18 replies to this topic

[ShadetreeIchthyologist]

So I got to thinking today about how the Fisheries Society at UT is basically dead. We need something fisheries related at UT. What better way to get people into fish than NANFA. Right now this is just being tossed around between me and a few other students, nothing too serious. Is this something that NANFA allows? We really wouldn't be a separate chapter more just a group of people who meet every other week to hear a talk ( some local nanfa members could come and talk.) and hang out. I would like for us to do a clean up event or two and some other volunteer services. I'm not sure really how to go about this fully but I want to get the ball rolling before school starts.

[Michael Wolfe]

I think it is a great idea. What you are describing sounds a lot like what we try to do with the regional rep program (just a misreconcentratedregion).

Go to the main NANFA web page and look for Regional Outreach and think about if you would like to be a regional rep or a regional contact. We normally have a rep for a state or half a state. But a smaller region would not be out of the question as far as Im concerned.

Message me here on the forum if you are serious and I can help you.

[mattknepley]

I think it is a fantastic idea. Your (fairly) local area is lucky to have two very active, passionate, "outreach-oriented" NANFAns in Casper in the Chattanooga area (you might have heard of him ) and Michael there in GA. They are active in ways I could only wish to have the energy for. It would be really cool to further strengthen NANFA in that general region.

The neat thing is, I've been learning the last couple years how active so many others are in so many other areas that I had no idea about. Whatever you do do, let us know.

[trygon]

I'll do whatever I can to help, just let me know what's going on.

[gerald]

Great idea --- might link it with an outing club or something, if there's not enough interest from "fisheries" students.  Why did your school's AFS affiliate die out?  NCSU has had an active one for decades.

 

"misreconcentratedregion"  -- can I use that in Scrabble, Michael?  It would work great crossing with "unculiferous" at the "e".

[Matt DeLaVega]

I support this. I think this is a no brainer. It would be great to see this in more universities. If this happens, maybe it can become a model for more.

[ShadetreeIchthyologist]

The UT fish and wildlife society has quickly died out the past 3 years due to poor oversight on who's running it. It's become a bigger and bigger popularity contest for who becomes president/vise-president. A lot of people have stopped coming to the meetings due to them not holding any volunteer opportunities. Last year there were two fisheries events. There were probably more but unless you're buddies with the good ol boys you probably won't hear about it. I've seen the meetings go from 50+ students to down to 15 students. I also plan to reach out to non-FWF students. I believe plenty of other majors have students that are interested in fish.

[gerald]

That's a bummer.  Was there a political-philosophical split between stream ecology & conservation interests vs "grow bigger bass & trout" interests?  The NCSU gang has done pretty well at accommodating a wide range of interests over the years without driving people off.  It helps of course to have supportive faculty for guidance.

 

The UT fish and wildlife society has quickly died out the past 3 years due to poor oversight on who's running it. It's become a bigger and bigger popularity contest for who becomes president/vise-president. A lot of people have stopped coming to the meetings due to them not holding any volunteer opportunities. Last year there were two fisheries events. There were probably more but unless you're buddies with the good ol boys you probably won't hear about it. I've seen the meetings go from 50+ students to down to 15 students. I also plan to reach out to non-FWF students. I believe plenty of other majors have students that are interested in fish.

[UncleWillie]

I can't speak for how things are now, but when I was at UT, there wasn't a large group of fisheries folks either.  I think one issue is there is no "fisheries" major at UT, but rather "wildlife and fisheries".  During my time there (2004-2008), the Fisheries Society and Wildlife Society combined for most monthly meetings because interest in fisheries was just too low.  In my cohort of around 22 people, only 2 had interest in fisheries.  One of those people was me, but my interest didn't peak until senior year (after exposure to the more in-depth fisheries courses).  As such, I didn't care enough to go to fisheries-only meetings that only involve the same five or six people time after time.  Most of the interest was in graduate-level (MS and PhD) students who already had a focus on fisheries.  When I was in grad school at UGA, there was enormous interest in fisheries with a fisheries society membership of about 15 grad students, and 50-60 undergraduates.  But this is coming from a school with larger student body in natural resources, and a stand-alone fisheries major.

