Planning Grant: Developing a Strategic Plan and Infrastructure Needs Assessment for the CICHAZ Field Station

德州农工大学被授予补助金，以支持中心de Investigaciones Científicas de las Huastecas“阿瓜萨尔卡”（CICHAZ：www.cichaz.org）在制定未来改善基础设施的战略计划，继续服务于国际生活和社会科学家以及教育和推广计划的多元化群体。 CICHAZ位于墨西哥的一个生物和文化多样性很高的地区，但缺乏学术和研究机构，CICHAZ已成为社会科学，淡水生态学和环境生物学多学科研究的中心。 目前需要的是制定计划，为一个现代化的外地站提供基础设施和设备，为越来越多的研究人员以及外联工作提供服务。 该规划项目有两个主要目标：（1）使CICHAZ人员能够访问已建立的生产现场站，包括NSF FSML支持的站，并与他们的领导人合作，学习具有研究和教育任务的站的最佳实践，以及（2）举办研讨会，将来自美墨边境两侧的教育和研究背景的利益相关者聚集在一起，以及CICHAZ的生命科学和社会科学观点，以制定战略计划。 最后，从访问其他台站和讲习班中学到的做法将最终形成一个五年计划和更多的长期目标，其中包括实现这些目标的里程碑。作为一个国际研究站，具有强大的外展使命，特别关注美国和墨西哥之间的研究和教育关系，该实地站长期举措的更广泛影响包括为美国和墨西哥大学生提供研究经验，以及为当地初中和高中学生提供辅导计划。 这项规划工作将具体包括制定有助于实现这些目标的战略的活动。

Texas A&M University is awarded a grant to support the Centro de Investigaciones Científicas de las Huastecas "Aguazarca" (CICHAZ: www.cichaz.org) in developing a strategic plan for future improvements to infrastructure to continue to serve a diverse group of international life and social scientists as well as educational and outreach programs. Located in a region of Mexico with high biological and cultural diversity but devoid of academic and research institutions, CICHAZ has become a hub for multi-disciplinary research on social sciences, freshwater ecology, and environmental biology. The current need for CICHAZ is to develop plans for providing the infrastructure and equipment for a contemporary field station that will serve a growing group of researchers as well as outreach efforts. This planning project has two primary objectives: (1) enable CICHAZ personnel to visit established, productive field stations including NSF FSML supported stations and work with their leaders to learn best practices for stations with research and education missions and (2) to hold workshops that will bring together stakeholders from both sides of the US-Mexico border, both education and research backgrounds, and both life science and social science perspectives at CICHAZ in order to develop a strategic plan. Ultimately, the practices learned from visiting other stations together with the workshops will culminate in a 5-year plan and additional long-term objects with landmarks for achieving those objectives. As an international research station with a strong outreach mission and particular focus on research and educational relationships between the U.S. and Mexico, the broader impacts of the longer-term initiatives of the field station include research experiences for US and Mexican undergraduates and a mentoring program for local junior and high school students. This planning effort will specifically include activities to develop strategy that will help to achieve these goals.