VSU announces 2000 Connell lecture

Valdosta State University will host the 18th annual Clyde Eugene Connell Visiting Lecture at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 12, in Powell Hall Auditorium. This year's speaker is entomologist Dr. Steve Buchmann, speaking on "Remembered Pollinators: New Developments in Pollinator Conservation and Restoration."

Since high school, Buchmann has been studying the foraging, mating and nesting biology of native bees and the pollination ecology of many native and crop plants. He was a research entomologist with the USDA-ARS Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson, Arizona for 20 years and holds associate professorships in the departments of Entomology and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He is also a research associate with the American Museum of Natural History and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

During his career, Buchmann has published 150 scientific articles and written three books. He has just finished his first children's book about traditional honey hunters in the rainforests of peninsular Malaysia. Recently, Buchmann has completed bee faunal studies on the Avalon Plantation in Florida, with help from Dr. John Pascarella. In addition to his research, Buchmann runs a company, The Bee Works, which promotes the conservation of wild bees around the world.

The Connell Visiting Lecturer Program is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Clyde Eugene Connell, who died on May 22, 1985. Born on Aug. 11, 1916 in Naylor, Connell attended Emory Junior College in Valdosta and then served in the Medical Corps of the U.S. Navy until 1952, when he went back to complete his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Valdosta State. He returned to Valdosta as an assistant professor after earning his Ph.D. in Animal Ecology from the University of Georgia in 1958. A group of Connell's colleagues, students and friends established the program when he retired in 1980. It was the first endowed visiting lecturer program established at Valdosta State.

This year, it will be an interdisciplinary event sponsored by the Connell lecture fund and the VSU Department of Biology.

Tax-deductible contributions to the Visiting Lecturer Program can be made to the Valdosta State University Foundation, the Department of Biology, or the Office of Business and Finance, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, Ga., 31698. All contributions should be specified "for the Connell Lecture Fund."

For more information, please contact Dr. John Pascarella at (229) 333-5766.