Our friend Susan Waters wears many hats.  For the dozen or so years we have known her, we have seen her as wife of Randal Bays, mother of Willie and Owen Bays, accomplished musician (fiddler), science teacher and, most recently, graduate student.

Yesterday we had the pleasure of being present at the public presentation of her dissertation – the culmination of six long years of research and study for her doctoral degree in ecology.  (I could be wrong about that last part.  It could be a doctorate in biology.  The nuances of academia are beyond me.)

Susan’s presentation was set for 10:00 yesterday morning at Anderson Hall on the University of Washington campus.  The setting was impressive – the outside of the building looking appropriately ivy-covered even without the ivy and the second story room, the UW Forestry Club’s cavernous meeting hall with its a scattering of heavy oak furniture and complete with a huge elk’s head over the podium area.

We were the first to arrive, just as Randal and Susan scurried in to set up, pooh-poohing our offers of help.  They hauled out chairs: “I have no idea how many are coming,” Susan said.  “Maybe 25.  Maybe 40.”  In the end, it was more like 60 and more chairs were quickly added.

Susan arranged a table with juice and bagels and cream cheese, then turned her attention to the technical side of things – screen, computer, power-point program.  A techie person came in and he and Randal had a further consultation.  Susan was affixed with a microphone – not for us, but for two of her committee who were ‘present’ from afar – one in Iceland and one in Switzerland.  They were unable to be in attendance (one on sabbatical, one at a conference I think; surely not on vacation?).  They were in the audience through the techno-magic of Skype or some such.

Her three other committee members were in the front row on the right.  To the left, also in front, were her family – Willie, Owen and Randal, of course, and also her mother and father from Vermont and her brother from New York.  Otherwise, the hall was filled with fellow-graduate students, instructors, professors, colleagues who assisted her in field and greenhouse, and friends.  Lots and lots of friends!

Her presentation went flawlessly.  Her research had to do with pollinators – specifically, bees – and their interaction with native and non-native flowering plants in the face of environmental change.  Not just climate change but other kinds of change, as well.  It was complicated, interesting, and one of those educational experiences that I could follow perfectly at the time, but have absolutely no way of describing or explaining after the fact.

Immediately afterwards, Susan was scheduled to defend her dissertation to her committee and the rest of us left her to it.  We were all invited to a celebratory party in Ravenna Park in the evening, but Nyel and I headed back to Oysterville to attend to the flowers and pollinators in our own little corner of the world, all the while basking in the glow of Susan’s success.  Way to go, Dr. Waters!