Natural sciences

Why do coyotes leave poop in conspicuous places?

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 22:07:17 +0000

Why do coyotes leave poop in conspicuous places? Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/05/2023 - 15:07

Jeff Mitton

Like other animals, they are marking their territory, and being subtle about it would not serve their purposes

A photograph of poop or scat arrived in my inbox, and I was relieved to find that it was not an insult. Jeannie Thompson, a �� Boulder alumna, had been out hiking, and when she came across a distinctive scat, she wondered which species had left it. So, she sent it to me for identification.

It looked like a twisted fibrous rope, except that the fibers that wrapped the outside and protruded from the inside were animal hairs. I recognized it immediately—a coyote had been dining on local prey. I had seen something similar in the Maroon Bells Snowmass Wilderness (and I took a picture with good detail for your viewing pleasure.

Coyotes prefer small prey, so the hair visible in the scat in this photo might have been from pika, shrews, deer mice, voles, chipmunks, rabbits, hares or ground squirrels.

As soon as I identified the specimen, the photograph raised another question: Why do coyotes drop scat so frequently on trails? The photo that Jeannie sent and my photo show scat deposited in the middle of a trail. This is a common sight, and it has often occurred to me that if coyotes relieved themselves in random places, coyote scat on a trail would be a rare sight.

But coyotes go out of their way to drop scat on trails, or at the junction of two trails, or on top of a rock to communicate with other coyotes—it is called scent marking.

At the top of the page: A coyote in Rocky Mountain National Park. Photo by Jeff Mitton. Above: Coyote scat looks like twisted hair rope, is deposited in conspicuous places and exudes much information. Photo by Jeff Mitton.

Many species communicate via scent marking. For example, mountain lions drape scat on tall shrubs. Here in the Rocky Mountains, in addition to coyotes and mountain lions, bobcats, foxes, wolves, martens, bears, weasels, otters, mink, wolverines and badgers engage in scent marking to define their territories or provide information on personal status.

Urine is used for scent marking more commonly than scat and specific glands produce scents as well. Anal, subcaudal and musk glands excrete oily fluids that animals smear on trees to mark their territories or to identify the marker. Dominant males advertise their presence this way, and female coyotes scent mark most frequently when in heat, or estrus. Female coyotes are in estrus only two to five days per year, so it is vitally important that the local males are aware of the opportunity.

Joseph Allen, Marc Bekoff and Robert Crabtree conducted a study of coyote scent marking that provided much insight. They observed five packs living in territories in the same valley in Yellowstone National Park. Territories are used for hunting, mating and rearing young, and members of the resident pack strive to keep others out.

The researchers found that most of the scent marking, usually with urine, was placed at the territorial boundary. Some territorial boundaries were adjacent or shared, so these were marked by both packs. Scent marking was not observed outside territorial boundaries and was concentrated at places where coyotes from other packs intruded. A different study concluded that scat was most commonly placed near the core of the territory—the portion that was defended most aggressively.

Coyotes are not demure and wolves are not sheepish about the placement of scat, urine or the exudates from scent glands. A territory is critical for these animals, and they need others to be warned of the boundaries. Scat is deposited and urine is sprayed where it will be most apparent.

Coyotes, wolves and bears have scent glands on the pads of their feet and between their toes. This is part of the reason that mountain lions, coyotes and wolves scrape the ground and place the dirt in a mound near scat. In dogs, these glands leave a scent that reveals gender and might also create a trail that can be followed. If dogs can do it, I am sure coyotes and wolves can as well.

Coyotes, wolves and bears have scent glands on the pads of their feet and between their toes. This is part of the reason that mountain lions, coyotes and wolves scrape the ground and place the dirt in a mound near scat.

For those of us whose sense of smell is minimal, claims about information provided in scent marks may trigger skepticism. But dogs can dispel that skepticism. When dogs are trained to identify a particular scent, they can reliably find drugs or explosives in luggage, and they can identify people with cancer, diabetes or infectious diseases such as Covid.

