On a dock overlooking a coil of Nacote Creek in Atlantic County, New Jersey, earlier this month, Stewart Farrell, director of Stockton University's Coastal Research Center, gave an impromptu master class on barrier islands, ancient geology, crab traps, coastal law, the Delaware Bayshore, and bulkheads.
Few people are as intimate with the shifting sands of time along New Jersey's coast as Farrell, 80, who is retiring next month after 51 years as one of the university's original faculty members.
A widely recognized authority on the Shore and its environment, Farrell has witnessed the impact of sea level rise from the bottom of the ocean up.
