Great news! Washburn University's Annual Day of Giving was a huge success for both the university and all of the amazing projects/activities faculty and students were hoping to get supported. The Adopt-A-Turtle program had a fundraising goal of $5,000 and actually surpassed this goal, raising $5,435! Many thanks to the 40+ donors who contributed to this project. As part of the Day of Giving we had a project showcase for about 4 hours that was open to the public in the evening. The event drew in a fair amount of potential donors and I had some truly great conversations with many people. I am excited to see how many people are at least somewhat interested and appreciative of the work that my students and I are doing at Washburn. Although the showcase was 4 hours long and included many great conversations and created new networks, the vast majority of the donations seemed to come via social media postings. My department Chair Dr. John Mullican has an immense social network and attracted many donors to my project via his posts. My students and I had significantly smaller social networks but we still managed to draw in a few people each. The Washburn University Alumni Association also advertised the specific program for us and that certainly boosted our online presence as well. Overall, the people involved with getting this project set-up and running were all fantastic and I had a great experience working with them all. Unfortunately, the need for radio transmitters (finite battery life) and funds for covering student housing costs (at field stations) and attending conferences (poster, registration, and hotel fees) never ends. Fortunately, the program has been selected to be bumped to a Crowd-Funding page of sorts hosted again through the Alumni Association. The goal here is to raise an additional $5,000 with the ultimate goal of having this project exist every-year I am studying box turtles at Washburn. I am excited by the prospect of this and cannot wait to continue working with students on research, outreach, and conservation regarding some of the Midwest's most unique and iconic creatures. Stay tuned to hear more about students attending conferences! In two weeks four of my students (and myself) will be presenting their research findings (or plans) at the Midwest Ecology and Evolution Conference at Western Illinois University. I am excited for them to gain this experience and have a permanent line to add to their CV's moving forward. Several of these students are thinking about graduate school so you never know what types of connections these students may make with PI's or current graduate students in attendance.
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About the BlogThe function of this blog is to provide updates on the status of our research program, student successes, and outreach activities we've done in the recent past. ArchivesCategories |