Oral History Program Andrea Easter-Pilcher Interviewed by Kandice Harris 17 July 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Andrea Easter-Pilcher Interviewed by Kandice Harris 17 July 2019 Copyright © 2022 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Beyond Suffrage Project was initiated to examine the impact women have had on northern Utah. Weber State University explored and documented women past and present who have influenced the history of the community, the development of education, and are bringing the area forward for the next generation. The project looked at how the 19th Amendment gave women a voice and representation, and was the catalyst for the way women became involved in the progress of the local area. The project examines the 50 years (1870-1920) before the amendment, the decades to follow and how women are making history today. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Easter-Pilcher, Andrea, an oral history by Kandice Harris, 17 July 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Andrea Easter-Pilcher Circa 2018 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Dr. Andrea Easter-Pilcher, conducted on July 17, 2019 by Kandice Harris. Andrea discusses her life, her memories at Weber State University, and the impact of the 19th Amendment. Marina Kenner, the video technician, is also present during this interview. KH: Today is July 17, 2019. It is 10 a.m. and we are doing an interview with Dr. Andrea Easter-Pilcher. Kandice Harris is doing the interview and Marina Kenner is filming. When and where were you born? AEP: I was born just up the road in Missoula, Montana on June 19, 1955. That was a Sunday and it happened to be Father’s Day. KH: Would you talk a little bit about your early life and some historical background? AEP: I was really lucky in that I was born into a family and to parents who really loved the arts, and literature, reading, and music. My childhood was filled with those kinds of things. I played the cello and the piano, and did a lot of reading. My parents were also really big on outdoor experiences like hiking, swimming, skiing and that kind of thing. My father was a World War II and Korean War veteran, he’s passed away at this point, but he was a wonderful father to his three kids, two girls and a boy. I have an older sister and a younger brother. My dad built a cabin, a real cabin, a hand hewn log cabin up in the mountains on the edge of a lake, bordering the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana. Starting when I was about the age of four, my mother moved up there with the three kids and we lived up there all summer long. The cabin had electricity, cold running water, and an 2 outdoor biffy. My father would come up on Tuesday nights and Friday nights for the weekend. So, that is where we spent our summers, in the middle of the wilderness, in this log cabin on the edge of a lake. We were raised with a strong work ethic. So, we had chores, but once we were done with our chores, we were just free to roam in the woods or spend the day on the dock and in the water. My brother and I would take off with our black Labrador dog, Dandy and we’d be gone for hours adventuring in the woods. That really, I think, was the beginning of my passion for conservation and wildlife biology. So, my passion for wildlife biology started as a child. I am really grateful to my parents for providing and opening doors of opportunity for me. My father felt like his girls could set the world on fire. And, he let us know that that is what we could do. Some of my earliest memories-- I can remember being out with him in the foothills of the Swan Mountain Range, I was about seven. We came across grizzly bear tracks. He took off his baseball cap and he set it on a track and the track was bigger than his baseball cap. At that moment, I wanted to see the bear. I wanted to pet the bear, I wanted to get up close to this bear. He was like, “Ahhh…” In his mind, I’m sure he was thinking, “We have to get back to the car immediately.” But he said to me at that time, and I’ve never forgotten this, he said, “You know, this isn’t our neighborhood. This is the bear’s neighborhood and we need to respect that and we need to go.” I’ve always remembered that and I’ve carried that through my life, respect for wildlife and ecosystems; and that likely fueled my passion for working with endangered and threatened species, and threatened ecosystems. Later in my life, I did work with grizzly bears. When I was 12, I wrote to Jacques 3 Cousteau, he was a famous marine biologist, and told him that I wanted to go to work for him immediately on his research vessel. He wrote me back…it was kind of a, “Dear Andrea” letter, “you need to grow up and go to college” letter. He did send me an autographed photo along with the letter, but I had French ski racer Jean-Claude Killy’s poster on my bedroom wall at the time, he was quite handsome. Anyway, that was my response from Jacques Cousteau. It was awesome that he wrote back, because it really supported my passion and my fire for that career. I feel that I was lucky as a child. You know, back then, I thought that all kids were doing the kinds of things that I was doing. As I grew older, of course, I realized that I was really blessed to have the support and the love of my parents and I grew to appreciate the fact that they really pushed me to achieve my potential. I think those are probably high points of my childhood. Living in that cozy cabin in the summers with my brother