Jay Hatch
Associate Professor
Biological Sciences
Department of Postsecondary Teaching and Learning
Guest speakers help seminar students gain an integrated understanding of water resource issues. In addition to bringing in students who have traveled abroad and applied their academic learning to water issues, artists, videographers, and community organizers, I bring in scientists who introduce seminar students to their disciplinary perspectives. My colleague, biology professor Dr. Jay Hatch, consulted with me when I designed the seminar. He helped me to think through the environmental themes and curriculum of the seminar. Jay has been a guest lecturer in my seminar every semester its been offered. He introduces students to basic ecosystem structure and function and the water cycle. Jay has taught at the University for 28 years, winning the Horace T. Morris and University College Distinguished teaching awards. I appreciate his support of this integrated approach to understanding water.
I look forward to reading Hatch’s book, Fishes of Minnesota, for which he has recently received a University Sabbatical Supplement. Fishes of Minnesota, which will be published by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in 2012, is a critical summary of what is known about our fish populations-- where they live, how they live, and how their distributions have changed over a 200–year period. It draws upon the published and, more importantly, unpublished work of hundreds of Minnesota naturalists and scientists dating back to pre-settlement times. While it is first and foremost a scientific work, great care has been taken to make it accessible and readable by the general public.
Rainforest and limestone pools of Semuc Champey, Baja Verapez, Guatemala.
Photo by Jay Hatch.