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IASNR Committee Updates for Late 2020 Keeping in Touch Issue

A Note from the Treasurer

IASNR finances are “okay”. Our investments are holding steady and we managed to avoid major losses from cancelled conferences in Australia and Oregon due to COVID-19. At this vantage point in late October, it looks like we will incur an overall financial deficit for the 2020 year of about $6,000 (US).

Not being able to hold our face-to-face conferences is highly unfortunate, however, as it affects our ability to recruit and retain IASNR members. This has financial implications for the organization.  Our major efforts to hold virtual conferences have helped in this regard and will surely be a continuing success. You can assist this effort by inviting new people to join us! Please share with them the many benefits of IASNR membership, including access to the SNR journal and various professional development and networking opportunities to name a few.

Our revenue streams are typically membership fees, our contract with Taylor & Francis who publish the SNR Journal, a small portion of conference registration fees, and donations. Our expenses include the IASNR conference, contracts for administrative and web-technical support, journal subscriptions and editorial staff, accounting for taxes, software and office expenses, editor stipends, insurance, and a few other miscellaneous items.

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Courtney Flint, Treasurer and Membership Committee Chair

Utah State University

(2018-2020)

At this point, our membership fees do not cover our per-member costs of running the organization (not including SNR subscriptions or the IASNR conference). IASNR Council has tasked the outgoing and incoming Treasurers with an assessment of our membership fee structure in 2021, with an emphasis on three principles: 1) cover operational costs of IASNR; 2) work toward a progressive fee structure; and 3) support core values, particularly supporting students, practitioners, and international participants. Meanwhile, we continue to use our foundational resources and generous contributions by our members to support fee waivers for those in need. Please contact [email protected] for further details.

As this is my last Keeping-In-Touch Newsletter as IASNR Treasurer, I will say that it’s been a pleasure to serve the organization and its members in this capacity. The IASNR finances will be in the great and capable hands of Dr. Rebecca (Becky) Schewe. This transition will occur by January 1, 2021.

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Zhao Ma, Secretary

Purdue University (2018-2020)

Updates from the Communications Committee

Greetings from the Communications Committee!

We can’t believe it has been six months since we last touched base via the Keeping-in-Touch (KIT) newsletter in May 2020. So much has happened in the last few months around the world. We hope everyone is staying healthy and safe. As we look forward to a brand new 2021, we want to share with you a few things that the Communications Committee has been working on and a few updates about the new year.

As many of you know, KIT changed its format and became an e-newsletter six months ago in an effort to make it more accessible to our members. Thanks to Jessica Hill for making it happen.

We have received positive feedback from members around the world about this change. Our plan is to continue making improvements to the e-newsletter, both in terms of its navigability and content. Also, we are happy to announce that based on the discussion organized by the Student Affairs Committee, a Student Spotlight section has been recently added to the KIT newsletter. The goal of this new section is to showcase student research activities, teaching experiences, and/or community engagement efforts. This can be a great way to highlight a wide range of student work from student members around the world. Please reach out to our IASNR Student Representative Susie Sidder and Student Representative-Elect Kindra De’Armen if you want to nominate a student or yourself (if you are a student) for this section.

We also continue to coordinate with other IASNR Committees, Co-Editors-in-Chief of Society and Natural Resources, and Society & Natural Resource Book Series Editorial Board on various communication needs for our organization. With many of us continuing to carry out research, teaching, management, learning, and public outreach work virtually, we want to focus our communication on professional development and other opportunities provided by IASNR that support you and what you do. If you have any suggestions or ideas about how IASNR can better communicate with you, please do not hesitate to let us know ([email protected]) or you can email Lee Cerveny, the incoming IASNR Secretary and Chair of the Communications Committee, directly.

