May 2002

.

Of Teachers, Scholars, Undergrads, and Lizards . . .

Delbert Hutchison has been mixing undergrads and lizards at Whitman College since 1999, and while some scientists might find this mix unworkable, to “Hutch,” as he’s fondly called around the Hall of Science, it’s the best of both of his professional worlds.

“I’m a teacher,” says Hutchison, evolutionary biologist and assistant professor. “It’s what I love to do. But I’m also a scientist, so I decided to keep my research going in a way that could also teach. I created this large project and broke up the bigger picture into much smaller chunks, which the students do.”

Hutchison’s big picture is the biogeography of the collared lizard (Crotaphytus collaris). He and his students study the populations of these feisty foot-long animals each summer in the southwestern United States. “In my research I try to understand the kinds of forces that act on all populations. The idea is that you can take these principles and the things we learn and use them in a broader context — conservation and health and medicine for example.”

“One of my long-term goals is to analyze lots of samples across the entire range of collared lizards, but that’s going to take a long time. No problem. Every summer I take three students, and we run a transect through the lizard territory. We use the data we collect to test certain hypotheses for the students’ senior theses, and I save the blood (and DNA) samples so that in three or four years I’ll have enough material to take a sabbatical, finish the research, and write it up for a professional journal.”

This vision takes Hutchison and a handful of his students on an annual summer trek (currently funded by the Murdock Charitable Trust) to the Southwest. They camp out in the desert, collect data on the collared lizard, and work “from sun up to sun down,” according to senior pre-med student Tygh Wyckoff, who was one of Hutchison’s research assistants last summer. Wyckoff found Hutchison to be a “hard core” researcher, who looked for lizards till the sun went down. “It was a lot of work, but he was a blast to work with, and we got to do everything. He involved us in capturing the lizards, measuring, recording, analysis, every step. I learned a lot about how field research is done.”

Wyckoff’s project, which is now the basis of his senior thesis, was to evaluate part of the central-peripheral model proposed by Ernst Meyer in 1954, which states that the population of an animal at the periphery of the species’ territory should consist of smaller numbers of smaller individuals possessing less genetic variation than populations in the central part of the range. Wyckoff concentrated on body size and measured 130 lizards from southwestern New Mexico up to southwestern Colorado. His results supported the model — body size decreased as he sampled further from the central periphery.

Wyckoff said he valued the field research and the hard work, but what he valued most was Hutchison’s support. “Since I’m in pre-med, I never considered field research as a career goal, but when it came time for my senior project, I wanted to work with someone who’s really interested. I wanted to work with Professor Hutchison because of his excitement.”

Senior Blake Smith also was a member of Hutchison’s road team last summer. A biology and Spanish double major with a chemistry minor, Blake presented his findings on the genetic variability of the collared lizard at the Whitman Undergraduate Conference this spring. The other member of last summer’s field crew, biology-sociology double major Jamey Kirkpatrick, did genetic analyses before graduation last semester. His results also supported the model, with less genetic variation in populations closer to the northern periphery. Smith, who analyzed different genetic markers than Kirkpatrick, says he found the research rewarding and interesting.

“My experience as an undergraduate researcher has really helped to integrate what I’ve learned in the classroom and apply it. I appreciate the opportunity to do research at such an early stage and with faculty who are truly interested in helping me succeed.”

That’s what Whitman does best, according to Hutchison. “The beauty of our system at Whitman is that here education comes first. We’re an undergraduate institution that does what we do better than anybody else. We’ve got to keep that up.

“So the student research that I do is not for my benefit other than to keep me current and allow me to work toward my larger research goals. The student research is really to show students how to do research. Now, undergraduates are going to forget to come in one day; they’re going to leave something in the centrifuge and drop stuff; but the fact that we’re proceeding more slowly and that it’s more expensive because we’re losing or breaking things is okay. That’s part of the game, and they learn from their experiences. I’m teaching students. That’s what we do here.

“The students here have to do original research for their senior year, and that takes a lot of time and commitment on both our parts. For example, after the work the students and I do in the field every summer, we spend another 10 weeks in the lab at Whitman. Once school starts, we continue working until each of them is ready to submit a written report and publicly present their findings, either at the Whitman Undergraduate Conference or to their peers in the biology department. They get a lot of experience —field work, lab work, analysis, presentation, they get it all.”

Much as Hutchison loves working with his “nasty little lizards,” he does not restrict his students' research to his own current “organism of choice.” This semester, Hutchison is officially watching over and collaborating with nine students working on a variety of research projects ranging from lizards to butterflies to the ecosystem of the College’s Johnston Wilderness Campus on Mill Creek.

Darin Renauld, a senior biology major, says she designed her project around the Halloween Butterfly (Dryadula phaetusa) because she loves butterflies and had a butterfly garden easily accessible to her while she was studying in Costa Rica. Now she’s one of Hutchison’s research students. “As a research collaborator, he’s very organ-ized and dedicated,” said Renauld. “Hutch is a great teacher. He’s passionate about teaching and learning, and he’s very invested in all of his students; he goes out of his way to get to know students and support them academically and outside the classroom.”

Hutchison’s style is one of “non-interference that forces one to take a lot of responsibility,” said Nick Griffin, whose senior research project involved photographing, documenting, and catching mammals, birds, insects, reptiles, and amphibians on the Johnston Wilderness Campus. “Last summer, President Cronin, Professor Hutchison, and I (with the help of Professor Drabek) designed the project. Research at this level is essential for scientists. It is necessary to hone certain skills and ways of thinking that just cannot be taught in the classroom, and undergraduate research does that.” Professor Hutchison, said Griffin, helps this process by his style. “He supervises but at the same time lets you just dive into the project and learn as you go.”

That’s what it’s all about, says Hutchison. “Teach students how to do research. Let them get their feet wet so they can decide if this is what they want to do. That’s one of the reasons Whitman’s graduates are ultimately successful.”

And teaching like Delbert Hutchison’s may be another reason.

— Lenel Parish

Blake Smith, left, Jamey Kirkpatrick, assistant professor Delbert Hutchison, and Tygh Wyckoff pose with mild-mannered Australian bearded dragons, which are unlike the fiesty collared lizards they hunted and studied last summer.