Greetings from Douglas Lake!
We are savoring the beautiful days of summer in northern Michigan, overflowing with student learning and scientific discovery amid a soundtrack of birdsong, loon calls and loads of laughter.
Watch this short video of the high-energy Square Dance a few weeks ago and try not to smile or tap your feet. I dare you. This year the rain moved the cherished tradition indoors, but it didn’t put a damper on the fun. We even heard from alumni on Facebook taking a walk down memory lane. Edith Hurst said she enjoyed those dances when she was a student in the 40s. George and Laura Bakken called it “a highly significant event in 1972. We have now been married 50 years!”
As I write to you from my perch overlooking South Fishtail Bay, we have said good-bye to our spring term students. Scroll through a photo gallery with captions chronicling more than 60 highlights from the spring term, including research projects, class fieldwork, drawing and painting workshops with our June artist in residence and what we learned so far from guest speakers in the 2024 Summer Lecture Series.
We are now preparing to welcome the summer cohort in a few days.
It never ceases to amaze me how four weeks in this special place turns undergraduate students from all walks of life and fields of study into passionate environmental problem-solvers with a love for the natural world they want to go forth and protect.
More than 130 undergraduate students are going through our academic programs this year. Thanks to our generous donors, I am proud to report that we've been able to assist all students with financial need with the cost of tuition, room and board. In 2024 UMBS awarded a total of $247,272 to support students through scholarships and financial aid. It is critically important that we eliminate barriers to access our education and research opportunities.
I would also like to thank one donor, in particular, for sponsoring what turned out to be our most successful public events in my time as director. Stanley Pollack, a UMBS alumnus from the 1970s, gave us the means to bring Melissa Sevigny, author of “Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon,” to northern Michigan as part of the Summer Lecture Series.
She spoke to hundreds of people at two events in Charlevoix and Pellston at the beginning of the month about the thrilling adventures of the late U-M botanists Drs. Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter and their deep courage and determination to do science in the face of life-threatening danger and widely publicized critics in 1938.
With Sevigny’s talks alone, so many more people in Michigan know that UMBS exists and holds a rich history that includes those heroic women. We are proud to steward their legacy and northern Michigan’s treasured ecosystems into our second century of operations.
Please consider this a personal invitation for you to visit UMBS on a Wednesday at 7 p.m. in July for our Summer Lecture Series (full itinerary here). I’m pictured with Dr. Tadashi Fukami, a community ecologist from Stanford University, who shared his investigation revealing the hidden story behind pollination on May 29. Coming up we have incredible speakers from U-M, Rice University and University of California, Berkeley.
We’re taking the show on the road one more time this year. Join us on Monday, July 15, at 7 p.m. at Headlands International Dark Sky Park, located at 15675 Headlands Rd. in Mackinaw City, Michigan, along Lake Michigan. Aurora chaser, photographer and meteorologist Ross Ellet will give a free, public talk about the Northern Lights. View the Facebook event.
You and your family also are welcome to stop by the field station along Douglas Lake on Sunday, July 21, for our Open House.
We are strong believers in lifelong curiosity, learning and sharing of knowledge. Last week UMBS welcomed a team from the University of Minnesota Itasca Biological Station (IBS) as part of an exchange program funded by the Organization of Biological Field Stations. The IBS team explored laboratories and research sites at UMBS and met with our Pellston staff to discuss administrative processes, facilities, and research and education programs. In August a subset of our UMBS team will be going to the Itasca field station to learn from their operations. To build a more sustainable planet, we all do better when we lift each other up and heed lessons from each other’s successes and failures.
Speaking of sustainability, nearly 40 people from communities across northern Michigan attended a free, public training workshop at UMBS for the Michigan Bumble Bee Atlas Program. The event started indoors on Sunday, June 16, with Dr. Mary Jamieson from Oakland University explaining why it’s important to enlist citizen scientists to monitor bumble bees and contribute to conservation as part of a statewide community science project. Jamieson is doing research at UMBS this summer. We are grateful that she also hosted this important public program.
We have so many wonderful stories to share with you this month. Please scroll down and enjoy. There’s an aerial video shot of our students learning along Tahquamenon Falls that will leave you awestruck.
Sincerely,
Dr. Aimée Classen
Director
