ASPT CURATORS MEETING 2024

ASPT CURATORS MEETING 2024

Theme Success Stories: Maintaining and Advancing Herbaria in the 21st Century

Coupling Herbarium Specimens And Machine Learning To Introduce The Next Generation To Plant Morphology
Richard Hodel - National Museum of Natural History

Updates From The Fresno State Herbarium
Katherine Waselkov - California State University, Fresno

Perseverance, Collaboration, And Outreach To Advance A Borderland Herbarium (UTEP)
Michael Moody and Vicky Zhuang - University of Texas at El Paso

Approaches To Building And Maintaining A Collection When Institutional Support Doesn't Increase In 20 Years
Richard Olmstead and David Giblin - University of Washington

*Presentations will be followed by a discussion session including the speakers as panel members.

Ada Hayden Herbarium (ISC) to be featured on Science Friday

Ira Flatow, host and executive producer of Science Friday, talks with ISC herbarium director, Dr. Lynn Clark, and curator Deb Lewis about how plants are preserved, why herbariums are so important, and what it takes to manage a plant archive.

https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/iowa-state-plant-herbarium/

Call for informal presentations: ASPT Curators Meeting @ Botany 2024

This year at the Botany 2024 conference (Grand Rapids, MI), the ASPT Curators Meeting will carry a theme of “Success Stories: Maintaining and Advancing Herbaria in the 21st Century”. In these times of institutional budget cuts and space limitations herbarium curators are faced with challenges in maintaining and advancing their collections. We would like you to share strategies that have led to overcoming and growing your herbaria even when it seemed institutional forces were not in your corner or challenging the necessity of maintaining the collections. We hope for an uplifting discussion around the presentations. The presentations can focus on strategies of communication with administrative bodies to promote the next generation of data that our herbaria can provide. Growing communication among herbarium curators and staff will better equip all to face growing challenges.

Call for informal presentations: We are requesting 10-20 minute informal presentations from herbarium curators or their representatives. Please provide a brief abstract with the primary theme to the Current Chair of the ASPT Systematics Collections Committee, Michael Moody, mlmoody@utep.edu. The ASPT Curators Meeting convenes on Monday Evening, June 17. It doesn’t matter the size of the herbarium collection you may represent; we just want to hear your stories as our membership is associated with a wide array of institutions. While the abstracts won’t be published in BSA Program, the speakers, titles, and themes will be circulated advertising the ASPT Curators Meeting. We look forward to hearing from you!

Thank You, ASPT Systematic Collections Committee

Student travel award lottery for Botany 2024 now open

The ASPT Membership Committee is happy to announce that the popular student travel award lottery from previous years will be continued this year. Travel awards are anticipated to comprise $300 each to attend Botany 2024 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Please see the instructions, below.
 
Advisors, please encourage those students who do not have full funding for conference travel to apply! Both undergraduate and graduate students are encouraged to apply. All students must be current members of ASPT and must present at the conference; enrollment status will be verified. In addition, only students who did not receive a travel award last year are eligible to apply. 
 
The application process is straightforward and implemented as a Google form [https://forms.gle/aTL1hPcczvTX4hHfA] where the student enters their contact information and attendance plan for Botany 2024; part of the requirement is a one-line confirmation of status by their advisor to ASPT (businessoffice@aspt.net) to confirm that the student is enrolled as an undergraduate or graduate student at a degree-granting institution. 
 
All applications will enter into a single pool, from which winners will be drawn randomly. If the student purchases an ASPT awards reception ticket, the amount of the grant will be increased to cover the additional cost of that ticket. A PDF of the student’s registration receipt will be required, and the receipt should show the ASPT awards reception ticket purchase. Recipients of the travel awards will receive their award in the form of reimbursement checks at the conference site.
 
Please note that applications must be received by 15 May 2024. All applicants will be notified by June 1. The application form is at [https://forms.gle/aTL1hPcczvTX4hHfA]
 
For Botany 2024 information, visit the conference website at https://2024.botanyconference.org/.
 
Sincerely,
The ASPT Membership Committee
 
 
Membership Renewal Instructions:
*Go to the Welcome Page at members.aspt.net
*Click on the "Membership Payments” link to renew a membership or to submit a new application.
*At the Membership Payments page: Renewing members, please login before you submit your membership renewal form online whether you will be making an immediate payment by credit card or sending a check. The ASPT Business Office can easily supply you with your login information upon request to businessoffice@aspt.net.  Do not hesitate to ask.
 
New Members: Please go to the ASPT Welcome page and scroll down the page to read the instructions for submitting your new membership application.

Eagle Hill Institute’s 2024 Vascular Plants and Related Seminars

Eagle Hill Institute’s 2024 Vascular Plants and Related Seminars

Eagle Hill is right on the coast of Eastern Maine, between Acadia National Park and Petit Manan National Wildlife Refuge. 

Jun 30 - Jul 6

Grasses and Sedges as a Way to Read the Landscape

Brett Engstrom and Jerry Jenkins

Jul 14 - 20

Grass Identification: An In-depth Review

Dennis Magee and Rick Van de Poll

Jul 28 – Aug 3

Natural Communities of the Maine Coast: An In-depth Experience for Field Botanists and Naturalists

Robert Wernerehl and Kristen Puryear

Aug 4 - 10

Submersed and Emergent Aquatic Flowering Plant

C. Barre Hellquist

Aug 11 - 17

Ferns and Lycophytes: Identification, Biology, and Natural History

Robbin Moran, Carl Taylor, Alejandra Vasco

Aug 25 - 31

Pressing Plants for Art and Science

Daniel Atha

Sep 8 - 14

Identification of Trees and Woody Plants of the Northern Forest: A Wholistic Approach

Erika Mitchell

For general information, the registration form, seminar flyers, and a complete calendar:

https://eaglehill.us/programs/sems-weeklong/calendar-weeklong.shtml

If you have any questions about the content of the seminar, please reach out to the seminar instructor(s), whose contact info can be found on the seminar flyer. If a seminar you are interested in is full, and you would like to be put on the waitlist, please fill out the application form.

If you have any questions about registering for the seminar, please contact us at office@eaglehill.us.