CHESTERTOWN, MD—On Thursday, Nov. 7, Washington College will present  “Adjusting to Reality: Adaptive Environmental Management,” a lecture by marine scientist and resource-management expert Carl Hershner. The talk begins at 5 p.m. in Litrenta Lecture Hall, inside Toll Science Center on the main campus, 300 Washington Avenue. Sponsored by the Center for Environment and Society, the event is free and open to the public. 

Hershner is director of the Center for Coastal Resources Management and an associate professor of marine science at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. He was hired by the Chesapeake Bay Program, a voluntary partnership of federal agencies and states, to improve its effectiveness at monitoring and improving water quality in the Bay. In his lecture, he will discuss his experiences with adaptive management—the use of a scientific framework to establish goals, monitor results, and then adjust methods to improve future results. 

The author of numerous publications in the field, Hershner was recently featured in Bay Journal discussing his work for the Bay Program. “Everyone should be able to look at what has happened and be able to conclude, ‘were you right or were you wrong,’ ” Hershner told the Journal’s editor, Karl Blankenship. “It doesn’t mean that we are always going to get to the great outcome, but at least we are going to be able to be honest about what we know and why we are doing what we are doing.”

Kimberly Uslin ’14