and sister and the dog and my mom and with my dad coming up, was pretty special. Dad would come up on Tuesday nights and then again on Friday nights and head home on Monday mornings, as I mentioned, and he always brought with him Weekly Readers and Highlights magazines for kids. So, we were always excited, waiting for dad to arrive to go on adventures with us and bring those activity/reading magazines for kids. The other thing that I remember fondly is that we went to the library to check out books to take with us up to the cabin to read over the summer. The librarian would let us check out 15 books each, to take with us up to the cabin to read over the summer. My mom was a stickler that after lunch everyday, you had an 4 hour long “nap” where you had to read. And, that was great for me as a child. I would often read well past that hour. KH: You kind of mentioned this, but what started your interest in Anthropology and Biology? AEP: When I was growing up, wildlife biology was a male dominated field. I knew that I would be heading to college, I knew that jobs in wildlife were few and far between so, I was trying to get into a field that was close to wildlife but that wasn’t wildlife. Because, I wasn’t certain that I would get into the wildlife field given the structure of the field at that time and the makeup of that field. There were no female mentors for me in wildlife biology. So, the female mentor that was out there for me was Jane Goodall, she was the only one. And, of course, I didn’t know her personally. But, at a distance I could watch what she was doing. She was doing a blend of anthropology and biology, so that drew me into cultural anthropology. I was accepted early decision to Bowdoin College which is a highly ranked academic, private liberal arts college in Maine. I went from Montana to Bowdoin College sight unseen…suitcases in hand. I was in the third class at Bowdoin College to accept women. It had been an all-male undergraduate institution since 1749 when it was established. So, that was interesting in and of itself. Bowdoin did not have a wildlife program. But, my parents really wanted me to go there and were very supportive, so that’s what I did. Anthropology was a really strong program at that college. I enjoyed it, and I got a lot out of it. Once I graduated, I took a job at the University of Minnesota; a research position in child development, but this wasn’t heading towards a career. This was really a filler 5 job for me while I was considering career options (law school, medical school), although I loved the people that I worked with. So, and here is an odd story, I was standing in the university bookstore one day and I had an epiphany. There were two students on the other side of the bookshelf, I couldn’t even see who they were. They were talking about how awesome their wildlife biology program was. And, I was standing on my side thinking, “Why am I trying to be a lawyer, or a doctor, or something when my passion really is wildlife biology. This is where my heart is.” And, at that moment, I decided, “This is what I’m going to do.” It’s funny how that small moment triggered this radical shift back towards my original career direction. This was just a shot in the dark but, from Minnesota, I wrote a letter back home to the University of Montana to a grizzly bear expert, named Charles Jonkel. I told him—again, reminiscent of my Jacques Cousteau story, “I’d like to come work for you. Here are my credentials, I have my degree. It’s not in wildlife, it’s in anthropology, but I’m really passionate, and blah blah blah.” Well, he hired me to come back to Montana and be a grizzly bear technician, a field technician. And that was the beginning. All of my mentors in wildlife biology have been men, because again, there were no women. Dr. Jonkel was a nationally recognized grizzly bear expert and he was a fabulous mentor to me. So, I did grizzly bear research with him and earned my master’s degree from the University of Montana. That was the transition back into the wildlife profession, which has been an exciting and rewarding career for me. KH: What degrees and certifications do you have? 6 AEP: I have an undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College. I did a double major in cultural anthology and history. I then earned my master’s degree in wildlife biology from the University of Montana. And, then went on to earn my Ph.D. in a field that was just emerging in the mid 1980’s called conservation biology. Conservation biology is a subfield of wildlife biology with a focus on population genetics, and population ecology, and modeling of threatened and endangered species and ecosystems. I earned my Ph.D. in that field with a supporting field in statistics. I am fairly quantitative. I like numbers and I like math. I then was hired as a post-doctoral research associate at Purdue University and spent a year and a half there. After my post-doc, I was offered my first teaching/research faculty position at the University of Montana-Western and I was there for 12 years. I moved up through the academic ranks, became a full and tenured professor, and was chair of the department of environmental sciences for two years. Then I was offered a position at St. George’s University in Grenada, in the West Indies to build a biology, and marine and wildlife ecology program in the School of Arts and Sciences. I took that position in 2008, and was there for ten years. I facilitated the development of a program in wildlife and marine ecology