Fostering Camaraderie: NiCHE New Scholars Committee Begins the 2014/15 Year

Clarion River, Cook Forest State Park, Pennsylvania

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The NiCHE New Scholars Committee is a sub-group of NiCHE that connects environmental history grad students, postdoctoral fellows, and recent PhD graduates. The committee meets digitally, either via Google Talk or Skype, every month to discuss books, dissertation chapters or other pieces of writing, or general new scholar matters. The meetings offer a chance to break down institutional and geographical divisions that often make networking challenging for individuals just entering academia.

Participation is the key to the NiCHE New Scholars Committee’s success. We are currently recruiting both committee members and general participants. Any new scholar in the field is welcome to join our mailing list. To do so, please contact me by way of email. If you would like to play a larger role in the group as an official committee member, organizing events and recruiting participants, please contact me. I will also be contacting individuals directly in the following weeks to serve on the committee.

Additionally, we need people to volunteer to lead each month’s digital meetings/discussions. Last year we had several discussions based on new scholar dissertation chapters, Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis and Armstrong and Nelles’ Wilderness and Waterpower. Have a book you would love to chat with people about? Or are you working on an article that you would like feedback on? Let me know and we can schedule a New Scholar’s meeting based on it. I’m also open to broadening our meetings to general conversations about issues that affect new scholars. Have an idea? Let me know. A new feature of New Scholars Committee meetings this year will be a related follow-up Otter blog post after each discussion.

Jessica DeWitt, NiCHE New Scholars Representative, 2014-2015
Jessica DeWitt, NiCHE New Scholars Representative, 2014-2015

Lastly, I will introduce myself. In addition to filling your Twitter and Facebook feeds as NiCHE’s Social Media Editor, I will also be serving as the 2014-2015 New Scholars Representative. I’m a fourth year PhD Candidate at the University of Saskatchewan. I mainly focus on park history, but have been also cultivating an interest in urban environmental history as of late. I look forward to revitalizing the New Scholars Committee this year and making connections with new people. Feel free to contact me if you have any ideas or questions.

Contact:

Email: jessicamariedewitt@gmail.com

Twitter: @JessicaMDeWitt

 

 

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Jessica DeWitt

is an environmental historian of Canada and the United States, editor, and digital communications strategist. She earned her PhD in History from the University of Saskatchewan in 2019. She is an executive member, editor-in-chief, and social media editor for the Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE). She is also a working board member of the Saskatchewan History and Folklore Society and Girls Rock Saskatoon. A passionate social justice advocate, she focuses on developing digital techniques and communications that bridge the divide between academia and the general public in order to democratize knowledge access. You can find out more about her and her freelance services at jessicamdewitt.com.

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