1. Graduate Student Input 2006 Bonanza Creek LTER Symposium

2. Graduate Students - Activities 5 Students Graduated (M.S. and PhD.) 10 New students started Fall, 2005 BNZ LTER Graduate Student Webpage (ongoing)

3. Graduate Students - Activities Held weekly meetings to develop cross-site synthesis ideas Obtained funding from LTER to facilitate development of our synthesis idea Site reps attended Graduate Student Collaborative Research Symposium in Oregon –Presented an overview of BNZ grad research –Ran a workshop proposing the synthesis project on understanding patterns of watershed nitrogen retention across biomes

4. Graduate Students - Activities April 2005 – Grad Conference, Blue River, Oregon 4 day conference at Andrews Experimental Forest 66 students, 25 US LTER sites and 7 ILTER sites Site overviews, training sessions, student led workshops, research presentations, a poster session and fieldtrips

5. Grad Conference - Outcomes Obtained support for our synthesis idea from workshop participants Led to a 2 day meeting in November in Fairbanks –9 students from 4 sites: BNZ, AND, KBS and SEV –Consolidated data sets –Outlined synthesis paper –Follow up meeting at NABS –Poster at NABS

6. Graduate Conference - Outcomes Conference was found inspiring and brought a sense of community to all who attended There was a general feeling of research isolation, within and between sites Became aware that BNZ grads were an ‘outlier’ - a cohesive graduate community (6 active members) How did this come about: –Common research interests –A goal to work towards Is it worth trying to keep the grad community active and inspired? –Broadens scientific knowledge and research interests and maintains enthusiasm –Helps guide future career path decisions

7. How do we perpetuate a feeling of community and collaborative research for grad students within BNZ LTER?

8. Current Life of an LTER grad student You arrive and take classes write a proposal and the whole time you don’t even know what the LTER is or that you are affiliated with it. Your first field season arrives and suddenly you realize where the LTER sites are. You collect your data and then realize that some of this data has already been collected by other students or as a part of ongoing LTER research. You are madly trying to write up your thesis and don’t have time to expand your project to include these other data sets or to add a synthesis component. You move on to another graduate program or out into the real world and forget to ever submit your data to the LTER database.

9. Graduate Involvement in LTER Graduate students are transient in the LTER community PI’s are the backbone of LTER and coordinate the ongoing, long term research and can assist in placing individual research projects within the overarching goals of LTER Any permanent change in grad student research and participation needs to come from the researchers who are involved with BNZ LTER for more than 3 years Need to define the role M.S. and PhD. Students play in synthesis

10. Graduate Involvement in LTER Grad orientation –September every year –Meet and greet (potential collaborators, committee members) –Introduction to LTER (also expectations and perks) Site and Network Meetings –Continued involvement in site and network wide research development and presentations –Education about available opportunities (ASM, ESA etc.) –Outreach opportunities (e.g. LTER Schoolyard) LTER grad student proposal development –A concerted effort to couch LTER grad research within the proposed site hypotheses and research agenda

11. Workshops Data formatting workshop –In the first term of study with an accompanying document outlining how to submit data to the database LTER Field support workshop –In the second term of study to introduce field support resources: ATVs, boats, vehicles, safety courses, sat. phones, GPS, study site coordination, clean up responsibilities, etc. Lab, field resources –Vehicles, sat phones, GPS units, lab gear, check in person during field season, etc. (similar to the AKCFWRU model) Computer and Database resources –Assistance and training in accessing long-term data sets –GIS resources, etc.

12. Funding LTER graduate fellowships –Formal funding provided to one or two students a year working at the LTER –Potentially with the specific dissertation goal of within site synthesis –Travel grants to collaborate with students at other LTER sites LTER post grad synthesis grants or thesis improvement grants –3 months of stipend to encourage in site and cross site synthesis (one paper) after submission of thesis

13. Grad student involvement Graduate students need to be aware of both the privileges and responsibilities of affiliation with the BNZ LTER This will allow for more participation from grad students and will improve grad student research and access to LTER resources and to contribute to scientific understanding in return