there and strengthened the biology department. The Department of Biology, Ecology and Conservation became the largest department in the School of Arts and Sciences. Along the way, I was offered an assistant dean position in the School of Arts and Sciences. I thought, “No way. I love my teaching, I love my research, I’m not going to do this.” And, I declined the offer. Six months later, the offer (from the dean) came again, this time to become an associate dean. I still intended to 7 decline. However, the department chairs asked me to consider the offer. I thought, “Well the department chairs would like me to be associate dean… maybe I should try this.” So, I became the Associate Dean, was later promoted to Senior Associate Dean and then to interim Dean when the dean of the School of Arts and Sciences in Grenada retired. SGU did an international search for the Dean of Arts and Sciences. I competed and was offered the dean position at SGU. However, essentially at the same time, I was competing for the dean position at Weber State as well as a few other dean positions. I received several offers, but Weber State was my first choice and so when that offer came through, I accepted and here we are. AEP: And, it’s been fabulous. KH: What were some of the challenges you faced while obtaining your degrees? AEP: I can’t really think of any challenges in obtaining my undergraduate degree. I mean, the challenge of going from Montana to a college on the east coast, sight unseen, where the senior class was all men (and some of them weren’t so excited about having young women coming into the freshman class) could have been a challenge. But, that wasn’t an insurmountable hurdle. I did have the opportunity to do a year’s study abroad, which was phenomenal. I attended the University of London (Goldsmith’s College) in England for my junior year abroad. There weren’t any issues there either. I think any hurdles in terms of my career came later but again, I had tremendous mentors. During my master’s degree, because I was a female and I was studying grizzly bears, and I was snare trapping and radio tracking these bears, there were a few individuals who didn’t 8 think that that’s what women should be doing. And so, there were some small obstacles in terms of that. But again, I had really strong mentors in Dr. Charles Jonkel and Dr. Lee Metzger and Dr. Bart O’Gara and they had my back as I made my way through the early stages of my career. There was another female graduate student who was working on grizzly bears also. So, there were two of us and that AEP: provided additional support. As far as my Ph.D., it was fairly quantitative with some statistical modeling. The dissertation itself was policy oriented. It was hard for me not to be doing research in the field because I had been in the field all the way up through my M.Sc. and I really, really enjoyed that. But the Ph.D. work that I did was pretty impactive. It was published in Bioscience and has been cited many, many times. So, the Ph.D. project was a good choice. KH: You mentioned one example, but did you face any other resistance or battles as you progressed in your career? AEP: I think—it’s interesting because when you are striving to be the best that you can be and there is bias because of your gender, or bias because of your race, or whatever…direct bias along these lines is sometimes easier to deal with because it is “in your face” and you see it whereas indirect/hidden bias (which you may be completely unaware of) can be more insidious. So, I do know, and I’m not going to go into details here, but I do know that sometimes there is, behind the scenes, indirect kinds of biases happening that impedes the forward progress of women. And I know that, that was something that was difficult for all of us young women coming up in graduate programs in wildlife biology to deal with. But again, I had 9 really strong support from male mentors who saw the field as needing women and needing that perspective. KH: What was the process for building the program you created at St. George’s University? AEP: I came in with that kind of mandate (to build a program). That’s what they hired me to do. So, the dean gave me pretty free rein to do what I needed to do. My process in moving forward with any program, is to build a team and that team is the “academic leadership team”; so, typically the department chairs. That’s what I did at St. George’s University. When I was building the program (as a department chair), I was focused on gathering all of the departmental faculty together and bringing them on board from the very beginning through to the end of the process. When I was developing the curriculum, I spent a lot of time looking at curriculum at other universities and then adjusting the curriculum for the new marine and wildlife biology program at St. George’s University. SGU did have a small marine program, but it was not growing. And, while the program had great faculty and some great courses, it was not moving forward. So, I began to pull people together and talk about curricular changes and also changing the name of the department to something that would be more attractive to undergraduate students. The department was called, “The Department of Life Sciences” and I thought, “What undergraduates are googling ‘Life Sciences’? I really didn’t think they were, but they might be googling, ‘biology’. They might be googling, ‘ecology’. They might be googling, ‘conservation’.” We had brain storming sessions about renaming the