Genetic differences among species explain differences in olfaction, or the ability to smell different fragrances. Humans have 390 active genes for olfactory recognition, but dogs have at least 800, and coyotes and wolves have even more.

A comparison of olfactory ability of dogs, coyotes and wolves was conducted by scanning the cribriform plate in skulls. Olfactory nerves on the roof of the nasal cavity pass through this plate on their way to the brain. In the process of domestication from wolves, dogs lost olfactory receptors. The study suggested that coyotes and wolves have even greater capacity than dogs for detecting and discriminating odors.

It is fascinating to imagine the sensory world of dogs and their ancestors. Scat and urine reveal the species that deposited the scent, their gender, dominance and aspects of physical condition. Scents reveal invisible trails, warn of predators and lead to prey in the dark. Their eyesight is sharp, but I wonder whether they gather more information by sniffing than looking.

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Like other animals, they are marking their territory, and being subtle about it would not serve their purposes.

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Rosy paintbrush hybridizes, producing a range of bright colors

Anonymous — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 06:50:16 +0000

Rosy paintbrush hybridizes, producing a range of bright colors Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 11/28/2023 - 23:50

Jeff Mitton

The stunning flower, seen in Colorado’s high country, might be a distinct species or not; regardless, this is science at work

I first saw rosy paintbrush, Castilleja rhexifolia, on a photography trip to Governor Basin, high above Ouray in the San Juan Mountains. It made a memorable first impression, for I had never seen that brilliant color that seems to glow with its own light.

My impression is shared by experts on wildflowers. In her book Wild about Wildflowers, Katherine Darrow wrote, “Rosy paintbrush may be the most spectacular floral display in the Rocky Mountains.” In his website "Southwest Colorado Wildflowers," Al Schneider wrote "Castilleja rhexifolia bract colors are most often hot rose-pink, but they range from subtle magentas to flaming rose to hot iridescent pink. For pure outright amazing color, this paintbrush is hard to surpass."

While rosy paintbrush has much to show, several interesting biological facets are not apparent to the casual observer. The dazzling colors are not presented by petals, but by bracts and sepals, tissues that envelope the flower when it is a bud.

Rosy paintbrush displays colors from bracts and sepals, not petals. Photo by Jeff Mitton.

The petals are fused into tube that can only be seen by looking straight down into the blossom. Its stigma (receives the pollen) protrudes from the tube of mature flowers.

Paintbrushes are hemiparasitic, meaning that they can grow isolated from other plants, but when their roots encounter the roots of another species, they form haustorial connections through which they siphon off water, nutrients and chemical defenses. In some places, rosy paintbrushes are all the same color, but in others they exhibit a surprising range of colors produced by hybridization with other paintbrush species.

Hybridization between paintbrush species is not rare. In western Colorado, rose paintbrushes hybridize with scarlet paintbrushes, C. miniata, and sulphur paintbrushes, C. sulphurea. Scarlet paintbrushes are vermillion or bright red and sulphur paintbrushes are whitish, pale green and pale yellow. Where these three species are hybridizing, they produce offspring with intense shades of pink, red, orange and magenta flowers.

Erika Hersch-Green conducted research on hybridization between rosy, scarlet and sulphur paintbrushes, and she also presented data on ploidy in these three species. Ploidy varies both among species and within paintbrush species, so that individual plants can be diploid (two copies of each chromosome), tetraploid (4), hexaploid (6), octaploid (8) or decaploid (10).

Her field sites were near Gothic, Colorado, and she was able to demonstrate that rose paintbrush were tetraploid, scarlet paintbrushes were octoploid, and sulphur paintbrushes were diploid. In many plant groups differences in ploidy prevents hybridization, but not in paintbrushes.

When I was photographing wildflowers in Governor Basin, I noticed some plants with multicolored bracts, a color and pattern I had not seen before. While reading for this column, I learned that the plants with multicolored bracts were proposed by some biologists to be hybrids between rose paintbrush and perhaps sulphur paintbrush.

