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IASNR Committee Activities & Updates

Want to get invovled with IASNR? Join a committee! To do so, contact the IASNR Office at [email protected].

Updates from the Conference Support Committee

“Sustainable Development in Practice: Integrating People, Place, and Policy,” the 2022 IASNR Conference in San José, Costa Rica, is quickly approaching. The conference will take place June 26-29 on the campus of the University of Costa Rica and at the conference hotel, the Aurola Holiday Inn. We currently have around 200 registered participants and over 60 sessions, workshops, and other conference events including field trips, the Quiz Bowl, Student Forum, a Young Professionals event, Poster Session, and more. Click here for more details and health and safety guidelines. Please join us in Costa Rica!

After the 2022 IASNR Conference in Costa Rica, IASNR will be hosting a fully virtual conference. Members can attend the in-person conference in Costa Rica and or the virtual IASNR Conference in October.

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Jesse AbramsCouncil Member

University Georgia, USA (2021-2023)

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Gladman (Glad) Thondhlana, Council Member

Rhodes University, South Africa (2020 – 2022)

Updates from the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee

The Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) committee recognizes the importance of diversity along various marks of differences including: race, ethnicity/national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, generation, ability, physical characteristics, language, organizational function and level, academic ranking, religion/belief/spirituality, and thinking/learning styles among others.  Diversity is at the core of IASNRs strength and creativity. Thus, the IASNR DEI committee continually deliberates on issues that are important in bringing about cultural and ethical changes within the IASNR space. We seek to make IASNR an inclusive, welcoming, and enriching environment for all. Several issues identified by the DEI committee have already been addressed by the IASNR Council including: (i) allowing speakers at conferences to present in their native language or organizing sessions in languages other than English (ii) writing diversity and inclusion statements (or other documents) in other languages.  We have identified two key issues as important for future consideration by Council: (i) Re-designing the organization’s logo to suit the values of the organization; and (ii) Creating awards focused on improving diversity through redefining academic excellence.

Updates from the Professional Development Committee

The Professional Development Committee meets quarterly, with working groups progressing activities in between times.  We have two working groups focused on mentoring and webinars. The mentor program working group has been very busy developing a new format for this valued membership offering.  The webinar working group is focused on establishing a regular program of recorded talks and interviews.  Developing content and finding good ‘talent’ is the hardest part of creating a webinar so if you have a topic you would like to explore, suggestions for speakers or other ideas for webinar content, please get in touch with Tanya Howard.

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Tanya Howard, Council Member

University of New England, Australia (2020 – 2022)

IASNR Webinars

The latest research webinars are now available on the webinar page:

“Networking as a Professional Skillset” hosted by Tanya Howard with Zhao Ma and Azahara Mesa-Jurado.

“Ecological Grief and Community Responses to Environmental Loss in the Anthropocene” with Melanie Zurba (Dalhousie University), Lilian Barraclough (Dalhousie University), Sara Boyd (Dalhousie University), and Claudia Benham (The University of Queensland)

Webinars can be accessed on the IASNR website by active IASNR members.

Mentoring

The mentor program working group has been very busy developing a new format for this valued membership offering. Drawing on extensive research about what IASNR members like, dislike, want and need in relation to mentoring relationships, the working group has decided to take a more immersive approach to mentorship at the upcoming IASNR conference. This means mentorship related activities will be embedded throughout the conference rather than having everything hinge on just a single event.

Ideas include:

  • Conference buddy and ‘conversation starter’ name tags.
  • Icebreaker activity and follow up themed lunch tables to encourage conversation.
  • Mentoring ‘speed dating’ activity to broker individual relationships.

 

These ideas will be piloted at the face-to-face conference and adapted for the virtual conference later in the year. Big shout out to the working group, led by Mark Rouleau, for developing these initiatives over the past 2 years!  

Keep an eye on conference programming information to find out more.

IASNR is Now on LinkedIn!

One of the key reasons members give for joining IASNR is to increase their professional network. The IASNR LinkedIn group is a venue for social networking and communication with others working at the interface of society and natural resources. Feel free to share links, start a post, invite other members. Talk about your #research project or ask for feedback about a #project proposal.  Let’s see how the group grows. To ensure this is a safe space and operates within the organisation’s Code of Ethics, posts will be reviewed by the group administrator prior to publication. We want to hear from you! 

