2008 Woodie Awards
Suffolk's hidden jewel
Brian Messenger
Issue date: 9/22/04 Section: News
The Fall '04 semester at Suffolk started three weeks early for 14 science majors enrolled in BIO 333, an ecology course taught at the university's own R.S. Friedman Field Station in Edmunds, Maine.
Taking place from Aug. 15 - Sept. 4, the class provided students with a unique opportunity to study the subject of ecology in and around the coastal regions of Cobscook Bay in eastern Maine. The students enrolled in Ecology began their academic year over two-hundred and fifty miles northeast of Boston, engrossing themselves in the classroom as well as in the diverse environments surrounding the field station.
"The three weeks I spent at the Friedman Field Station were wonderful," said Jamie Thorn, a senior biology major.
Covering an entire semester's worth of course work as well as a lab in only twenty days, this early-fall offering of Ecology brought a challenging, yet seemingly beneficial approach to the study of the subject. "The course was rigorous, but fair for the time frame it entailed," Thorn continued. "The material you learn sticks with you because of the demands put on you. You have to work hard, and as a result you learn a lot," he said.
Ecology is offered every other year at the Friedman Field Station, or FFS, and is one of three intensive three-week classes offered in Maine to Suffolk biology majors and minors. Also offered at the FFS are Marine Biology and Field Botany, as well as an annual weekend-long department trip in the fall for incoming freshman. This year's trip is scheduled for Oct. 8-11.
The field station, founded in 1968 as the Cobscook Bay Laboratory, has always been associated with Suffolk University, according to Dr. Carl L. Merrill, the FFS Director and associate professor in Boston. Renamed in 1973, in the memory of Dr. Robert S. Friedman, the first chair of the university's biology department the FFS has proved to be a valuable asset to Suffolk students studying biology, as well as the other fields in the natural sciences.