James C. Ha
University of Washington, Seattle
jcha@u.washington.edu
SUMMARY OF RESPONSES
I received 27 responses by 3pm Thursday, with several more being delivered to me at Indiana during the meeting. The full text of the responses is available on-line: WWW responses at Web Responses; and email responses at Email Responses. My summary is as follows:
Question 1: Future directions in animal behavior.
The overwhelming response here was that the future directions of the field and the Society must incorporate and encourage multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary research. There were a few respondents who encouraged a more thorough integration or recognition of classically defined psychology, though most respondents were referring to interdisciplinary connections with genetics, computer science, physiology, neuroscience, and ecology.
Question 2: Funding issues.
The only general suggestion on this topic was that respondents expressed a desire for the development of small grant opportunities and for developing alternative sources of research funds.
Question 3: Public awareness.
Respondents made a strong pitch for the value of applied animal behavior in increasing pubic awareness of animal behavior as a science. More and better use of television was suggested.
Question 4 and 5: Education
There was an appeal for more emphasis on undergraduate, high school, and middle school curricula, for materials and guidelines for K-12 teachers. There were also calls for improved teacher training and reward. In graduate and postgraduate education, the emphasis of respondents was in the development and advertising of alternative careers: non-Research I University positions.
The survey results, summarized roughly as above, were presented by me to the Summit 2000 participants, and the full text of all responses was made available.