lake Adirondack Museum, and the Darrin Freshwater Institute in Bolton Landing.
The project addresses two important challenges: developing course content across disciplines and institutions and implementing state-of-the-art teaching methods.
Professor Lisa Son of Barnard's Psychology Department will train faculty in ways to incorporate student-centered learning strategies based upon recent research in cognitive learning science.
Program coordinator and scientist, Tim Kenna, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, brings to the project his own research on Hudson River sediments as well as his experience teaching onboard a sailing vessel for the Woods Hole SEA Semester.
Multi-campus Coalition. Formed over the last 12 months under the leadership of the Pace Academy for the Environment (PAE), the new Environmental Consortium of Hudson Valley Colleges and Universities (ECHVCU) consists of 36 institutions located up and down the Hudson that have coalesced for teaching, research and advocacy projects they could not do separately.
Consortium Membership. The Consortium’s members include the range of education institutions: those upstate like RPI in Troy; those near the harbor like Barnard, Columbia, Fordham and Pace; eight units of the State University of New York; and small private colleges like Bard, Sarah Lawrence and Vassar (www.environmentalconsortium.org).
The current members are Bard College, Barnard College, Columbia University, CUNY - Queens College, Dominican College, Fordham University, Iona College, Manhattan College, Manhattanville College, Marist College, Marymount College of Fordham University, Mercy College, Mount Saint Mary College, College of Mount Saint Vincent, The College of New Rochelle, Pace University, Polytechnic University, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, The Sage Colleges, The College of Saint Rose, Saint Thomas Aquinas College, Sarah Lawrence College, Siena College, SUNY - Columbia-Greene Community College, SUNY - Dutchess Community College, SUNY - New Paltz, SUNY - Orange County Community College, SUNY - Purchase College, SUNY - Rockland Community College, SUNY - Stony Brook, SUNY - Ulster County Community College, SUNY - University at Albany, SUNY - Westchester Community College, Union College and Vassar College.
River Summer 2005 Faculty Schedule
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MODULE 4- NY Harbor
Embark: Pier 63, Manhattan Disembark: Pier 63, Manhattan
Participants: Tim Kenna, Lisa Son, Ted Eismeier, T Cohen, Faith Kostel-Hughes, Roger Panetta, Jeff Miller, Robin Bell, Frank Nitsche, Alan Molof, Kevin Farley, Elizabeth Hutchinson, Robert McCaughey
Monday, July 18
TBA Seawolf departs Piermont Pier for Pier 63
TBA Seawolf arrives Pier 63
1700 Faculty Orientation, Dinner, Local Hero Lecture (Speaker TBA)
Seawolf stays overnight at Pier 63, Manhattan
------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------- Tuesday, July 19
0630 Breakfast
0700 Clean-up; prep
0800 Faculty - Robin Bell & Frank Nitsche, Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory
Lecture - Acoustic Surveys and Sediment Coring in the Harbor
TBA Seawolf departs Pier 63
1200 Lunch
TBA Seawolf returns to Pier 63
1600 Faculty 1900 Faculty - Jeffrey Miller, Pace University School of Law
Lecture - Principles of the Clean Water Act
2100 Group returns to Seawolf
Seawolf stays overnight at Pier 63, Manhattan
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Wednesday, July 20
0630 Breakfast
0700 Clean-up; prep.
0800 Faculty - Roger Panetta, Fordham University & Elizabeth Hutchinson,
Barnard College
Lecture - Panoramas and See Fever: Visualizing the Hudson
1200 Lunch
1600 Seawolf returns to Pier 63
Faculty disembark and head to Barnard College Dorms
1800 Dinner (TBA)
1900 Lecture location TBA
Faculty - Robert McCaughey, Barnard College
Lecture - Maritime History of the Hudson
2100 End for the day
Group returns and stays at Barnard College dorms
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Thursday, July 21
0700 Breakfast
0800 Lecture at Barnard
Faculty - Kevin Farley, Manhattan College
Lecture - Water Quality in NY Harbor
1200 Lunch
1300 Lecture at Barnard & Field Trip to Wastewater Treatment Plant
Faculty - Alan Molof, Polytechnic Institute
Lecture - Wastewater Treatment
1730 Dinner, wrap-up & assessment at South Tower, Barnard College
1900 End Module 4
Note Photo Op/Interviews Available Wednesday July 20 with "Hudson River Summer" professors and researchers aboard RV Seawolf at Pier 63, Manhattan, Contact 212-854-2037 for
information.
Contact Information:
Suzanne Trimel ;strimel@barnard.edu 212-854-7583; CELL: 201-24-5057 Rosemary Mercedes ,212-346-1637 914-424-3845, rmercedes@pace.edu
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