UMass Former & Current Students Win National Book Award

Charley Eiseman (UMass Wildlife and Fisheries Conservation Major, 2000) and Noah Charney (Current Organismic and Evolutionary Biology PhD Student) won the National Outdoor Book Award for best nature guidebook of 2010.  This is the outdoor world's largest and most prestigious book award program.  Their 592-page work, Tracks & Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates: A Guide to North American Species, includes nearly 1,000 color photos and identifies thousands of marvelously mysterious signs created by beetles, spiders, flies, ants, slugs, and many other spineless animals.  Topics covered include eggs, cocoons, nests, webs, galls and other plant damage, holes in the ground, and even the patterns left by tiny feet scurrying in the dust. The awards committee found Eiseman and Charney’s guide to be an “outstanding work and a first-of-its-kind.”  This praise echoes the sentiment of reviewers and newspapers pouring in from across the country who have hailed the book as one that “belongs in every natural history library” (Gerry Rising, The Buffalo...
Read More

NAHB Students win National Travel Scholarship!

National Association of Home Builders - UMASS Student Chapter is raising funds to send a contingent of students to the 2011 International Builders Show in Orlando, FL this January.  Page Browning, Director for Academic Services with Home Builders Institute in Washington, DC writes "Congratulations! Funding in the amount of $1,600 has been awarded to support 8 students at Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst through the National Housing Endowment International Builders’ Show (IBS) Scholarship.  NAHB Student Chapter attendance at the IBS is very important to the NAHB federation, and the National Housing Endowment is pleased to be able to help students attend by providing this scholarship. NAHB is committed to recruiting the best and brightest to pursue careers in the residential construction industry. The UMASS NAHB Student Chapter, sponsored by the Building and Construction Technology program in the Dept. of Environmental Conservation is also raffling off a   Email: or visit http://umassnahb.wordpress.com/ for more details on the raffle....
Read More

Forestry Students from around the Northeast Gather for Conclave

Student members of the Society of American Foresters (SAF) from Paul Smiths College [NY] and the University of Maine gathered at the First Annual Forestry Student conclave, hosted by student members from the SAF Chapter at the University of Massachusetts on October 15-17, 2010. The students camped at a nearby state forest in New Salem, and toured forest management activities on the Quabbin Reservation, The Montague Plains Wildlife Management Area, and the Harvard Forest. In addition to hearing from managers and scientists about forest conservation challenges, the students had a fun opportunity to visit and network about their own activities at their respective institutions, swap stories about summer jobs and other experiences, and start planning for the second annual conclave in 2011. ...
Read More