The Loras College Biology Dept. Newsletter

September 2003  Vol. 5

Tom Davis, Editor and Chair

The members of the Biology Dept. continue to do active research, teach excellent classes and give service to the Loras, Dubuque and world communities.  Current and past students in the Biology Dept. are also using their curiosity, knowledge and experience to do some amazing things in some even more amazing places.   All alumni are invited to come to campus to talk to current students about your experiences in “Life after Loras”.  Please send your latest accomplishments, jobs, or exciting news items to tom.davis@loras.edu for inclusion on our Biology Dept. website at http://depts.loras.edu/bio and in our next departmental newsletter. 

Contents of this Newsletter:

• Announcements
• Campus Update
• Department Update
• Faculty Activity
• Student Update
• Health Science and Graduate School Acceptances for Fall 2002

Announcements

The Annual Biology Dept. Homecoming Chili Feed will be at Eagle Point Park on Friday, Oct. 10, 2003 from 6-10 pm in the southernmost pavilion.  Bring your family, some beverages and a friend to this annual gathering of storytelling and fellowship.  Most of the biology faculty and staff will be there along with current students, alumni and invited college guests.  Chili, bread, chips, and eating equipment will be provided. 

Campus Update

• Much remodeling occurred on campus over the summer.  The old Wahlert Memorial Library is now Wahlert Hall and includes faculty offices and other spaces for the Education Department.   Five new electronic classrooms were added as well.  The area outside Wahlert has been nicely relandscaped as well. 
• Rohlmann Hall second floor was returned to student housing as 52 new beds were added to replace the Education Dept. offices. 
• The new Garden Apartment complex east of Binz Hall is fully open and filled to capacity.  The Academic Resource Center has been open for a year now and is getting constant, increased use compared to the old library.  Everyone is happy that we have it.
• Enrollment for Fall 2003 is up and has everyone excited.  We are greeting over 500 first year students to campus and the housing facilities are about 96% full.  The admissions staff and the whole campus community worked hard to attract these students and we are working on keeping them here for the whole four years.
• The Development Office officially kicked off a new capital fund raising campaign for a new Athletic Facility that would be added on to Graber to the east. 

CBS’ Greg Gumbel and CNBC’s Bill Bolster will co chair the campaign for the estimated $35 million effort.

Go to www.loras.edu/news to read more details about the latest campus events.

Faculty Update

Dave Czarnecki -  “Dr. Diatom” just returned from a trip this week to Lake Itasca State Park in Minnesota to collect specimens for his new Plant Biology course that he is offering this fall.  Dr. Czarnecki continues to curate the Freshwater Diatom Culture Collection   now with over 1700 strains.  He has been involved in helping the education staff at the new Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium with diatom information and aquatic biology education materials. Along with Dr. Ed Cawley, he continues to do abandoned mineland aquatic and terrestrial wildlife surveys for the State of Iowa. 

Tom Davis – Dr. Davis continues as chair of the department.  He supervised Jenny Arens, a Biology major, with her research on the effects of soil water and temperature on painted turtle egg and embryo development at several sites north of Dubuque on the river.  Dr. Davis led a group of 13 students to Florida over Spring break in Feb/March for 12 days on the Subtropical Ecology trip.  The group encountered record heat (instead of record cold in January) and learned much about the natural systems and environmental problems in Florida.  The snorkeling on the coral reef off Big Pine Key was spectacular with nurse sharks, an eagle ray and many colorful fish being sighted. 

Gerald Eagleson -  Dr. Eagleson continues as co-director of the DNA Recombinant Lab at Loras.  He continues to publish extensively and write grants to support his work on forebrain development in vertebrates.  Jerry is in the process of helping train our new DNA Lab Technician, Jennifer Trilk, who started here in August.  Jennifer replaces Lucy Wentworth who is now living in Italy with her friend Steve.  The department had a going away party for Lucy at Fred Schnee and Andy Bixler’s house in May.  We gave her some great Dubuque mementos and she supplied us with leftover but useful items for each of our households.  She will be missed by everyone in our department and building.  Jennifer Trilk has parents in Dubuque but has been in Californnia for about ten years.  She has a degree in Animal Science from Iowa State and did some exercise physiology testing of horses in California.  She brings her great enthusiasm to the science building.

Paul Jobsis – Dr. Jobsis enjoyed teaching here at Loras.  He taught our Human Biology course in the spring and taught Intro Biology for both semesters.  He developed several new labs for non majors including a fossil collecting trip to an outcrop near Graf, IA that contained many large nautiloid and other invertebrate specimens.  Paul has relocated to the Washington, D. C. area where he is a post doc research associate for a physiologist at the NIH who studies cardiovascular flow dynamics.  Paul’s background in infrared instrument development helped him get this job.  Good Luck to Paul and Rosylnn.