Al Schneider, in his "Southwest Colorado Wildflowers" site, disagrees with the hybrid hypothesis and presents observations more consistent with the hypothesis that the multicolored bract form is an undescribed species. He proposed the name Castilleja versicolor and added sp. nov. to indicate that it is a new name.

From my observations in the field, quite unaware that this controversy existed, I went away with the opinion that I had stumbled upon a paintbrush species new to me and perhaps restricted to high elevations. What I saw did not suggest to me that they were hybrids.

Controversies about demarcation of species or presence of hybridization do not indicate anything wrong, nasty or embarrassing among biologists. Controversies are necessary flurries of progress in a field of science, and, quite frankly, they are entertaining and exciting.

This paintbrush might be a hybrid and it might be an undescribed species. Photo by Jeff Mitton.

Already, some genetic work has examined the genetics of the hybridizing species and the putative hybrid. Data collected so far suggest that the multicolored bract form is a distinct species, not a hybrid. But more data are needed, and I suspect this intriguing puzzle will be solved soon.

A person walking through a high-elevation meadow might notice rosy paintbrush and pause to admire its incredible color. But if a person is motivated to read about that species, rosy paintbrush becomes even more interesting.

It is a hemiparasite with an unusual flower form, and it hybridizes with species with different numbers of chromosomes and genome sizes. Its hybridization creates a palette of bright colors and may hide an undescribed species.

The stunning flower, seen in Colorado’s high country, might be a distinct species or not; regardless, this is science at work.

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What the White Buffalo Calf tells us about Indigenous history

Anonymous — Thu, 11 May 2023 22:16:53 +0000

What the White Buffalo Calf tells us about Indigenous history Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 05/11/2023 - 16:16

Jeff Mitton

Native Americans have been associated with bison in North America for more than 15,000 years

Road construction had closed Route 285 through South Park, detouring traffic to the eastern edge of the park. While inconvenient, it afforded people a sight that they would have missed otherwise. A herd of bison, Bison bison, was grazing next to the road, and in the herd were four white bison.

For more than 2,000 years, Lakota (Sioux) elders have been passing the legend of the White Buffalo Calf Woman to younger generations. The legend tells of a time when the Lakota had lost their ability to pray to the Creator. A young woman in shining white buckskin appeared to teach the people to pray during seven sacred rites, and she gave them the White Buffalo Calf Chanupa, or pipe, which played an important role in each of the rites. As she left, she told them that she would return to establish peace, harmony and balance.

Then she rolled on the earth four times, and each time she appeared as a buffalo of a different color (red and brown, then yellow, then black), finishing this display as a white buffalo calf. Today, the Sioux, Cherokee, Commanche and Navajo celebrate the birth of a white buffalo as a sacred omen indicating that their prayers had been heard and portending much better times.

White buffalo are more common today than 2,000 years ago when the legend of White Buffalo Calf Woman began. Photographed by Jeff Mitton.

Historically, white bison were rare, because they were probably albino (white hair, pink eyes), which occur at a frequency of about 1 in 10 million. But why are white bison so much more frequent now?

The herd in South Park had at least four, and white bison can be seen in three Canadian Territories and about a dozen states. The white bison in South Park have white hair but normally brown and black eyes. The gene for white hair was introduced from cows.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, cattlemen attempted to cross bison with cows, hoping to gather the best traits from both species into one lineage as docile and manageable as domesticated cows. These experiments had unsatisfactory outcomes, but not before introducing genes from cows into bison.

One of the breeds of cattle in these experiments was Charcolais, which are all white. The gene (Charcolais SILV) producing white hair is recessive, meaning that two copies of the gene are needed to produce white hair. The gene influences hair color, but does not alter eye color. The white bison in South Park have dark eyes, so they most likely have two copies of Charcolais SILV.

Professional breeders would have no problem recovering a lineage of bison that breeds true for the Charcolais white hair, and indeed, herds of exclusively white bison with dark eyes can be found in Ohio, Oregon, Texas and Saskatchewan.

Similar phenotypes—albino vs. white hair produced by two copies of Charcolais SILV, present a conundrum to the Native Americans honoring the legend of White Buffalo Calf Woman. White bison calves are no longer rare.

