We’re looking for you: Be a SEB Student Committee Member!

The SEB Student Committee is happy to announce a call for applicants for the SEB Student Committee Member Positions. This is a great opportunity for both undergraduate and graduate students to network with established members of the SEB community, develop projects with the support of the SEB Council, and develop leadership experience.

We are seeking candidates for:

          We have a great group of students currently working together – as we can attest, this is a really fun way to meet and collaborate with peers that face similar questions and challenges about pursuing research and study in ethnobotany! We both work to develop initiatives and resources for the broader SEB student group, and support one another in our research. Check out the bios of the current SEB Student Committee here:http://econbot.org/index.php?module=content&type=user&func=view&pid=70. Don’t hesitate to contact any of us for more details about what we do on the SEB Student Council.

What do the positions consist of?

          Student Committee Member Positions: Student Committee Members will serve two-year terms and collaboratively interact to produce new student initiatives and maintain existing initiatives (SEB Website Student Pages, SEB Student Blog, SEB Student Facebook Group, administration of Charles B. Heiser, Jr. Mentor Award). In addition, the Student Committee typically works with Trish Flaster to write and submit various articles of interest to the Spring and Fall Newsletters. We hope that different Committees, with different members, interests, and skill sets, will propose and orchestrate new initiatives.

          Student Committee Representative Position: The two Representatives will have staggered two-year terms, similar to the SEB President/President-Elect system in order to ensure continuity in Student Committee goals and activities. The Senior Representative (John de la Parra for the 2015-2016 year) will take the primary leadership role, although it is expected that the interaction will be collaborative with contributions from both the Senior Representative and the Representative-Elect. The Senior Representative will be a voting member of the SEB Council. Representatives are expected to be present at the annual SEB meeting and council meeting unless pressing academic/fieldwork demands or financial hardship makes them unable to do so. To support the Representatives to be present at the annual meeting and to recognize the planning effort they contribute to conference design, the possibility exists for subsidization of their conference and travel fees.

          Representatives take responsibility for organizing the student social at the annual meeting (they must submit a formal request to the SEB Council for funding for this event, typically $500), organizing any student events (skill modules, mentoring, workshops) at the annual meeting, and presenting a summary of the student council’s activities over the past year to the SEB Council at the annual council meeting preceding the annual meeting. In addition to these roles, they are expected to facilitate initiatives and take a strong leadership role in the Student Committee. They will serve as liaisons to the Student Council for the proposal of any new student initiatives and to request funding.

          Don’t let the details scare you off! These are fun positions and a really great way to tap into the financial and experiential resources of the Society for Economic Botany to do cool things with student members. In the coming year, we’re planning to start a student and post-doc editorial review board for the Journal of Economic Botany, post wiki pages for “Economic Botany/Ethnobotany” and “Society of Economic Botany,” and build a blog to connect a community of ethnobotany students and make our research accessible to the public. Oh yeah, we’re also going to plan an awesome party for everyone who makes it to South Africa for the annual meeting!

          If you’re interested in being a candidate, please submit: a photograph, a few sentences expressing your interest in the field of ethnobotany, and a few sentences telling us why you’d like to be on the Student Committee. This information will go out on the formal SEB Council ballot in March. Please email this to Annie (avirnig@nybg.org) and John (johndelaparra@gmail.com) by February 23th, 2014!