A grant has been awarded to the Romberg Tiburon Center San Francisco State University under the direction of Dr Newell Garfield to support preparation of a Master plan for the Romberg Tiburon Center facilities. The Master Planning Process will be facilitated by an expert third party and will follow a campus funded ?Visioning Charrette,? in which the Center?s principles, goals and objectives will be identified and presented in a Vision Plan. Leveraging professional third parties, the Vision Plan, and utilizing the Organization of Biological Field Stations guidelines as tools, the Master Plan will be developed through a series of stakeholder workshops and site visit(s) by an advisory panel of Field Station Directors. The plan will focus on four items: 1. Critical infrastructure improvements, including laboratory facilities and waterfront, 2. Research and educational program development, 3. Long-term capital and operating budgets, and 4. Human resource requirements and a long-term hiring plan.
Broader Impacts
SFSU is one of the minority-serving California State University campuses and as such serves populations traditionally under represented in the sciences. RTC faculty is actively engaged in teaching both at the main SFSU campus as well as on site at RTC. The RTC faculty strives to attract both underrepresented undergraduate and graduate students to their research programs. RTC has a full time outreach coordinator who has developed a number of partnerships with local environmental organizations. RTC has also received an award from the California Department of Educations to take underrepresented high school students on shipboard cruises to expose them to research and professional opportunities. The Center holds an annual open house, Discovery Day at its facility every October