department. And, we did rename the department to 10 the Department of Biology, Ecology and Conservation. We also changed the titles of some of our basic marine courses, for example “Marine Biology I,” became Caribbean Living Oceans, and “Marine Biology II,” became Tropical Seas. So now, really which would you rather take? Marine Biology I or Caribbean Living Oceans? AEP: So, those kinds of changes were made in an attempt to attract undergraduate students to our programs. And, then we revamped the curriculum and added a wildlife biology emphasis in addition to the marine emphasis (now revised) that was already there. We also built stronger pre-med and pre-vet programs. This was all very successful. We did become the largest department in the School of Arts and Sciences through these efforts. I prefer a collaborative, team effort. I do like to empower people because, the people that are in the room are often smarter than I am. So, I want to get all of that brainpower together and at the same table as we move forward. KH: What drew you to Weber State? AEP: I really had a great skype interview. Initially in a job search, you are looking at a lot of different universities and my husband and I had decided that we wanted to be back in the mountains. We had been ten years overseas, ten years on a tropical island. Which was lovely and wonderful, and I loved the people in Grenada. I loved my students, they were all Grenadian and Caribbean students. They were so fun to teach because they were so vested and engaged. Empowering their voices, especially in the sciences, was really important to me. So, it was very difficult for me to leave Grenada. That was not an easy move for 11 me. But, it was time to come back home after ten years. Our daughter is in Missoula, was in Missoula. She’s here now, but she was in Missoula. We wanted to be closer to her. She was 25 last summer when we moved back here. So, I had a great skype interview and, Weber State is in a beautiful location and we are skiers (I downhill ski-raced when I was a kid). Most importantly, when I had the skype interview, there was just a connection, it just felt easy and comfortable and I felt like there was a rapport already at that stage of the interview. Then during the on-campus interview, I felt like, “Yes, definitely. This is my first choice.” I really enjoyed the deans and I knew I could work well with them. Madonne Miner was a real selling point for me. I thought, “This is a provost that I would love to work for and work with.” So, Weber State became my first choice. That was that. KH: Who were some of the people on your hiring committee? AEP: Oh gosh, Adolph Yonkee was on the hiring committee, he is in geosciences. I believe that Colin Inglefield was on the committee. There were a couple of deans. Honestly, I can’t remember at this point. The student on the committee, Brady was wonderful. I can’t think of his last name, but I had nice rapport with him. I’ve thought and I haven’t done it because I haven’t had time, but, I have thought about looking back to see who was on that search committee because it was such a nice group of people. It was a dean search committee, so there were 10 or 12 people on it. Yas [Dr. Yasmen Simonian] might have been on it as well. KH: I’m curious, have you talked about introducing wildlife conservation here? 12 AEP: I had the same approach coming in to WSU as a new dean that I had coming in as a new department chair to St. George’s University. And that was, first get to know everybody and build a level of trust so that we can all work together as a team and second, empower the department chairs. When I was here interviewing, I realized that there was a strong wildlife program in zoology. I recognized that there was a lot of expertise across the college in the environmental sciences and in very specific environmental areas across all of the departments in the college. One of the things that I had heard, during the interview process, is that the faculty were really interested in more collaboration across the college. So when I came in, I re-structured the academic leadership team to include just the department chairs, the associate dean, and the dean and scheduled meetings with that team every other week. We did that all year and we will continue to do that and to strategize about how to move the college forward as a team. Sometime in September (in my second month as dean), I put on the table the idea of an environmental sciences program and the department chairs were like, “We’ve already been talking about it, but we have not been able to move it forward.” We were all sort of in sync immediately. And, we’ve really lucked out because we have gotten support from the provost, and we’ve gotten support from other deans across campus. The result of that support has been that we’ve competed for and received a couple of new faculty lines to help build and drive this environmental sciences program forward. We have also been through a strategic planning process this year. I’m meeting with every single tenured and tenure track faculty member in the College. There are 84 of them. 13 I’m holding 15 minute sessions with them individually and I am asking them what their aspirations are for their department and for the college and what they see as the potential stumbling blocks to achieving these aspirations. I am using the results of these one-on-one meetings as a faculty baseline to facilitate and direct our strategic planning. And, then the academic leadership team (the chairs