From Plant Press, Vol. 25, No. 1, January 2022.
By Gary Krupnick, Eric Schuettpelz, Rose Gulledge, and Erika Gardner
Among the biggest challenges for a research department during the COVID-19 pandemic have been continuing collaborations and maintaining community. National Museum of Natural History staff were sent home to telework almost two years ago, on 13 March 2020. Since then, most staff, research associates, post-doctoral fellows, interns, contractors, and volunteers have been working remotely with, excepting the past few months, only an occasional opportunity to return to the museum for brief visits. So how does an academic department keep up morale for their employees, associates, and volunteers who have been working for months in isolation?
The herbarium collections are a big part of why many of us do what we do. Plant specimens and their associated collections data are irreplaceable sources of information about plants and the world they inhabit. The collections provide the comparative material that is essential for studies in taxonomy, systematics, ecology, anatomy, morphology, conservation biology, biodiversity, ethnobotany, and paleobiology, as well as being used for teaching and by the public. The Department’s collections and data management teams, in partnership with the Smithsonian Digitization Program Office and Picturae (the Dutch-based digitization company), have been successful in nearing the completion of the digitization of the herbarium’s pressed plant specimens. The images and the data online have been critically important in allowing many members of the staff to be productive in a remote, telework environment. It has been difficult for many researchers to be physically separated from the museum collections, having digital access to a large segment of the herbarium has eased that pain. Perhaps even more difficult, however, has been the isolation from colleagues.
While the pandemic has led to many changes of where we work, how we work, and the kind of work we do, it has also uncovered unexpected opportunities. For the past couple of years, various staff members have been making the effort to cultivate connections and build community within the Department of Botany. Highlighted below are several efforts and events that have proven essential in the well-being of Botany’s collective workforce.
Before the pandemic, members of the Botany Department would gather semi-regularly for “Botany Teas”. These breaks gave our members an opportunity to step away from their desks and catch up on happenings, learn from each other, and socialize. In a teleworking environment, these physical gatherings have not been possible. With access to Zoom, we have captured the spirit of the teas in a virtual setting. It has been a pleasure talking with colleagues and hearing about each other’s lives. To provide a little levity, on occasion we even played trivia games. For Botany Bingo, participants submitted photos of: (1) unusual plants; (2) former staff members or current staff members as children; and (3) interesting field sites. During the meeting, images were displayed and those on the Zoom call would mark a bingo card with answers to each image. Such activities provided considerable laughter, along with some bonding and reminiscing.
At the onset of the pandemic, the specimen preparation volunteers were invited to partake in a 10-week “Botany Crash Course” via Zoom created by their supervisor, Erika Gardner. Each week Gardner presented information about basic plant taxonomy and she would highlight key characteristics of three prominent plant families from A-Z. In total, 26 plant families were presented. After the course, Gardner provided botanical publications as training materials to each volunteer, essentially forming a Botany Volunteer Book Club. Among the books read were Flora, Inside the Secret World of Plants a Smithsonian and Kew collaboration publication, Herbarium, the Quest to Preserve and Classify the World’s Plants by Barbara Thiers, and Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart. Thiers was invited to participate and give a presentation. Afterwards, Thiers sent the following message: “I had so much fun. Really a wonderful reward for writing the book. Please tell them all [the volunteers] how much I enjoyed talking with them.” On a few rare occasions during the summer and fall of 2021, Gardner arranged for in-person lunch meetings. It was an extremely special moment to see each other in person for the first time in over a year and half. Due to the risk of the SARS-CoV-2 virus Omicron variant, the volunteers are back to biweekly virtual meetings with Gardner.
As in many academic units, our departmental seminars provide a chance to learn about the research of a visitor or staff member. The Botany Seminar Series has been a successful event held in the museum on many Thursdays at 2:00 pm. During the pandemic we were able to quickly transition to an online Webinar Series. While members of the department have missed meeting in person, this online approach has had several benefits. The webinar speakers no longer had to be onsite, and thus speakers have been invited from across the country and the world. The audience for the talks also changed. Those attending the webinars are not just the museum community, but also include colleagues from outside the Washington area. An email list is maintained of people who receive webinar notifications and Zoom links.
The Plant Press, the newsletter of the Department of Botany, transitioned years ago to a hybrid approach, with a mailed hard-copy newsletter and an online blog using the TypePad platform. The shutdown meant that a printed newsletter was no longer possible. The Plant Press, on the other hand, has been able to continue during the pandemic with pdfs of the newsletter available online.
The Smithsonian Botanical Symposium has been an annual event that the Department of Botany has co-hosted with the United States Botanic Garden since 2001. The pandemic forced the event to transition from NMNH’s Baird Auditorium to Zoom, and like the Botany Webinar Series, the event has been able to reach a broader audience. The 18th Smithsonian Botanical Symposium, “Plant symbiosis: The good, the bad, and the complicated,” was successfully held over two days, on 13-14 May 2021. Those who viewed the proceedings joined from 22 countries. All aspects of the symposium were recorded and are available for viewing on the Natural History for Scientists YouTube page. These recordings include the six speaker presentations, opening remarks, the presentation of the José Cuatrecasas Medal to Sebsebe Demissew speaking directly from Ethiopia, and roundtable panel discussions. The 19th Smithsonian Botanical Symposium was originally scheduled to take place in-person at NMNH and the U.S. Botanic Garden on Friday, May 13, 2022. However, due to the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, it might be an entirely virtual or a hybrid event. This will be determined at a later date. The tentative topic is “Life on the Edge: Extreme Living in Plants.” Check the Department of Botany’s website for updates.
Pre-pandemic, recent publications from staff and associates were displayed on a bulletin board in the Department across from the staff mailboxes. Posting of recent publications was an informative method of keeping Department members well-informed of recent research. When the pandemic began, the team behind posting recent publications came up with the idea of Botany Publication of the Week. A small committee was formed, including Rose Gulledge, Robin Everly, Alice Tangerini, Ken Wurdack, Erika Gardner, and Caly McCarthy, to review recently published articles and to select a publication to highlight in an email to the Department each week. They considered the following guidelines in their article selection: (1) anticipated impact, with a preference for high profile works; (2) significance, with a preference for books or other long-term projects; (3) authors, favoring a mix over time; (4) topic, aiming for a variety over time; and (5) visuals, including figures, photographs, maps, and tables. A weekly email that included the full article citation, the abstract, and a graphic with either quoted text or notable figures (or both) from the publication was distributed to members of the Department. Thus, the virtual display of publications continues to inform our staff of exciting and informative research that continues despite working remotely.
The Botany Department has traditionally done things differently when it comes to holiday parties. For the past few years, the Department has held parties in February or March to celebrate holidays like the Chinese New Year or St. Patrick’s Day. Each party brought the Botany community together to exchange potluck dishes and recipes, and to spread joy as we gathered together. The pandemic obviously threw a wrench into indoor gatherings, so the Department decided to have an outdoor event at Carderock Recreation Area in Potomac, Maryland. Botany members and their families gathered on 6 November 2021, a chilly but sunny day. It was designed as a family picnic and the potluck tradition continued. The picnic had grilling, birding, a birthday celebration, and a mean game of giant kickball. As most members had not seen each other beyond a Zoom screen in over 20 months, it was wonderful to be able to catch up, meet extended family members, laugh, and share stories of our times isolated during this unique period of our lives. Plans are already in play for a follow-up picnic in 2022 and an opportunity to get a group photo!
More pictures from the Botany Family Picnic. (photos by Ingrid Lin)
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