Native Americans have been hunting bison for thousands of years, even before our contemporary bison evolved. The first of a series of species in the genus Bison migrated from Asia into Alaska via the Bering land bridge between 220,000 and 240,000 years ago.

The immigrant was B. priscus, an enormous animal with very long horns. The direct lineage of bison in North America began with B. priscus, followed by B. latifrons, then B. antiquus and finally our modern B. bison. From B. priscus to B. bison, both body size and horn length decreased.

According to the National Bison Association, one out of every 10 million births a white buffalo is born. Photographed by Jeff Mitton.

For example, large bull B. latifrons, B. antiquus and B. bison measured 8, 7 and 6 feet tall at the shoulder. B. latifrons went extinct 21,000 years ago, and B. antiquus disappeared 10,000 years ago, approximately the time that B. bison arose.

In the early 1900s, anthropologists thought that Native Americans had arrived in North America from Asia about 5,000 earlier, but B. antiquus provided a revelation for our history of Native Americans in North America. Shortly after a disastrous flood in New Mexico in 1908, a black cowboy named George McJunkin found large bison bones exposed by a new arroyo in Folsom, New Mexico.

This self-educated cowboy recognized that the bones came from a species much larger than B. bison. He shared his insight with others, and years later, when archeologists explored the site, they found the bones of 32 extinct B. antiquus and 26 spearheads unlike any that had been found previously.

Carbon dating indicated that these bison lived 12,000 years ago. The arroyo was once a marsh where B. antiquus were stalked by hunters wielding spears with spearheads now called Folsom points. This kill site provided unequivocal evidence that Native Americans had arrived in North America at least 7,000 years earlier than previously thought.

Subsequent to the discovery of Folsom points, Clovis points dating to 13,000 years ago have been found in mammoth kill sites at Clovis, New Mexico, and points dating to 15,500 years ago have been found at the Debra L. Friedkin site, a bison kill site near Dallas. Bison have inadvertently yielded considerable insight to Native American history.

Native Americans have been associated with bison in North America for more than 15,000 years.

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Innovation Incubator helping transform teaching, learning

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 21:32:51 +0000

Innovation Incubator helping transform teaching, learning Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 03/06/2023 - 14:32

Bradley Worrell

After a successful three-year trial run, the program is being made permanent with the goal of further innovating cross-discipline teaching in the College of Arts and Sciences

Collaborative scholarship that spans academic disciplines has proved to be a difficult goal—until now. A relatively new program at the University of Colorado Boulder, called the Innovation Incubator, is working to tear down traditional siloes between the arts and humanities, natural sciences and social sciences with the goal of transforming teaching and improving undergraduate education.

The Innovation Incubator is hosted by �� Boulder’s Arts and Sciences Support of Education Through Technology (ASSETT), which works with faculty and students to develop innovative ways to use technology in teaching and learning.

“The idea for the Innovation Incubator dates back about four years ago. The project was instigated by the question: How might we improve the undergraduate learning experience by engaging students in active learning with technology?” says Blair Young, who serves as the innovation catalyst with ASSETT.

Blair Young serves as the innovation catalyst with �� Boulder’s Arts and Sciences Support of Education Through Technology (ASSETT), which oversees the Innovation Incubator.

In a nutshell, Young describes the incubator as a “safe, resourced space to grow new ideas.”

ASSETT took an unconventional approach to garner those ideas. Instead of asking faculty for highly detailed research grant proposals, it instead asked them for simple, one- or two-page pitches outlining their overall objectives.

Once the ideas were submitted, ASSETT once again took an unconventional approach. Rather than simply approving a few of the 48 submitted proposals and rejecting the rest, ASSETT staff combed through each submission looking for commonalities among the proposals.

“As we spent time going through proposals, we started to see what we call affinity groups. We were seeing people who didn’t even know about each other, but they were submitting ideas that were really focused on some of the same things,” Young says.