Student Affairs Committee Co-Chairs

Update from the Student Affairs Committee
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Kindra De’Arman, Student Representative

University of Oregon, USA (2020-2022)

Dana Johnson

Dana Johnson, Student Representative-Elect

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA (2021 – 2023)

The Student Affairs Committee (SAC) includes ten members, along with the Chair and Co-Chair. The Student Affairs Committee is planning a couple of events in association with the 2022 IASNR Conference in Costa Rica, including the Student Forum (June 26th) and the Student Quiz Bowl (June 28th). We are also expecting to plan a student activity for the 2022 IASNR Virtual Mini-Conference.  Since the last KIT Newsletter, the SAC developed and received feedback from the Professional Development committee on a Student Survey. We had one distribution for this survey last March and will redistribute the survey again in November. This survey is intended to collect feedback from students to help plan forthcoming IASNR student events. The SAC has also vetted the Professional Development committee’s plan for revamping the mentorship program. We are very excited about having a mentorship program again!

We are pleased to announce that eight IASNR committees each include a student member. The SAC continues to actively seek input from students on ways that the organization can best serve student members. New members are always welcome! Please contact Kindra De’Arman if you would like to get more involved in IASNR.


At the conclusion of the 2022 IASNR Conference, Kindra will hand off the baton of Student Representative to Dana Johnson (current Representative-Elect). We welcome Keahna Margeson as the incoming Representative-Elect. Thank you, Kindra for your past year of leadership and commitment to IASNR.

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Carla Koons Trentelman, Council Member

Weber State University, USA (2020 – 2022)

Updates from the Ethics  Committee

The Ethics Committee has been working on two projects.  First, we are making updates and changes to the IASNR Code of Ethics. In addition to simple copy-editing and updates, we are moving towards making the Code of Ethics and the protections it offers more accessible for all members of IASNR. Our first step is adding a clause to the complaint process explicitly stating that the person making an ethics complaint and/or the person the complaint is about may ask for accommodations such as a translator or transcriber.  The Ethics Committee, the Executive Council, and the IASNR Hubs will be working together to further improve the accessibility of the Code and the processes it outlines. The current proposed changes will be voted on by the membership after the All-Members Meeting (General Assembly) during the 2022 IASNR Conference. The changes are posted on the IASNR website for your review and comment between now and the meeting in June.

Click here to view the potential changes to the IASNR Code of Ethics. Please submit comments to the IASNR Office by June 1, 2022.

We also continue to work on the evolution of the Code of Ethics, to expand it to be proactively based on the ethical principles central to our identity and conduct as professionals, rather being a document focused on punitive actions for ethics violations. We plan to further develop our Code, so it includes the principles members see as foundational to our work and organization. To this end, we will hold two facilitated workshops at the IASNR Conference – in English and in Spanish – to determine preliminary ideas for values, goals, and aspirations to be included in the Code. We expect to draft elements of a shared vision to take to the broader membership for additional feedback. We hope you can join us!

If you have thoughts or concerns you would like to raise, whether related to the Code of Ethics or about an ethics violation, please contact Carla Trentelman, Ethics Committee Chair or Sarah Church, Co-Chair.

Updates from the Membership Committee

The Membership Committee of IASNR is in its second year since being founded in 2021. We have an amazing set of dedicated members from North American, Europe, and Australia who have been working hard to advance internationalization, recruitment, and retention for IASNR. Toward these ends, the Membership Committee has worked to:

  • Consolidate management of the Student Travel and Student Paper Awards within the functions of the committee.
  • Develop a new Bridge-Builder Award to celebrate an IASNR member who reaches beyond their identity, geographic, disciplinary, knowledge system and/or institutional context to make new connections in natural resource social science. At the time of writing this, several applications have been submitted and a committee is being formed for adjudication.
  • Connect with other Committees on the development of IASNR Regional Hub Policy Statement.
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Kate Sherren, Council Member

Dalhousie University, Canada (2021-2023)

Updates from the Publications Committee

The Publications Committee has been meeting each month to work on issues related to the Society and Natural Resources (SNR) Book Series, published through the University of Colorado/Utah State University Press. Our team has worked in close contact and collaboration with IASNR Executive Officers and the Editorial Board of the SNR Book Series. We developed an action plan for the SNR Press, with the following main points: (1) Update information for the SNR Book Series available in the IASNR website; (2) create and use marketing materials for the SNR Book Series; (3) review IASNR conference abstracts and other analogous opportunities for specific solicitation with a focus on IASNR mega-discourses, global South issues, ongoing work of research groups. We would welcome the contribution of IASNR Members in all these action points and initiatives and we are looking forward to receiving your comments and remarks. For more information, contact Tasos Hovardas.

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Tasos Hovardas, Council Member

University of Cyprus, Cyprus (2021-2023)

Why not publish your next book-length product with the IASNR Book Series?  If you have a book proposal, contact Rachel Levay.