and the deans) had a day and a half strategic planning retreat. We developed a strategic plan that has four main initiatives one of which is the environmental sciences program. So, we’re really moving forward, we’ve accomplished a lot in a year. And, that’s been really fun and really rewarding. And so, to go from that very first meeting when you are sitting down as a new dean, with this group of people that you don’t know to, now having been here for a year and recognizing that we have come together and really… we’ve really laid out a great plan for forward progress for the college is great. AEP: So I’m feeling really excited about that and energized. KH: What does a typical semester as dean look like for you? AEP: Busy. I was thinking about this question. There are things that you do that are just on your calendar—promotion and tenure for example. There’s a whole schedule that goes along with that process. And, for program evaluation and review, there’s a whole schedule that goes along with that process. Faculty going on sabbatical and sabbatical reports and then any kind of faculty and/or student appeals. Issues along these lines take a significant amount of time. So there are all of these processes that are constant and repetitive in the background of the job but it is not background noise because these are all critical 14 processes. But then, set against that backdrop, are the things that are really exciting and energizing like developing this new environmental sciences program with my team. So, there’s always something to do. It’s amazing. I know that all of the deans, that I am now good friends with, good colleagues, feel this way. We all work very well together, we have become a very collaborative group. But, they would all say the same thing. You walk away from your computer and come back an hour later and there will be at least 20 new emails that you’ve got to go through and figure out immediately which ones are critical and what the priorities are. But I like that, it certainly keeps me out of trouble. KH: Always important. AEP: Right. Always important. And, I have gotten in trouble in my life. KH: What committees or organizations on campus or otherwise are you a member of? AEP: Oh gosh. So, dean’s council, of course. I’m on the course fees task force. I’m on the quantitative literacy task force. I’m on the international study abroad task force. I’m really passionate about that. And, the deans themselves have lunch together once a month. Each dean hosts at least once throughout the year and we have great discussions. And then, I will do anything else that comes up. I mean, I’m pretty much doing whatever anybody needs me to do. I am also on the teaching and learning committee. The international task force is important to me because my junior year abroad experience in college was so empowering. One of the things that I haven’t mentioned yet, when I was faculty at the 15 University of Montana-Western, I was given educational leave to teach on a floating university ship. The program was/is called, “Semester at Sea.” 700 university students take courses on a ship as it voyages around the world. I was a faculty member in conservation biology with Semester at Sea as we voyaged around the world. We had several port stops, probably 15 different port stops and we would stay 5-7 days in these different places. I took students on field trips and we had all kinds of cultural experiences in these different countries. It’s such a broadening experience to step outside of your comfort zone and step into a culture that is not your own and have to learn to deal with that and appreciate that. So, I would like to see opportunities to go abroad be made more available to our students in the College of Science. One of the things that we’re doing is setting up a study abroad trip to Russia in the Lake Baikal region. Lake Baikal is famous for biodiversity. 5 million birds migrate through the region during a particular time of year. John Cavitt, who is our ornithology specialist, is the faculty lead. He and my husband, Brian, went to Russia to do a pre-planning trip and scope out possible sites and meet with scientists that Brian and I know because we’ve done quite a bit of research in Russia—meet with those scientists and scope out the possibilities for a study abroad trip. The study abroad trip to Baikal now looks like something that we are going to be doing. We will offer the trip to students as a three week immersion study abroad experience. The first trip will focus on birds and birding, but after that, I think, the sky is the limit, of what we could do there. And then of course, the Caribbean—all kinds of possibilities with 16 my connections in the Caribbean for study abroad opportunities and internship opportunities for students. KH: What professional organizations are you a member of? AEP: The Wildlife Society, the Society for Conservation Biology, Bioscience, I think that’s about it at the moment. KH: Would you talk a little bit about your work with Wildlife Conservation? AEP: Yes, gladly! My research really has led to such an exciting career. I’ve been engaged in research all over the world. Most of my research focuses on what’s happening at the human wildlife interface, because that’s where we have issues and that’s where we are losing species and losing ecosystems. The first big international research project that I was involved in, I was the principal investigator on a project on a national nature preserve in Russia, the Volga- Kama National