Jolie Colby is graduating with a Ph.D. from the Department of Education. Her dissertation examines the role of schools in educating people about large carnivore reintroduction to California. After graduating, Colby will focus on family, work on publications, and continue teaching coursed courses like Endangered Species Management and Critical Thinking and the Environment.
GGSE: Tell us about your dissertation research. What is it on and why are you proud of it?
Colby: My current dissertation research is centered on Conservation Education and the role of schools in large carnivore reintroduction. You may know that the grizzly bear, our state mascot, has been extinct in California since the 1920s. What you might not know is that it has been the interest of many stakeholders to reintroduce grizzly bears to California. My current project takes a case-study approach to explore the role schools play in the possible reintroduction of grizzly bears to California. This takes place in California’s Sierra Nevada, where some believe they could (and ought to) be reintroduced. I identify how participants’ tolerance of grizzly bear reintroduction changes after an educational program takes place. The educational program offers science teachers an interdisciplinary educational strategy for talking about an important environmental problem by looking at local conservation and finding community-grounded solutions. Findings will offer unique insight into the potential reintroduction of grizzly bears to the state of California, as well as how schools can be factors in human-wildlife co-existence and endangered species management.
GGSE: What’s one thing about your research you wish everyone knew?
Colby: I wish more people would reflect on the story of the California Grizzly Bear—our state mascot—and the irony of the bear’s absence. Grizzlies have been extinct (the Californian subspecies) for 100 years due to anthropogenic causes, but they are one of the most ubiquitous symbols across college campuses and various California companies (you see it almost daily on the state flag), and yet the majority of Californians do not know they are extinct. My research brings this conversation to science classrooms, and I hope the conversations continue in California communities where this unit is taught.
GGSE: What’s your favorite memory from UCSB?
Colby: Teaching in the environmental studies department was always wonderful. I love my ES students, and I love the passionate professors that I had the honor to work with…especially Peter Alagona and Jennifer Martin.
GGSE: Where do you see yourself in five years?
Colby: Let’s hope somewhere doing similar work I got to do at UCSB but getting paid a lot more for it!
GGSE: Who at the GGSE would you like to thank?
Colby: Dr. Betsy Brenner was my rock. She supported me and was candid with me the entire process. She gave me all she could and had my back at every challenge. I adore her and feel sorry for all the future GGSE students that will not get to work with her (she is retiring).