From the submitted ideas, ASSETT staff concentrated on four core areas: focused and inclusive data science, multi-modal participatory publishing, metacognition and wellbeing, and the broad category of student success (see the short article, Learn more about the 2019-2022 ASSETT Innovation Incubator teams, for more details).

Ultimately, about 30 faculty members participated in the three-year trial run of the Innovation Incubator initiative, which kicked off in 2019 and wrapped up in the fall of 2022, according to Young.

Breaking down barriers

�� Boulder English Professor David Glimp was one of several faculty members from across disciplines who joined the Inclusive Data Science team, which worked together to develop a new introduction to data science course incorporating humanistic perspectives.

“Most of the people in this collaboration I had not met before,” he says. “The Interdisciplinary Data Science team gave me the opportunity to meet colleagues from applied math, ecology and evolutionary biology, geological sciences, and writing and rhetoric, who all had shared interests, so it was a remarkable experience—really an unprecedented opportunity to work with colleagues across divisions where we don’t normally work together.”

Partly because the group was diverse—but mostly because the endeavor was brand new—it did take a bit of time for team members to formalize a plan, according to Glimp.

�� English Professor David Glimp volunteered to participate in the trial run of the Innovation Incubator. He taught the inclusive data science courses in collaboration with faculty from other academic disciplines.

“We probably spent six months or so just brainstorming, trying to identify shared interests and campus needs and how to capitalize on the growing interest in data sciences while recognizing the ongoing importance of the humanities,” he says. “So, there were a lot of meetings in the beginning where progress was not apparent, but with the assistance of ASSETT, things came together in terms of what our project could be.”

Glimp, who has been teaching English at �� Boulder for 17 years, describes his experience of working with the Inclusive Data Science team as “transformative.”

“It’s provided me with a new set of collaborators, and it’s helped me develop my own research and my teaching skills,” he says.

In addition to providing $200,000 in funding that was split among the four initiatives, ASSETT provided human resource support and guidance for the teams.

“Each team was co-facilitated by me, and one other ASSETT staff member who had expertise in the particular focus of each team,” says Young. “We worked with them early on regarding the idea conception and what success would look like over the three-year arc of the initiatives.”

In addition to physical resources, Young says one of the most valuable assets for the four teams was the time afforded by multi-year funding to refine their ideas and make adjustments as they rolled out their initiatives.

“It’s really hard to launch an innovative idea and implement that idea in one year. So, I think our teams really benefitted from a three-year cycle, especially in higher ed, when you are asking folks who are often teaching and researching largely on their own to break out of their typical way of work,” she says.

Bringing inclusivity to data science

Young gives high marks to the inclusive data science endeavor.

“They (team members) set out with really big aspirations—to really transform the culture of data science on our campus, which they saw as very siloed,” she says. “They wanted to create an inclusive environment for data science and to really bring a lot of disparate data science initiatives on campus together.”

The ASSETT Innovation Incubator is designed to promote interdisciplinary teaching in the College of Arts & Sciences and making use of technology with the goal of transforming teaching and improving undergraduate education.

Specifically, Young says there was a desire to offer a program making use of data science for students who are historically underserved in the areas of science and technology, such as first-generation college students, students of color, women, and students focused on the humanities.

“The course Interdisciplinary Data Science for All has succeeded on several fronts," according to Young, who notes the program attracted 67 students its first year and more than twice that number its second year. Interdisciplinary Data Science for All also has received funding from the National Science Foundation for its continued development. The team also joined forces with other faculty on campus to develop new interdisciplinary coursework that combines the humanities and data science; this latter initiative received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Glimp says the increased student interest in interdisciplinary data science courses and the additional funding are positive developments, while adding that it’s important to evaluate success on several criteria.

“I think the incubator should have many metrics of success—and the primary metric should be its impact upon students and new student opportunities for learning,” he says. “Another metric should be the project’s success in encouraging faculty interest in pedagogy and pedagogical innovation, which it did in my case.”

Meanwhile, the other Innovation Incubator initiatives funded by ASSETT also achieved success by their own metrics and will continue, thanks in part to bridge funding ASSETT is able to provide, according to Young.