 

In all honesty, I think that's just how the undergraduate FWF program at UT is:  Heavy focus on wildlife, with just enough detail on fisheries (and others) to spark interest in a few people so that they can pursue a fisheries career or learn more in graduate school.

 

Don't let this post discourage you though.  I think it is worth pursuing if you can round up the right folks with the drive to make it happen.  Another thing, don't forget to reach out to the EEB folks as well.  The school of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (ichthyology is an EEB course) may have some interested people as well.

[ShadetreeIchthyologist]

Willie you're right about there not being a large group fisheries folks. I think you kinda hit the big problem at UT. People at UT don't get to see the interesting side of fisheries til their last semester.  For most people, ichthyology is a miserable class that most struggle to pass. I took summer ichthyology to get a better in-depth look at the fisheries side rather than just memorizing scale counts to a Latin name. I plan to reach out to the EEB folks and some of the natural resource majors. I think that at UT the notion is that if you aren't a fisheries/wildlife major you aren't into fish. Only time will tell if this will work or not. I'm going to put 110% and hope that it catches on.

[gerald]

When I was in grad school at NCSU, I put up posters around campus to recruit sampling assistants for my Cape Fear Shiner status survey.  I got at least as many if not more volunteers from other majors (engineering, business, textiles, horticulture, english, forestry, etc) than from wildlife & fisheries (zoology).  Love of fish and nature is widespread across many interests and professions.

[gerald]

Here's the latest NC-Chapter AFS newsletter, which includes the NCSU student chapter activities.  Might be useful for activity ideas.  NCAFS News 2018-07.pdf   796.08KB   79 downloads

[Michael Wolfe]

After further discussions with Jake and with the NANFA BoD, we are happy to announce that Jake will be our first Campus Regional Representative for the University of Tennessee.

 

I see many of you jumping in already to support Jake with your ideas, if you are local and can help him live in person, please do so.

 

Welcome, Jake!

[ShadetreeIchthyologist]

I'm excited to get this started and hopefully it will be a success. I probably will be contacting a few people about using some of their photos. I think some good paper posters will catch some eyes and get some people in the door. Right now I'm in the process of contacting the local coffee shop on campus to hold the meetings there. I'm thinking about holding a meeting every other Tuesday or one Tuesday a month.

[ShadetreeIchthyologist]

A update on the student chapter-

I've decided that we will meet on the 1st & 3rd Tuesday of each month at 1830. The first meeting will hopefully be the 4th September and will be an introductory try meeting. We will meet at the local coffee shop on campus, The Golden Roast. I will begin to put out fliers and hope to start talking to people to get them to the meetings. The biggest struggle I face besides getting people to come to the meetings is my classes. I'm in what they call fall camp. Classes have no set end times and also several are overnight trips. I might have to adjust the schedule for fall camp but we don't have much info yet.

I've joked at the idea of calling it the stoneroller society - the UT chapter of NANFA... Who wouldn't want to be in such a exclusive sounding club.

[Matt DeLaVega]

That is awesome. The stoneroller society!

[ShadetreeIchthyologist]

I have had an extremely rough start to the fall semester and so I have had to put the outreach on the back-burner. I was able to get my RA to allow me to make a NANFA bulletin board. I will upload pictures of it later this week. It talks about some of the rare fish in east TN. I talked about the chucky madtom, spotfin chub, and boulder darter. I also talked about CFI. Hopefully it sparks a little interest.

[ChuzUThisDay]

Any updates? Im not a UT student, but Im in the East Tennessee area fairly close to Knoxville.

[ShadetreeIchthyologist]

The bulletin board was a big hit though I forgot to take a photo of it, oops.... I've talked to a good number of people about NANFA and have given many of them NANFA cards that I was given at the last convention. I plan to display a poster I made a few weeks ago next semester in the library and talk to some people. Hopefully, I can get some people interested in fish and maybe even get them to join NANFA.