Jan W Hopmans Chair, Department of Land, Air and Water Resources

Newsletter - Spring 2009

Chair’s Greetings

As we are approaching the end of the 2009 academic year, faculty, staff and students are looking forward to a more quiet summer session on campus. It has certainly been a busy year, with many of us anticipating and planning for additional budget cuts to the University, College and Department. Yet, the spirit remains high and the Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources continues to do very well. Despite across-the-board budget cuts, the overall operating budget, student numbers and research grants of this past academic year were larger than they have ever been before. In part because of CHANGES we have made in the recent past, but largely because of increasing student numbers in our classes, undergraduate majors and graduate programs.  Recently, the University of California identified ‘Water Supply’ and ‘Climate Change’ as among the four highest research priorities for our research faculty to engage in, so we anticipate benefiting from this CHANGE as well. I note that issues around climate change, water, food systems, energy, and human health are all intimately connected, thus demanding interdisciplinary and innovative approaches in the way LAWR teaches and conducts its research.

Much of the CHANGE is exemplified by the integrated research themes of our final 2008 LAWR strategic plan ‘Roadmap for the next decade’ that identifies departmental focus in the research areas of Climate Change, Environmental Quality, Agricultural Sustainability, and Landscape Interfaces. In this newsletter, we present exciting new research by our faculty in each of these 4 areas. Recently, we hired Pia van Benthem as our new outreach coordinator. We are very excited for her to extend departmental outreach of our research and teaching programs across and outside the UCD campus.

This year we were successful in attracting Dr. Sanjai Parikh as a new faculty member. Sanjai is a great addition to our Soils and Biogeochemistry faculty in the department. He will be responsible for teaching Soil Chemistry, and is highly motivated to teach a general course on ‘Land Use and Ancient Civilizations’. In addition, we are proud to announce that the UCD campus received a large endowment to fund a Russell L. Rustici Endowed Chair in Rangeland Watershed Science. The purpose of the Rustici Chair is to provide supplemental financial support for teaching, research, or outreach, and provide long-term funding in the area of range management, water quality, hydrology, and related ecosystem processes. We expect to receive approval for appointment of Dr. Randy A. Dahlgren as the incoming Russell L. Rustici Endowed Chair.  Our department is proud about the current 4 Endowments located in LAWR.  Unfortunately though, we will lose 3 of our best faculty this year, as Drs. Flocchini, Mariño and Singer will retire in June.  Michael Singer presented his ‘Exit Seminar’ on June 1, entitled ‘There and Back Again", followed by a reception.

This year, we organized and sponsored a number of unique Speaker Series. This included the Centennial Speaker Series, for which all speakers were our alumni in the departments of LAWR and ESP (http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/), all established scientists in their respective fields. The department co-sponsored the conference on ‘Climate Change in the Andes’, organized by the Hemispheric Institute on the America’s, and held a Spring Seminar Series, dedicated to Michael Singer’s retirement (http://www.lawr.ucdavis.edu/seminars_sbg.htm).  Among many other honors, Dr. Randy Dahlgren received the 2009 Senate Academic Teaching Award. This is a very prestigious award, highlighting the best campus instructors on the UCD campus. Some 5 years ago, Randy developed the ‘Crises in the Environment’ course  that is attracting 100’s of students every year.

I encourage you to learn more about LAWR by accessing our webpage via clicking the ‘LAWR home’ tab above. By way of this newsletter, we hope to connect with our alumni, colleagues, friends and others that are interested in our activities.  For that purpose, I ask that you encourage others to subscribe, by including their email address and name in our database:  Newsletter Subscription form, or by forwarding the E-Newsletter to your colleagues and friends, using the ‘Forward’ button at the bottom of the screen.  I appreciate receiving your feedback by sending me an email at jwhopmans@ucdavis.edu. Let the summer begin.

Jan Hopmans