Innovation incubator’s mission is continuing

What’s more, after performing a detailed evaluation of the Innovation Incubator, Young says the decision was made to adopt it as a permanent ASSETT program. Plans call for a fresh cycle of incubator awards every three years, providing opportunities for new interdisciplinary teams of faculty, staff and students to grow innovative ideas for teaching with technology to improve the undergraduate experience in the College of Arts and Sciences.

The Innovation Incubator kicked off in 2019 with faculty brainstorming ideas for cross-disciplinary education. ASSETT took those ideas to come up with four core areas: focused and inclusive data science, multi-modal participatory publishing, metacognition and wellbeing, and the broad category of student success.

ASSETT is seeking ideas for the Innovation Incubator 2023-2026 idea submission process. A total of $200,000 is available to award up to four interdisciplinary teams over the three-year funding period. ASSETT is encouraging interested parties to submit their ideas by this Thursday (March 9) so that others can add comments to the idea or make a bid to join their team.

Final idea submissions, which are expected to run about 1,000 words, should be submitted by Tuesday, April 11.

There is a notable change in the coming innovation incubator cycle.

“For the next cycle, we’ve actually put out the call to faculty and students. So, students can be the lead submitters on ideas for the new cycle of the incubator,” Young says. “We are really emphasizing students as partners in the framework for the next cycle.”

Additionally, while the lead people for any incubator projects must be representatives of the College of Arts and Sciences, Young says those A&S college representatives can elect to bring in someone from a different �� college—the College of Engineering, for example—if they believe it would help their project.

Young says ASSETT will judge projects using four criteria: 1) Is the idea student centered? 2) Does it break down disciplinary barriers within the college? 3) Is it actionable? 4) And is it scale-able?

Young says she is not aware of any other university supporting an incubator or lab with the same focus as the one at ASSETT, which she says reflects the innovative nature of ��’s program.

Glimp says the College of Arts and Sciences deserves credit for supporting the efforts of the Innovation Incubator.

“It’s to the college’s credit that they’re funding this kind of investment and making it possible for colleagues to engage in such collaborations,” he says. “It’s a unique approach to funding faculty efforts and I think it’s visionary.”

Learn more about the 2019-22 ASSETT Innovation Incubator teams

• The CAMPP team investigated opportunities to establish a peer-to-peer support environment for faculty and students by creating a multimodal publishing collective (aka, CAMPP) that produces projects that meet academic standards and are open and accessible to the community at large. Click here to listen their recorded accounts of this work.

• The Metacognition & Wellbeing team developed resources and learning objects that encourage students’ awareness and understanding of their thought processes and learning strategies, as well as their mental, emotional, and physical well-being —(including mindfulness and contemplative practices). Click here to listen to their podcast recording on student metacognition.

• The Student Success team worked broadly to create an understanding about gamification pedagogy among faculty. Their specific focus is on a role-playing pedagogy called Reacting to the Past (RTTP). Click here to listen to a podcast about how RTTP invigorates the classroom at �� Boulder.

• The Inclusive Data Science team integrated data science methods and tools across the curriculum via a new team-taught introduction to data science, “Inclusive Interdisciplinary Data Science for All,” that weaves together the teaching of statistical reasoning, basic coding, and humanistic forms of inquiry. Click here to explore a student facing website about the course.

After a successful three-year trial run, the program is being made permanent with the goal of further innovating cross-discipline teaching in the College of Arts and Sciences.

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�� Arts & Sciences seeks input on deans of divisions postings

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 18:47:48 +0000

�� Arts & Sciences seeks input on deans of divisions postings Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/09/2023 - 11:47

The College of Arts and Sciences has posted job announcements for its deans of division for arts and humanities, natural sciences and social sciences

The positions are being advertised as a further implementation of the college reorganization. These three dean positions are now official officers of the university, as defined by the �� regents, and as such, require formal searches to fill the positions.

