Dwight Moore
My primary teaching responsibilties are Genetics (every semester), Research Design and Analysis (every fall), and Natural History of Vertebrates (every spring). I feel that it is very important that biology students get extended field experience and that they get to travel to foreign countries. To this end, every other year, during the intersession between fall and spring semesters, I teach a 10-day course called Tropical Field Ecology in the Bahamas; every spring break, I teach a 12-day field course in Mexico called Field Biology of Mexican Vertebrates; and May of 2000, Lynnette Sievert and I taught for the first time a 10-day field course in Kansas called Field Techniques in Zoology. I also helped to design and teach a section of Freshman Seminar for biology majors and this section has now evolved to be for the students in the Learning Community in Biology.
One of my current projects is exploring ways that material placed on the Internet can supplement the more traditional material for my classes. One of my goals is to incorporate interactive elements into the design of educational web pages. If you would like to see how this is working, click on any of the highlighted courses listed above, though Genetics gets most of my attention in this project. I have also worked with Edmée Fernández and Steve Hunsaker to created a page that provides verb conjugation drills for Spanish. This page is based upon the idea of creating electronic flashcards for grammar and vocabulary drills. While I have not updated these pages in awhile, the verb conjugation have not changed either.My research interests are in the fields of systematics and ecology. My students and I have conducted research on chromosomal variation in small mammals, on genic variation in mammals, fish, and mussels, and morphologic variation in mammals, and the ecology of mammals, birds and reptiles. Students who have completed masters projects under my direction are listed below. Current graduate projects include 1) the efficacy of mechanical decoys during duck hunting, 2) analysis of a contact zone between two species of shrews, and 3) the effect of habitat quality on the community structure of butterfly populations. For recent undergraduate projects, see the department's web page on undergraduate research. Students under my direction are strongly encouraged to present their research at professional meetings. Typical meetings that we attend are the Central Plains Society of Mammalogists, American Society of Mammalogists, Southwestern Association of Naturalists, Kansas Ornithological Society, and the Kansas Academy of Sciences. The Department of Biological Sciences has a strong graduate program that involves our students in the writing of grants, presenting of papers at scientific meetings, and the publishing of their results.
In addition to my other duties, I am chair of the Pre-Medical Advisory Committee, and I was a regular advisor for first-year students in the Student Advising Center and I still advise there in the summer. Decisions about careers often cause students many concerns throughout their education. In order to provide some help in this area, Colette Dollarhide and I have created a web page that helps a person to explore career choices. This page guides a person through this process starting with an exploration of self. The page has links to resources on the Internet that can be used at each step in the process to supplement the more traditional sources of information. I am active in the National Academic Advising Association, the National Association of Advisors for the Health Professions, and I was Chair (1999-2000) of the Kansas Academic Advising Network.
This year I am serving as the immediate Past President of the Faculty for Emporia State University and last year as President, I conducted the meetings of the Faculty Senate. Because of the rotation schedule for leadership among the Regents Universities, I also served as Chair of the Council of Faculty Senate Presidents, which is composed of the Faculty Senate Presidents of the Kansas Regents Universities. COFSP reports to the Kansas Board of Regents each month at their regular meeting.
My avocations are birdwatching, natural history of spiders, and, most recently, working on turning our property into a horse ranch. In addition, I occasionally try my hand at fiction writing and I try not to forget the Spanish that I know.
Some areas on the web that interest me.