Nature Preserve. This happened because when I was at Purdue as a post-doc, there was also a woman there visiting from Russia who was a double Ph.D. plant physiologist. She studied the plant cell wall specifically. Her husband was coming over to visit her from Russia and he was the director of the Volga-Kama National Nature Preserve. She learned that I had done my master’s degree on beavers. (As an aside, I had done research on grizzly bears for a couple of years (for my Masters degree) and then my faculty member actually lost his faculty position (which was terrible) and, as a result of that, I had to switch graduate projects. I was offered a funded graduate beaver research project which I took.) The Russian plant physiologist discovered that I had 17 worked on beavers and she knew that her husband wanted to reintroduce beavers to his national nature preserve. She asked me for a copy of my M.Sc. thesis, she translated it for him and then he asked me if I would work with him on a beaver reintroduction project in Russia. I agreed, it sounded interesting and fun. I then wrote a grant for funding to the Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation to support the project. That was my first foray into writing grants. I’ve now written (as author or co-author) and received nearly two million dollars’ worth of research grants and matching funds. But, the Lindbergh grant was my first and I was so thrilled. I received $10,000 to do the research project in Russia. And, that was the beginning. We moved beavers from 500 kilometers north of the Volga-Kama National Nature Preserve down to that preserve. We put subcutaneous transmitters into the alpha female and the alpha male. So, we essentially relocated beavers into this national nature preserve in Russia. The reason that the Russian biologists wanted that done was that the beavers had been trapped out decades earlier. When beavers are taken out of an ecosystem, the ecosystem begins to dry up because the beavers aren’t damming and the water table isn’t maintaining its natural levels. So, the biologists knew they were losing their water loving or mesic plant species and the birds associated with those species. The reintroduction of beavers was a cheap way to bring the ecosystem back to more normal, more natural conditions. Our reintroduction strategy was successful. There are beaver colonies there now in that Russian preserve. After that, I was a consultant on a project looking at the impacts of ecotourism and climate change on Adélie penguins in Antarctica. As I mentioned 18 earlier, I have also worked with grizzly bears utilizing behavior modification and aversive conditioning to train bears to stay away from human habitation. More recently, I was invited as a rare species specialist to the Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve in the Russian Far East and was able to go out in the field with Amur tiger biologists, Amur leopard biologists and Musk deer biologists. It was very rewarding to be involved in a bit of the research on these critically endangered cats. When I was in Grenada, I was asked by the government of Grenada to be a delegate to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. To be a delegate at CITES was a career highpoint for me as a conservation/wildlife biologist. I was a delegate representing the country of Grenada twice, once in Bangkok in 2013 and then again in Johannesburg in 2016. At these Conference of the Parties, most of the countries in the world come together to set regulations about trade in endangered and threatened species and to work on strategies to protect species and prevent poaching. That level of engagement was a culminating piece of my career. Perhaps that would be so for any conservation biologist. To be directly involved in setting trade regulations, international trade regulations on threatened species and defining protective strategies for them was extremely fulfilling. KH: What topics have you written about? AEP: Early in my career, pretty straight forward, wildlife biology topics. So, animal behavior and physiology and the relationships of animals to their habitats and how those relationships affect animal health and reproductive success. As I moved more into the conservation biology arena, I became more interested in 19 writing about the impacts of humans on the environments that these animals inhabit and how those human impacts affect the long term survival of species. So, my publications in more recent times have focused on conservation and long term viability of species and ecosystems. KH: How has wildlife biology and conservation changed throughout your career? AEP: Well, for one thing, there are more women in the field now. Conservation biology as a field is much younger than the field of wildlife biology and management. Conservation biology was an emerging field in the mid 1980s and wildlife biology had been in place for a long time prior to that. So, I’d say also that there are more diverse voices in these fields today. There are new and different perspectives coming into conservation and wildlife biology because of the inclusion of women and underrepresented minority groups in these areas and in the sciences in general. We are seeing changes, which are really positive. During the first part of my career, I was totally passionate about conservation and wildlife biology and I was research tracked all the way through graduate school. But, when I took my first position at the University of Montana-Western, I taught for