Dyson College of Arts and Sciences

| DCISE ANNUAL REPORT 2015 - 2016 12 OUTREACH AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT An important goal of DCISE is to become an active member of the local environmental community. To this end, faculty focus this year was on making contacts and creating relationships with local environmental organizations. The partnership with Teatown Lake Reservation was enhanced, helping to integrate students trained in the new Teatown-led Natural History fieldcourse into projects with local Westchester preserves. After significant work helping to create the bridge between Pace and Teatown, Anne Bishop, Dyson College director of development, continued to help in the forming of local partnerships, including our partnering with Jacob Burns Film Center on its Focus on Nature series, as well as forging links between Pace and Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. Finally, discussions with the Pace Energy and Climate Change Center about externships for MEP students were initiated. One major impact of these partnerships has been the establishment of student internships at Rockefeller State Park Preserve (two students, with summer funding from the Provost's student research grant program), Stone Barns (one student), and Teatown Lake Preserve (one student). Fundraising is planned to create permanent internships with these organizations so they can hire Pace students with stipends for summer projects. This included working with Anne Bishop, Dyson College director of development and Stone Barns' Jill Isenberg to fundraise for the Stone Barns project and seeking Provost Research Funds for the Rockefeller Preserve projects. As a result, we have already been offered funds ($3K) for the Teatown Project. The Focus on Nature Series noted above included the following films: Tiger, Tiger, Q&A with Andrew Revkin and filmmaker How to Change the World, Q&A with John Cronin, Pace student Anthony Morgan-Jones and JBFC executive director After the Spill, Q&A with Andrew Revkin and filmmaker DCISE has been instrumental in the founding of the Pocantico River Watershed Alliance (PRWA). Michael Finewood is now on the core committee of the PRWA, and he and Matthew Aiello-Lammens have become strong Pace partners in various watershed alliances including: Sarah Lawrence Center for Urban Rivers; Riverkeeper; Hudson River Watershed Alliance; and Bronx and Brooklyn River Alliances. DCISE has also been active in providing student assistance to the Mt. Pleasant Conservation Advisory Committee, with one student receiving summer research funds for this project. Our role has been to provide scientific research knowledge necessary to the efforts of these groups. To that end, a research consortium event was held and faculty applied for and received NYSDEC grants, noted below, to assist these groups in gaining scientific knowledge of the watershed.

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