The semester is well underway here on UGA’s campus, and the Odum School is thriving with innovative science, outreach, and instruction in our classrooms, labs, and field sites. As we navigated the uncertainties of the Covid pandemic this month, Ecology held our annual Graduate Recruitment Event online, with nearly 30 prospective graduate students participating. The Odum School has two faculty job searches underway, and will be interviewing candidates from late January through early March. Ecology classes are fully enrolled at introductory and advanced levels, with students and faculty engaging in a variety of lecture, laboratory, seminar, project-based, and service learning courses. We’ve seen new updates to technology in the Ecology Building to better facilitate distance learning and videoconferencing with colleagues.

Other cause for celebration is news that Dr. John Drake was recently named a Regents’ Professor, and Dr. Jeb Byers was elected as a 2021 AAAS fellow. Odum School faculty and students continue to publish in top scholarly journals, with recent studies highlighted on Ecology’s home page  and our social media accounts. We are so proud of the accomplishments of the Odum School community, which underscore our academic strength and contributions to public health, conservation, and society. Check us out on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for student profiles, event notices, news stories and more!

February will host a number of exciting events in the Odum School. Ecology’s annual Graduate Student Symposium (GSS) is scheduled for Feb. 11-12, to be offered as a hybrid event this year. Parents & Families Day will be held on site for our undergraduate students and their families on Saturday, Feb. 26. Visitors are invited to enjoy the Ecology Building main lobby, which is hosting a Georgia Museum of Natural History exhibit on birdwing butterflies this semester, curated by emeritus professor Dr. Jim Porter, and featuring artwork by UGA alum and scientific illustrator Olivia Carlisle. Our engaging ecology seminar series will run in parallel with faculty search presentations throughout the month of February, and we will also host our weekly Friday coffee hours, monthly First Fridays, and undergraduate Waffle Wednesdays in the coming month. The start of 2022 has been busy in the Odum School, and we can’t wait to see what the coming year brings!

Even as we celebrate these successes, our community members continue to feel stress and anxiety owing to pandemic-driven uncertainty and disruptions to daily routines and social support networks.Interaction and engagement are so important to mental health, and Covid pushed many of us into a more virtual and socially-distanced lifestyle that appears to be part of our new normal. The daily challenges of work and life that create mental stress are more intense in a time punctuated by quarantines, travel warnings, rescheduled events, endless zoom meetings, and delayed appointments. Many of us don’t seek support for stress, anxiety, or depression until we are at a point of crisis, but it is so important that we prioritize mental health, and find ways to connect with each other. Sometimes a walk outdoors, having coffee with a friend, and checking off a small task can help get through a rough day. Other times, professional medical services and counseling are needed to restore and maintain mental health. UGA and the Athens area offer many options for students, faculty, and staff seeking mental health support. Together with awareness and support for mental health, daily acts of kindness and compassion towards each other, and reaching out when someone appears to be struggling, will help us move forward in these pandemic times together.   

In the 2022 State of the University address presented on Jan. 26, UGA president Jere W. Morehead focused on impressive accomplishments and new initiatives at the university. Last year, UGA continued its upward trend for degree completion rates, financial aid and scholarships, student enrollment, sponsored awards and grant expenditures, fundraising from alumni and donors, and support for capital projects. Notable highlights last year were the opening of the Delta Innovation Hub on North Campus; the dedication of the Jere W. Morehead Honors College on North Campus and the I-STEM Building on South Campus; the adoption of a university-wide plan focused on diversity, equity and inclusion; and the launching of a cross-campus faculty hiring initiative in Artificial Intelligence and Computational Sciences. Coming up in 2022, UGA will invest $6 million in an initiative to expand active learning on campus, will intensify efforts aimed at improving student mental health and well-being, and will invest new resources in graduate education to provide additional scholarships and a first-year seminar experience for all graduate students. To recruit and retain a talented workforce, UGA will continue efforts to raise salaries for staff and faculty in 2022. Boosted by these and other successes, including the 2021 NCAA Football Championship, UGA continues to make a difference across the state of Georgia and around the world. Go Dawgs!