the first time, and I loved it. I had no idea I would love to teach. I was passionate about it. So then, empowering the voices of all of my students, but especially women and underrepresented minorities in the sciences became my second passion. And, I think we’ve seen change, real positive change along these lines in terms of access for women and underrepresented minorities in the sciences across the board. There are still areas where we struggle—math, 20 physics. But, we have committed faculty here in the College of Science at Weber State University that are wanting that to happen and work to see that happen. KH: What recognition have you received for your accomplishments? AEP: I’ve won several outstanding teacher awards throughout my career. The last one was in 2015, at St. George’s University specifically for my commitment and dedication to undergraduate scholarship and research and undergraduate students. And, I’ve won a few awards along the way, but the ones that mean the most to me are the teaching awards. I won a couple at the University of Montana-Western, not won, you are “awarded.” And then, a couple at St. George’s University. But the biggest reward for me, and I think for a lot of people that are in my profession, is to watch my students, watch my students go out there and do what I hoped they would do. To know that they’ve been empowered and that they have been well educated in their specific areas and to watch them succeed at their work for the United States Forest Service or the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (as examples) is very gratifying. Or to see my Grenadian students going on to graduate school. They are going to change the face of conservation across the Caribbean, those students. Not that you are formally recognized for that, but that’s probably the biggest reward that one can achieve, at least in my opinion. A lot of my Grenadian students came from households where there wasn’t a lot of money and they were on scholarship and to see them go on and earn Ph.D.’s and win academic and financial awards is pretty fantastic. KH: How have you become a mentor to others in your field? 21 AEP: That is one of the things that I think I’ve done a lot of and done really well. And, I know my students would agree with that. In fact, yesterday, just yesterday, I was on a two hour conference call with a student from Grenada who is now finishing her master’s degree and I’m on her master’s committee. We were going over her thesis and I was thinking as I was listening to her talk about the statistics she’s doing, I was thinking, “Wow. She’s come so far and I’m so proud of her.” It’s just been a pleasure to mentor all of my students, young men and young women, mentoring them into the field of wildlife and conservation biology and stoking the passions that they have. They are going to carry the legacy forward for all of us who have taught them and have interacted with them. And, they let me know that they appreciate that mentoring. So, it’s that recognition that is the best reward as far as I’m concerned. They are going to set the world on fire as I would hope that they would. And, that’s students from the University of Montana- Western as well as from St. George’s University. Many of my students are on Facebook. So, I’ve been able to watch what they are doing, celebrate their children and support them as they move forward in their careers and it’s just been really incredibly rewarding. KH: What advice would you give to students and women starting in your field? AEP: Be persistent. Don’t give up. Be courageous. Look for a good mentor—a mentor who will have your back. And, be passionate. I mean I would hope you are coming into a field because you are passionate about it. That’s what I would say. Be persistent. Take courage. My mom gave me a medallion when I graduated from high school, and it said, “To thine own self, be true.” And, I think 22 that’s something I would say too. Always be true to who you are. And that will carry you a long ways. Don’t give up. KH: What are some of your favorite memories at Weber State? AEP: You know Weber State has been—and this is not true of all universities, but, since I’ve arrived—August 1st, —it has been such a… truly welcoming environment. People have been very supportive and have let me know that they are supportive. I get a feeling that everybody wants everybody to succeed and that’s lovely. Some of my favorite memories are just happening now at the tail end of my first year. I attend meetings with faculty now and it’s so relaxed, nobody is jockeying for position. The trust is there. I know trust can disappear quickly, but it’s there now and we are building firm relationships. I have fond memories of our retreat that we held for the department chairs. I have fond memories of the students and the student club day which they held in the atrium. I stood up on the third floor and watched them all interacting and they were having so much fun. And, our student senator was fabulous—Cade. I’m not sure that I have really stand out memories, but just a lot of really good feelings about how this year has gone. And, who the students are and what their dreams are and their visions for where they are going to go in their lives. And the ones that know me, feel like they can talk to me, that’s been really wonderful. And, it is the same with the faculty. KH: What was Weber State like when you started? 