Fred Schnee – Dr. Schnee continues to be active in teaching genetics, microbiology and introductory biology for majors.  He teamed with Dr. Idziak from Philosophy to teach a cluster course in Human Genetics and Ethics and the New Genetics.  In the new general education curriculum at Loras, students need to take 2 cluster courses where the professors attend each others courses and the students take each course in the same semester.  Dr. Schnee attended the Iowa Academy of Sciences annual Meeting Des Moines and helped two of his senior students present their research on fruit fly mating behavior.  Dr. Schnee is the proud recipient of a new fruit fly research lab which was added to the south end of Rm 49.  Hopefully all the flies will have enough of their own space now so they don’t have to come and visit the rest of the 1^st floor residents.

Dave Shealer – Dr. Shealer continues to involve students in his research on population ecology of Black Terns.  He conducted field research with several students and local volunteers at Horicon National Wildlife Refuge in east central Wisconsin.  He received several grants to support his research in the field as well as in the lab.  He has developed a lab technique that uses DNA probes to identify the sex of black tern individuals from their blood samples.  Several undergraduates have helped him with this work.  He also continues to band many of the terns at the field site to monitor their reproductive success and survivorship over time.  Dave attended a meeting of the Waterbird Society in Lacrosse, WI last fall and is taking two students with him to Brazil in September to the Waterbird Society meeting there.

Student Update

Student Awardsand Activities

Eri Engelmann received the 2003 E.T. Cawley Award for Undergraduate Research.  His research with Dr. Schnee was titled, “Male Compensatory Mating Behavior in Vestigial Drosophila melanogaster.”

Josh Buzzell and Jon Heiar received funding from a grant from the McElroy Foundation to support their summer research projects with Dave Shealer on the population biology of black terns.

Stephanie Theisen, Jennifer Arens, Jjosn Buzzell and Jon Heiar received Summer Research Scholarship funding from the Loras College Development Office.  Theisen will work with Jerry Eagleson to investigate some of the genes that control vertebrate forebrain development and Arens will work with Tom Davis investigating the role of soil water content and temperature and their effect on eggs and embryos of painted turtles in man-made vs natural nests. 

Eric Engelman was nominated for the 2003 Faculty Staff Scholarship.

Junior Biology students who received the Msgr. Schulte Scholarship Award for 2003-04 were Jenny Arens, Adam Atkins, Christine Ehlers, Rachel Hutchins, Kara Kremer, Lindsay Wright and Melissa Ziemet.   

Health Science and Graduate School Acceptances for 2003 graduates

Jim (J.T.) Quann, Heidi Welter and Nate Kiewiet (01) were accepted into medical school at the University of Iowa. 

Eric Engelman and Sarah Ledger started medical school at Des Moines University in August. 

Shannon Delaney and Melissa Butler Holtz were accepted at the Medical College of Wisconsin.  Shannon will defer one year to do research at NIH and travel.

Nicole Edwards, Mike Zachar, Chris Kepros and Matt Miller (97) were accepted into Dental school at the University of Iowa.  Anna Kramer (02) has started dental school at the University of Pennsylvania this fall.

Shannon Leonard starts podiatry school at Des Moines University this fall. 

Jayme Wilhelm is attending optometry school at the University of Indiana and Jeff Manternach and Barb Smith are starting at the Illinois College of Optometry this fall as well.

Rachel Suchomel is in Physical Therapy school at DMU and Amy Schuerell is in graduate school in nutrition and exercise at Iowa State. 

 Alumni News  September 2002

Brian Snyder (02) is in graduate school at Kansas State University working on a M.S. in Human Nutrition.  He is a teaching Assistant for several classes there this fall. 

Angie Ponguta (02) is in graduate school at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.   She has joined a prostate cancer research lab there and says it a nice combination of molecular biology, pathology and histology.

Nate Oswald (02) is teaching Biology and Environmental Science at Hempstead High School in Dubuque as well as assisting with coaching the football team there.

Tanya Conrad (02) is teaching biology and earth science at Hempstead High School in Dubuque. 

Micah Reuber (02) has been accepted into a Masters program in Wildlife Ecology at the University of Kansas.  He will start as a graduate student working on grassland bird ecology in January 2003.

Lennie (Leanne) Johnson Meeter (97 ) graduated from Physician Assistant School at the University of Iowa in May 2002.  Lennie's husband Brian, is now (July 03) the head women's volleyball coach for the Duhawks.  She will be back in town soon. 

Chad Gunsolly (02) has been a research assistant in a biochemistry lab at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, MD.  He is currently applying for medical school for Fall 2004.

Jenny Martin (02) is a graduate student in Forest Ecology at the U. Wisc. - Madison.

Mary Randolph (02) is a lab technician in the College of Medicine at the University of Iowa.  This lab is studying the eye disease, macular degeneration.

Jessica Deutmeyer (02) is assistant aquarist at the Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium in Dubuque.

Janelle Hinners (02) is a quality control chemsit for Kemin Industries in Des Mones, IA.

Theresea Kelly (02)is a high school Biology Teacher at Marist High School in Chicago.

Bidget Monaghan is a volunteer in the Notre Dame ACE program in Plaquemine, LA.

Mike Roling (02) is sales manger for Southwestern Publishing, Iowa City.

Please send Dr. Davis an email at tom.davis@loras.edu to update us on your latest accomplishments and news.