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If you are not afraid of getting muddy, being covered in burrs or kayaking through a pod of dolphins or a group of alligators, then you belong in one of Professor Deborah L. Beal's classes.
"Lecturing is one thing," says Beal. "Taking students out into the environment I'm trying to explain is another. Being outdoors excites them and grabs their attention in a way a lecture can't."
Beal's goal as an ecologist and wildlife biologist is to get students outdoors, off-campus and out of Illinois. Each year, she and her husband, (Kent Elwood, Ph.D., professor and chairman of the department of psychology) take students on trips camping and kayaking to the Florida Everglades and to northern Michigan. They also have taken students camping in the Grand Canyon and on eco-tours of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
"When you're kayaking in the Everglades or hiking pristine trails in Michigan or snorkeling with manatees, you get a sense of peace and a sense of fitting in," she says. "You realize you're a part of nature and not able to control it.
If Beal can't get bring students to the wild, she brings the wild to the students. Rehabilitated Illinois Owls and even a baby cougar (found at the Sangamon County Wildlife Refuge) have found their way into her classroom. Last spring 2 students turned over 2 baby bobcats which hunters had taken from the wild and couldn't care for. Since neither the cougar nor the bobcats could be returned to the wild, they ended up at the Henson Robinson Zoo where Illinois College students serve as interns and keep a watchful eye over them. One spring, an IC maintenance crew found three abandoned baby squirrels nesting under the hood of a student's car. Beal and her students spent six weeks caring for the squirrels before releasing them on campus - where they still run today.
Beal has been bringing home stray animals and nursing them back to health since she was a child. She considered a career in veterinary medicine but found environmental biology a better fit.
Beal worked as a field biologist before earning her Ph.D. from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1991 and joining Illinois College. She was instrumental in creating the Environmental Biology and Ecological Studies major which has grown from five students in it's inception in 2000 to over 40 students and growing. Many classes, such as Animal Behavior and Wildlife Management, have waiting lists.In addition to her teaching, Beal is an active researcher, working with the Nature Conservancy and supported by The National Science Foundation, studying wetlands restoration. Beal and her students are also studying the life cycle of the southern flying squirrel, 20 of which live on Beal's farm outside Jacksonville. She also is working with Springfield's Henson Robinson Zoo to develop K-12 web education programs for the zoo's more than 300 animals. In her free time, Beal is a wildlife photographer.
"I'll do just about anything if it keeps me outdoors," she says. "I've always felt more at home outside than in and hope to convey that feeling to my students!"
Southern Flying Squirrel