For immediate release — Feb. 9, 2009
Newsbriefs
(DALLAS) — Dr. Wright Lassiter Jr., chancellor of the Dallas County Community College District, has been appointed serve as a member of the Association of Community College Trustees advisory committee of presidents. Lassiter’s appointment began Jan. 1, 2009, and continues through Dec. 31, 2010; he will attend the first meeting of that group on Tuesday, Feb. 10, as part of the National Legislative Summit in Washington, D.C.
The ACCT committee of presidents was established to ensure that chief executives have a voice in recommending and evaluating educational programs offered by the association; it comprises three ACCT-member community college or technical college presidents from each of the organization’s five regions. Members serve two-year terms, and a chair is selected during ACCT’s annual congress.
(DALLAS) — Discover Life in America has named Dr. Carl Knight, professor of anatomy and physiology at Eastfield College, as its “Outstanding Biodiversity Educator of the Year 2008,” based on his exceptional work with the Thicket of Diversity. The Thicket of Diversity is a project that works in partnership with the Big Thicket National Preserve (located in southeastern Texas) to provide citizen scientists of all ages with a chance to learn, explore, make friends and contribute to identifying and cataloging species that live there. The Big Thicket National Preserve is part of the U.S. National Park Service.
Knight has been instrumental supporting the Big Thicket All Taxa Biological Inventory project. He wrote and was awarded one of four National Science Foundation grants for community colleges in the amount of $1.4 million to expand undergraduate research opportunities for college students. Eastfield students are eligible to apply for summer research projects conducted in the Big Thicket National Preserve, and they use scanning electron microscopes for those projects. Approximately 40 students take fall and spring field trips to the area to study biodiversity; ATBI scientists also visit the college campus to present a seminar. Photographs of the students and their work have been used by NSF and ATBI to support congressional funding bills.
Discover Life in America is a nonprofit organization for the conservation and enjoyment of biological diversity; it uses knowledge gained through research to develop and disseminate information that encourages the discovery, understanding, preservation and enjoyment of natural resources.
Eastfield College is one of seven individually accredited institutions in the Dallas County Community College District, which serves more than 70,000 credit and 27,000 continuing education students each semester. DCCCD is the largest undergraduate institution in Texas.
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Press contact: Ann Hatch
214-378-1819; ahatch@dcccd.edu