This being said, I (Zhao Ma) would like to take this opportunity to say a personal THANK YOU for your trust and support over the past three years. My term as the IASNR Secretary and the Chair of the Communications Committee will come to an end on December 31, 2020. I have truly appreciated and enjoyed the opportunity to work with the IASNR Office, my Executive Officer colleagues, our wonderful Council members, and all the IASNR members and to get to know many of you professionally and personally. Through my journey as part of the IASNR leadership team since 2014 (first as a Council member and then as an Executive Officer), I have learned a lot, had a lot of fun, laughed a lot, stressed quite a bit, and maybe even shed a few tears, and I truly hope I have contributed to our organization as much as I have benefited from it. I will continue to stay engaged as a proud member of IASNR, and I hope to see you around virtually or in our next in-person conference in Costa Rica!

As a reminder, current members of the IASNR Communications Committee include Carla Trentelman from Weber State University (IASNR Council member), Chloe Wardropper from the University of Idaho (IASNR Council member), Jens Emborg from the University of Copenhagen (IASNR Council member), John Strauser from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (student member), and soon Lee Cerveny from USDA Forest Service (starting on January 1, 2021) — woohoo!

Finally, knowing how you are doing and figuring out how IASNR can help you in any way possible is very important to all of us. We love hearing from you! Please do let us know if you have any suggestions or ideas to share. Take care and stay safe, everyone!

Updates from the Site Selection Committee

Greetings from the IASNR Site Selection Committee! We are dedicated to fostering the development of new proposals to host the IASNR conference. We solicit proposals for future meetings, assist with their development, review material, provide feedback to potential hosts, and contribute to pre-meeting and on-site conference activities, as needed. If you are thinking about hosting a meeting, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We would be delighted to talk further about your ideas.

In 2021, we will be holding a virtual IASNR conference that will be available for people across the globe!  Please stay tuned for more information about this opportunity.  In 2022, we are planning to meet in San Jose, Costa Rica, followed by meetings in Portland, Maine, USA (2023) and Portland, Oregon, USA (2024). We look forward to seeing you at future conferences!

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Carena J. van RiperCouncil Member

University of Illinois

(2018- 2020)

Election Committee Co-Chairs

Updates from the Elections Committee

Carla Koons Trentelman

Carla Koons Trentelman,

Council Member

Weber State University

(2020 – 2022)

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Susan Sidder,

Student Representative

Oregon State University

(2019 – 2021)

Hi IASNR colleagues! While this is downtime for the Elections Committee, you will be hearing from us soon enough. In January we will open nominations for three professional council positions and for a new student representative-elect. It’s never too early to start thinking about who you might want to nominate to serve on council. IASNR strives for the organizational leadership to be “broadly representative of the membership, reflecting a balance of: (1) disciplinary orientations in the social sciences; (2) natural resource management fields; and (3) professional practice” (e.g., academic, agency, and NGO scientists; resource managers; domestic and international; mid-career and seasoned).

  • Professional Council members serve terms of three years (and may be re-elected one time). New members’ terms start January 1 of the following year. Nominees for the Professional seat must have been an IASNR professional member for a minimum of one year prior to the beginning of service on Council.
  • The Student Representative-Elect serves one year in that capacity before transitioning to serve as the student representative for a year. We strongly encourage nominees to have at least two years remaining before the completion of their graduate degree since the term encompasses a full two years. Their term starts in June, the year they are elected. Nominees for the Student Representative-Elect position must have been an IASNR student member for a minimum of one year prior to the beginning of service on Council.

If you know someone (or ARE someone) who is committed to IASNR and would make an engaged contribution to Council, keep that person in mind for nominations in January!

Updates from the Professional Development & Membership Committees

Hello friends!

The Professional Development and Membership committees have been merged pending review by the new Exec team in early 2021.

Mentoring program: Members of the Professional Development (PD) and the Student Affairs Committee (SAC) worked together to run some focus groups about the mentoring program during the conference. There was good attendance from the student members but not much participation from non-student members, so we still have questions about how best to organise this program going forward. Look out for questions about the program in the upcoming membership survey.

