The Odum School of Ecology has always been a powerful catalyst for collaboration, within and beyond UGA. I was reminded of this earlier this month when the Odum School cohosted a cutting-edge workshop on Coastal Ecology & Resilience. With a large and enthusiastic audience, the success of this event was due in large part to the collaborative effort of the organizing team. Odum’s partners from within UGA were notably diverse, including the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, the School of Law, the Office of Research, the Department of Geography, the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems, Marine Extension & Georgia Sea Grant, and the Department of Marine Sciences. Our external partners included the Rowen Foundation and Georgia Power. By bringing diverse expertise and viewpoints together, we were able to offer a holistic view of coastal resilience and explore meaningful solutions to complex problems on the Georgia coast. We would not have been successful without our partners.

This holistic approach to ecology is central to all aspects of Odum’s tripartite mission—our teaching, our research and our outreach. A quick look at our undergraduate students makes this clear. Our 205 ecology majors pursue 57 minors, 13 unique certificates, and dual degrees with nearly every school and college on campus. This has two effects—the Odum School helps to support the academic programs of many other units on campus, thereby supporting the exceptional quality of education for which UGA is famous, while our own students are trained broadly to meet the challenges of a changing world. Given the complexity of the environmental issues that we face, I am immensely encouraged by the dedication of our students to build the diversity of experiences and skills that they will need to make a real difference in the world.

The interdisciplinary training of our students is facilitated by faculty who regularly cross disciplinary boundaries in their teaching and research. Fully one-third of Odum faculty hold joint appointments with other units or serve as directors of interdisciplinary research centers. Our faculty hold joint appointments in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, Department of Infectious Diseases, Department of Entomology, Department of Genetics and the Savannah River Ecology Lab. They co-direct the River Basin Center and direct the Center for the Ecology of Infectious Diseases. Their remarkable breadth of activity across campus leads to novel research ideas and teaching opportunities that create excellence in discovery, education and public service.

Even our fundraising activities are collaborative.  With our colleagues in the College of Veterinary Medicine, we are honored this month to receive transformative philanthropic support from UGA alumni Ray Jakubczak (MBA ’88, PhD Zoology ’89) and Mary Ann Hollick (DVM ’88) that will provide game-changing educational opportunities in both units for generations to come. In chatting with Ray about his enduring support of the Odum School, he noted that his own dual degree trajectory at UGA (Business and Zoology) was much rarer in the 1980s than it is today. Odum students are now regular participants in degrees and certificates with the Terry College of Business, creating a generation of students with expertise in environmental business, sustainability and conservation nonprofits.

Why does the Odum School engage in so much collaborative activity? Ecological science is central to understanding and managing the systems that support all life on Earth, including our own. Odum’s research, teaching and outreach programs inform the conservation of biological diversity, mitigate disease transmission, and ensure the availability of clean water, fresh air and fertile soils. From food and fiber production to renewable energy, from habitat restoration to species conservation, from urban greenspace to wildland ecology—our faculty and students work with experts in many disciplines to generate the knowledge that we all need so that humans and nature can thrive, together.