Those job announcements are now posted online:

The job posting for the dean of division for natural sciences is at this link.
The job posting for the dean of division for social sciences is at this link.
The job posting for the dean of division for arts and humanities, which is open to internal candidates only, can be found this way:
Log in to the My��Info portal
Select �� Resources > Business Tools > �� Boulder Jobs Internal Job Board
Use the Keyword Search to find this posting number: 45916

Also, with respect to arts and humanities, the college will hold a second “listening session” with the community to solicit your views about the attributes most desired in this key leadership position, as well as gather feedback on the structure of the upcoming interviews.

This listening session, led by Robert McDonald, chair of the search committee and dean of university libraries, is set for 11 a.m. to noon on Thursday, Feb. 16. The meeting will be held via Zoom, at this link.

Participants’ feedback will be guided by a survey at this link. The college encourages people to come to the listening session, but in addition to or instead of going to the session, people can submit feedback or nominations for candidate via the survey.

“Please share this information widely and encourage anyone who fits the descriptions to apply,” said Glen Krutz, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, adding, “As we move to the next stages of the process, I will report back to you on our progress.”

The College of Arts and Sciences has posted job announcements for its deans of division for arts and humanities, natural sciences and social sciences.

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Beckman Scholars Program to give students research experience

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 00:28:27 +0000

Beckman Scholars Program to give students research experience Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 02/07/2017 - 17:28

Clint Talbott

Undergraduate students at the University of Colorado will soon enjoy a new means of conducting scientific laboratory research, as �� Boulder is one of 11 U.S. institutions to receive a 2017 Beckman Scholars Program Award.

The Beckman Scholars Program, funded by a $156,000 grant, offers an in-depth research experience to talented, full-time �� Boulder undergraduates in the biological and chemical sciences. Each Beckman scholar will conduct independent laboratory research under the supervision of one of 15 faculty mentors in the following five departments:

Chemistry and biochemistry
Ecology and evolutionary biology
Integrative physiology
Molecular, cellular and developmental biology
Psychology and neuroscience

The program will support six undergraduate Beckman Scholars over the course of three years (starting in the summers of 2017, 2018 and 2019), and will designate between one and three new scholars each year.

Each Beckman scholar will receive a stipend totaling $21,000, plus $2,800 for travel and supplies. Each faculty mentor will receive a $5,000 stipend to support the educational expenses associated with the mentor’s scholar. Each scholar will be supported over the course of two summers and one academic year.

The deadline for applications this year is Feb. 22.

Brian DeDecker, faculty director of the �� Boulder Beckman Scholars Program and director of undergraduate research at the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, noted that undergraduate research opportunities are in high demand.

Brian DeDecker

Those who become Beckman Scholars often go on to distinguish themselves in graduate school, he said.

Undergraduate researchers who are in the laboratories of the Beckman faculty mentors at �� Boulder are viewed as “full-fledged members of the lab, as colleagues,” said Paul Muhlrad, science communications manager in molecular, cellular and developmental biology.

DeDecker concurred, noting that undergraduate researchers are deeply involved in “actual, discovery research, and that’s a real change from textbooks, obviously.”

When DeDecker himself was an undergraduate, textbook learning did not inspire him. “But when I got into a lab, I’m like, ‘Oh, my goodness. These aren’t just facts that we’re drawing from the air. These are incredible ideas that were developed with lots of hard work and deep thinking.’ That made me appreciate them all the more.”

At �� Boulder, the Beckman Scholars Program is open even to students who don’t have any research experience, Muhlrad noted.

The Beckman Scholars Program is an initiative of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, which provides grants to researchers and non-profit research institutions in chemistry and life sciences to promote scientific discoveries, and particularly to foster the invention of methods, instruments and materials that will open up new avenues of research.

The late Arnold O. Beckman founded Beckman Instruments and created devices that revolutionized the study and understanding of chemistry and human biology. Among other things, he invented the acidmeter, the forerunner of the modern pH meter.

Beckman made the invention, designed to measure the acidity of lemon juice, for a former classmate working at a California citrus plant.

For more information about the Beckman Scholars Program at �� Boulder or to apply, click here.

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