Upcoming activities: we are developing some short online resources. The current proposal includes a mix of pre-recorded webinars and livestream regional discussions:

  • A/Prof Jesse Engebretson, California State University – research ethics webinar
  • A/Prof Mark Rouleau, Michigan Technological University –survey design webinar
  • Dr. Milton Newberry III, Bucknell University – Early Career Research seminar
  • Dr. Tanya Howard, University of New England – Oceania IASNR discussion
  • Dr. Tanja Straka, Technische Universität Berlin – European IASNR discussion.

Tanya Howard,

Council Member

University of New England, Australia

(2020 – 2022)

These activities will be promoted via the IASNR membership email as they are available.

Non-academic member services: we will be exploring new ideas for increasing “spaces” in IASNR for non academic professionals. Several questions about member services will be included in the upcoming membership survey.

If you have thoughts about how to improve or strengthen the membership offer at IASNR, please drop Tanya a line at [email protected].

All the best,

Tanya Howard (IASNR Council member, PD committee co-chair) 

Mark Roleau (PD Committee co-chair)

Student Affairs Committee Co-Chairs

Update from the Student Affairs Committee
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Susan Sidder, Student Representative

 Oregon State University

(2020 – 2022)

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Kindra De’Arman, Student Representative-Elect

University of Oregon

(2020 – 2022)

Greetings student (and non-student) members of IASNR!

The Student Affairs Committee (SAC) has had a busy 2020! We successfully adapted Student Forum for IASNR’s online symposium in July 2020, gathering 17 student members to learn more about our organization, network, and participate in an elevator pitch workshop. We look forward to incorporating the successes and lessons learned from the virtual Student Forum in 2020 to inform our planning and implementation of the virtual Student Forum for the 2021 Conference. Thank you to all members that participated and helped to make the event successful!

During IASNR each year the student leadership within the organization changes over. As such, I would like to thank Brett Miller for his tireless service for IASNR as the Student Representative in 2019-2020 and the Student Representative-Elect in 2018-2019. I’d also like to welcome Kindra De’Arman into her role on Council as the Student Representative-Elect.

Additionally, we extend congratulations to Brett on the recent completion of his Ph.D. in Sociology from Utah State University with a concentration in Environment, Community, and Natural Resources. We wish you well on your next endeavors Brett!

Finally, we kicked off the 2020-2021 academic year with our first SAC meeting since the leadership transition. During the meeting we discussed additional opportunities for involvement in IASNR, and several student members volunteered to participate on the Virtual Conference Planning Committee. We look forward to their engagement with that committee and appreciate their added commitment to IASNR. There are still openings on IASNR committees for interested students. Please contact us for more details.

During this fall and winter, the SAC will be working with the Professional Development Committee and Ad Hoc Mentorship Committee to revitalize IASNR’s mentorship program to better serve the needs of all mentors and mentees within the organization.

If you are a student member and would like to become more involved in the SAC or IASNR more generally, please email [email protected] for more information.

Updates from the Publications Committee

Greetings from the IASNR Publications Committee. We work with the Editorial Board of Society & Natural Resources journal and Society & Natural Resources Press at Utah State University which runs the day to day life of the journal. We also work with the Society & Natural Resource Book Series Editorial Board, through its Chair, on issues related to book publications. Our job is to solicit for books for publications through Society & Natural Resource Press. We also provide feedback to the Executive Council on issues related to editorial aspects of the journal.

We are excited to let you know that processes for the next Society & Natural Resources ‘State of Knowledge’ Book project to come out in 2024 have started. The idea of the book project is to focus on new developments in the field over the previous decade. The lead Editor for this project is Kate Sherren (Dalhousie University). Efforts are underway to identify and invite co-editors for the book. Previous volumes like this have been led in 2004 and 2014 by Michael Manfredo and others.

As always, we welcome your ideas.

Glad Thondhlana, Council Member

Rhodes University, South Africa

(2020 – 2022)