The University of Massachusetts Boston Nantucket Field Station has been awarded a planning grant to create a strategic plan to guide the field station for the next 5-10 years and expand the facility to better meet the burgeoning needs of current and anticipated field station users. The UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station (UMB-NFS) has been in existence for over 40 years and occupies a unique position for evaluating scientific questions ranging from the effect of climate change on coastal habitats to investigating genetic variability and evolutionary trends in invasive plant species. There is substantial demand for an enhanced field station at the UMB-NFS. Although a significant number of faculty from the UMass system and elsewhere have active research, education, and outreach programs at the UMB-NFS, the work is limited by the lack of sufficient living and laboratory space. Daily travel to and from UMB-NFS and other institutions is virtually impossible due to its location on Nantucket Island, 26 miles from the mainland. This limits the nature and quality of the research and education that can be accomplished and increases costs for all users. This funding by FSML will allow the NFS to develop architectural plans and comprehensive strategic planning for sustainable expansion while involving the science, education, and FSML community, as well as the long term users of the field station, in the planning effort through the use of surveys, site visits, and stakeholder workshops. The UMB-NFS is open to the public year round, with upwards of 100 visitors per day in the summer, and as a result there are many opportunities for outreach to the general public. Hosting public and private school groups, senior citizen trips, environmental policy forums, inner city science week retreats, and Native American Heritage programs are among many contributions made to the community by the NFS. The multidisciplinary nature of the programs supported by the UMB-NFS is reflected in the topics of courses taught on site, which run the gamut from coastal ecology to instructional design, hydrology, and archeology. The UMB-NFS is a home base for a wide range of research done by traditional and nontraditional students and by scientists. That research is transmitted to the public in a variety of ways. Land management research, environmental policy, and biology are cornerstones of this research, but for every two or three students, interns, or scientists accommodated, one is left out in the cold. Funding of this planning grant will ensure that the role of the NFS is supported and that the Station is allowed to grow in a sustainable and meaningful way.
The Nantucket Field Station's (NFS) mission is to provide research, education, and outreach opportunities in conjunction with the faculty and students of the University of Massachusetts - Boston, the University of Massachusetts system, the people of Nantucket, and other research, education, and conservation organizations.The Field Station sits on 107 acres of land owned by a private non-profit conservation organization known as the Nantucket Conservation Foundation. The NFS is operated by on-island staff supported by the University of Massachusetts Boston. For the first year of this planning grant, information was gatheried via surveys of the users of the field station. A physical site review was also conducted by the UMass Boston. Then a review team of other field station directors from around the country led by a facilitator who specializes in consensus building and in planning management visited the field station and the univeristy and interviewed all the parties involved in operatiing and supporting and using the station. From 14-18 October 2012, the review team conducted a comprehensive examination of the University of Massachusetts Boston Nantucket Field Station (NFS), including interviews with University of Massachusetts Boston administrators, faculty from the Biology and Environmental, Earth, and Ocean Science (EEOS) departments, field station staff, various station users, and community partners. The review team evaluated all aspects of station operations from facilities, personnel, programs, and funding. The review team found that the station is offering a variety of valuable and unique programs for University of Massachusetts Boston students and faculty, K-12 students, and the Nantucket community, despite its limited staff and budget. They also determined fthat the programs were underdeveloped and not sustainable given the small staff, deteriorating infrastructure, inadequate funding level, and level of institutional support. With sufficient resources, the Nantucket Field Station has the potential to stabilize and expand its research, education, and outreach programs and become an even more important asset of the University. To reach this potential, they developed a list of priority items with an associated implementation timeline. These items included veerything from obtaining more staff to developing a better method for managing data. If everything was implemented on the list of action items, the field station would be better supported on a stable platform that could withstand temporary changes in staff or funding. More science could be done and the resource that the NFS provides for the science and educational community world wide would be protected and enhanced. This NFS provides a lot of opportunites for people from all walks of life, of all ages and from a variety of backgrounds. STEM programs that include art and the humanities are a big part of the programming. The NFS is open to the public and educates thousands of people each year. As the NFS facilities and programs are improved, so too are the opportunities and service the NFS provides supported and increased. In less than six months after the site review report was released, half of the prioritized action items identified by the team of field station directors were implemented. The users and community partners as well as the univerisity administrators and faculty and staff learned how field station could be operated more efficiently, sustainably and productively.