23 AEP: Well, since I only started 11 months ago, that’s it. Weber State was welcoming. It’s a beautiful campus and I have a stunning office. I do. People tell me I have the nicest office on campus. Don’t let that word get out. But, it’s just been very welcoming and that hasn’t changed. I do feel like Weber State is on the edge of moving to the next level and I’m not sure we know what that really looks like yet. But, I think we’re building critical mass to take Weber another step forward. What I see is a lot of creativity, a lot of innovative thinking, from upper administration and from the dean’s and from the department chairs. And, people looking at—and perhaps this is just me maybe getting deeper into the culture and beginning to know people as opposed to Weber really changing, but, I feel like there’s a lot of positive energy and a recognition that Weber could be even more than it is now. I think Weber is a really, really great place for students to earn their degrees and get their education because the faculty, in general are very dedicated to student success. I mean, that is like the vibe across the entire campus - student success. I think that vibe is going to begin to broaden. So, student success isn’t just, you earn your degree and you get a job. I think it’s going to be more about the experiences that students have while they are here. Including, perhaps, more international exposure, and more study abroad possibilities. I see people in faculty and administration, looking at that and looking forward and trying to see how we can make the student experience even better than it is. KH: How do you think women receiving the right to vote, shaped or influenced history, your community, and you personally? 24 AEP: Yes, of course it’s a good thing that women have the right to vote. That’s definitely a good thing. One of my several times removed great aunts was a woman named Elizabeth Cady Stanton and she worked with Susan B. Anthony on getting women the vote. She was the—Susan B. Anthony was the orator, the speaker, but my relative was the writer of many of those speeches. They worked in collaboration. I think it’s amazing that they did it. They, and others, got women the right to vote and what that’s done is it’s empowered women. It’s allowed women to move into positions that were closed to them, positions that are in the higher echelons of business, academics and society and it has allowed women to become more powerful, really across the board. Because, getting the vote gave women a level of status that only men had had previously. If only men are making policy and policy decisions and the female voice isn’t heard, where are we? So yes, of course, I think it was a very positive thing and has certainly impacted history. I think it’s allowed women to take their place at the table. And, while we still struggle to have a place at some tables, it’s really opened the door to having a place at most tables. KH: Is there anything else you’d like to share? AEP: I think I would like to mention just one more thing and that is, and this again speaks to teams and collaborative efforts and persistence and the kind of leadership style that I prefer as opposed to a top-down style. When I was at the University of Montana-Western, a colleague and I wrote a grant to the Fund for Improvement of Post-Secondary Education. We didn’t get funding the first two times that we wrote it, but the third time we brought the funding in, over a million 25 dollars (including match). This funding allowed us to run a pilot of one class at a time scheduling, which is a scheduling format like Colorado College, on the University of Montana-Western campus. That two-year pilot project was so successful that that entire campus changed to one class at a time scheduling. Student retention has gone up and applications to the university went way up and the university enrollment has almost doubled. Their trajectory changed from a flat trajectory in terms of enrollment, to a trajectory that looked like that, (holding arm in a straight line and a diagonal direction with the fingers pointed up and the elbow down.) So, another piece of who I am is, I like to think outside of the box. Coming up with creative ways of improving student success by alternative teaching strategies and schedules is one way that I have done that. I believe that using alternative, experiential, more hands-on kinds of strategies to engage students that might not otherwise be engaged and to retain students that might not otherwise be retained is critical. So, to give you an example of that--once we were doing one class at a time (students take only one immersion class at a time for 3.5 weeks), students didn’t have any conflicts with any other classes (over the course of the semester they take four separate blocks and each block is a separate 3.5 week course)--I could take my students to Yellowstone for several days. They were able to go out with the wolf biologists and then the fire ecologists and the local geologists and the botanists and learn in an experiential way as opposed to lecture and notes on a chalkboard. I think that’s a really important piece of who I am and what I’ve done in my career -- try to come up with alternative pedagogical strategies that will engage and retain all students, 26 but especially first generation students, who aren’t really used to a college university atmosphere, and underrepresented groups and women. I think that’s probably the only other thing that I’d like to add. I’m sure when this is finished, I’ll have all kinds of additional things to say. KH: Thank you so much for your time.