Research Stations, Social Media and the Gothics

This week I have been working on a new project looking at all of Cornell's Research Stations in New York for CALS, the Vet School, the ILR school, and also the Cornell Cooperative Extension Offices in NYC. There are a few that I have heard of before, but there are way more than I ever imagined. There are a lot of agriculturally focused ones such as the Geneva Agricultural Experiment Station, Musgrave Research Farm, Quality Milk, and others like Shackelton Point Field Station, the Arnot Forest, the Long Island Duck Research Center, and the Global Labor Institute. For this little project I have to find the address and contact information for each place, and the county and district it is in. Next I am looking up the NYS Assemblymember for each area, NYS Senator, and NYS Congressmember. This is so that our office can connect these legislators to the Cornell stations and keep them informed of what is going on in their districts.

The Manure Storage Project is still going, I have called pretty much all of the Soil and Water District Managers, or emailed them with the farms in their area, and the questions we are asking. So now my jobs is to wait, and follow up, and input information as it arrives. Hopefully there will be enough information there to do a further study on the impacts of the manure storage systems on the farms.

Earlier this week we also had and inter-office phone conference about social media and how we may use it to our benefit. It is really interesting how important social media has become to businesses, non-profits, government, and other organizations. One of my best friends is now working in California for a company doing social media work! Its so cool! I have just started my own twitter account, and I am still figuring out how it all works, but its an interesting time in advertising and media where the internet really is essential to getting the word out. For our office, it is less useful to have our own twitter or facebook, but I think the best thing would be if we can sort of latch on to the ones that Cornell has already and post things every once in a while. Having too many Cornell channels would confuse people I think, and for our office, we might just need to put out a message if we need support for a bill, or for some issues it may be important to get information out there so people can support us and see what we are up to.

I also got to go on an epic hike up the Gothics in the Adirondacks last weekend! It was a long hike - about 14 miles RT and about 3,600 ft of elevation gain in only a couple miles. There was definitely some scrambling and sheet rock faces to get up and down, but it was an excellent time! The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and the view from the summit was amazing. There was actually a small summit called Pyramid peak right next to the Gothics that I thought had a better view than the Gothics! The last two pics were taken by a friend, but I had to put them up!