Laura Whipple

Bio Grad Assistant @NorthernMichU. Red fox/fisher species distribution w/ @Laffing_Bear. Grad Rep @TWS_NCS. @Illinois_Alma @IllinoisNRES Alum. Thoughts my own.

[Diana Lafferty @Laffing_Bear]

Congratulations @laurivora for successfully defending her Master’s thesis! Laura creatively wove together #SnapshotUSA and @inaturalist data to advance species distribution modeling with undergrad ecological curriculum infused with Indigenous ecological knowledge. Inspiring!

[Diana Lafferty @Laffing_Bear]

Congratulations WECOS Lab member @laurivora for receiving the Wildlife Graduate Student of the Year Award from @TWS_NCS. Your dedication to wildlife science, enthusiasm for community engagement, and commitment to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in STEM is inspiring!

[Laura Whipple @laurivora]

Awesome opportunity with an AMAZING advisor!!!

[Diana Lafferty @Laffing_Bear]

Please RT!

I’m recruiting a MSc student for an exciting project with awesome collaborators to investigate the gut microbiome of African carnivores relative to variation in diet across Etosha National Park, Namibia. Details in the link:
https://t.co/UHjlMi5E2k

[Roland Kays @RolandKays]

@mike_cove @_alexa_murray And the unanimous #1 celebrating @Laffing_Bear
#SnapshotUSA

[Laura Whipple @laurivora]

AND I'll be in Spokane this week for #TWS2022! Excited to meet some fellow wildlifers!

[TWS_NCS @TWS_NCS]

Our first executive board member to introduce is Laura Whipple (@mewsroses), the graduate student representative. Laura is a biology master's student @NorthernMichU and graduated with a B.S. in Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology from @UofIllinois.

[Tyler M. Harms @Nature_Ty]

Hey Twitter folks - a couple things:
1) Check out our new Twitter page for the North Central Section of @wildlifesociety. Follow us to receive info on events and other cool stuff in the Section!
2) If you’re a student in the Section, check out the info 👇!

[Diana Lafferty @Laffing_Bear]

Kudos to my awesome graduate students @JustinPinero3 and @Mewsroses who presented at the Celebration of Student Scholarship @northernmichu and received awards for their exciting research!

[Laura Whipple @laurivora]

In other big news, I submitted my first 1st-author paper on my undergrad honors thesis a couple of weeks ago! Excited to (hopefully) finally get that thing published

[Laura Whipple @laurivora]

Honored (lol) to receive an Honorable Mention for my NSF GRFP application! Congrats to all those who received a fellowship!!🥳🥳🥳

[The Wildlife Society at UIUC @twsuiuc]

We could not be more delighted to have won Student Chapter of the Year for the north-central section of The Wildlife Society! Thank you to all the amazing students, mentors, and professionals who have helped us in achieving this honor!

[Laura Whipple @laurivora]

I’m not sure what the solution is here, but I do want to voice my frustrations about this situation. This has been incredibly stressful for myself and other grad students, and it’s demoralizing to feel like your school doesn’t care about your health and safety. #AcademicChatter

[Laura Whipple @laurivora]

I’m grateful that I am working with a faculty member who cares about my well-being and made the rational decision to hold labs online this week. I know not all NMU grad students are in the same situation as I am.

[Laura Whipple @laurivora]

Grad students are absolutely essential for NMU to function properly. We teach and provide unique research opportunities for undergrads all while working on our own research. I am at least asking that grad students be considered when making these types of decisions.

[Laura Whipple @laurivora]

I have greatly enjoyed my time as an NMU grad student and TA so far, but this decision to cancel in-person classes, only to clarify that vulnerable grad students are expected to put their safety at risk, is not in line with reality.

[Laura Whipple @laurivora]

Also, this situation has caused incredible confusion among instructors and students. I have received several emails from students in my Tuesday lab expressing confusion about class today, and I don’t blame them. I’m confused too.

[Laura Whipple @laurivora]

Safe according to who? By what standards? If a TA gets sick, they don’t have the same support system as many faculty and admin. Personally, I am 6+ hours away from any family. I could be wrong here, but it seems like this decision was made without any grad student input.

[Laura Whipple @laurivora]

Just started my first winter semester of graduate school @NorthernMichU , and I am very disappointed with how NMU is treating grad students in light of the current COVID situation. See below:

[Laura Whipple @laurivora]

The majority of labs are taught by NMU graduate teaching assistants. NMU does not provide us with health insurance. Somehow, it’s not safe for faculty to teach in-person lectures but is safe for underpaid and uninsured grad students to teach in-person labs.

[Laura Whipple @laurivora]

Two hours later (~12 hours before classes start, after we made plans for online lab) we receive a clarifying email that, actually, all LABS are to be held as regularly scheduled, in-person, including Mon&Tues labs. WHAT?!?

[Laura Whipple @laurivora]

Fine, whatever, we figure it out and email our students. I did online classes for the last year of undergrad, I can lead a virtual lab period.

[Laura Whipple @laurivora]

I teach 2 ecology lab sections, so myself, the other TAs, and the lecture instructor (the fantastic @Laffing_Bear ) start adjusting our plans, with the understanding that the Mon&Tues labs are canceled and the other labs are virtual for the week.

[Laura Whipple @laurivora]

Admin sent out an email Sunday night, 14 hours before classes started, canceling classes for Mon&Tues this week and stating that Wed-Fri classes would be held online because of the current COVID surge.