Drew Monthie is an instructor at ESC, teaching since 2008 in STM (science, math and technology. He is also a course developer working since 2008 in SMT curriculum design for natural sciences courses. For several years he also assisted in training faculty as Facilitator for Instructor Development, moderating the Teaching Online Workshop from 2012-2016, which helped foster best practices among new and existing faculty in online instruction. He worked with other ESC instructors to create the first SUNY course on Medical Marijuana: Understanding Medical Marijuana: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. His focus was on the ethnobotanical history of marijuana use for medicine.
He has been a participant in the Empire State College's first and longest running Adirondack Environmental Studies residency since its inception to the present as both a student and instructor.
He has a lifelong interest in plants, ecology and the environment. In his non academic life he has been a horticulturalist and a landscape consultant with a focus on indigenous plant species and communities for almost 40 years. He spends large portions of his time cultivating indigenous plant species and observing natural plant communities. He is an avid photographer of flora, fauna and landscapes and his work can be found on on his photography website starflowerstudioNY.com .
Degrees
- A.A.S. in Plant Science/Horticulture from SUNY Cobleskill
- B.S. in Ecology and Environmental Education from Empire State College - State University of New York
- M.A. in Ethnobotany from Empire State College - State University of New York