CALS Perspectives Magazine Summer 2012

perspectives

The Magazine of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Summer 2012

The

Mission Continues

Becky Kirkland

A tribute to the land-grant mission

T

h his Summer 2012 Perspectives commemorates a historic year for N.C. State University and its C College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. It is the 125th anniversary of the founding of the university and the 150th anniversary of the passage of the Morrill Act which established federal mandates for the funding of land-grant institutions in each state to provide education in the agriculture and the mechanic arts. In features that follow, College faculty members discuss and exemplify what the land-grant institutions — through their teaching, research and extension missions — have meant to the state, nation and world.

A theme of history-making impact and change runs throughout this issue. Significant among changes that are taking place in the College is the retirement of Dean Johnny Wynne as of July 1.

N.C. State Provost Warwick Arden, in announcing the retirement, said, “Dean Wynne exemplifies our university’s lengthy and ongoing commitment to teaching, research and service in North Carolina and beyond. He has been at N.C. State throughout his academic and professional career… . It’s a rare academic leader that has witnessed and participated in the evolution of one college for over half a century.”

Wynne’s contributions during his 8-year tenure as dean — and his more than 50 years association with N.C. State as a student, faculty member and administrator – are detailed in our College Profile.

Also stepping down from his role as CALS associate dean and director of Academic Programs is Dr. Ken Esbenshade, who will return to teaching in the Department of Animal Science. Dr. Sam Pardue of Poultry Science will lead Academic Programs as interim director. And Dr. David Smith, CALS associate dean and director of the N.C. Agricultural Research Service, announced that he will retire this September.

This summer a bit more history-making took place as Wynne’s career was celebrated at a gala event in his honor.

More than 400 well-wishers – including Wynne’s family and N.C. State faculty, students, alumni and friends – gathered at the McKimmon Center for the event. A highlight of the evening was the announcement that the Wynne Fund for Innovation, established by the College to honor Wynne’s work and vision, had raised more than $411,000. The fund, the first of its kind established to honor a retiring N.C. State dean, will be used by Wynne’s successor and the College to provide funding and support to enhance the university’s expertise in critical areas and allow faculty members to grow ideas into innovative solutions that drive economic impact.

Dr. Johnny Wynne Dr In response to those who had listed and praised his activities as CALS dean, Wynne said, “I have headed an organization that’s accomplished all the things you heard about tonight.

I want to thank all of those that helped – starting with our world-class faculty, the outstanding students, the dedicated staff and a great group of alumni. And we have a tremendous group of supporters of CALS.” Then, reminding the group of the Morrill anniversary, he said, “I believe in the land-grant mission. The Morrill Act gave average citizens the opportunity to go to school. I came from a 15-acre farm and was the first in our family to go to college. If I helped others to have that opportunity, then I’ve done what I’m supposed to do.”

New CALS dean named As this issue goes to press, it has been announced that Dr. Richard Linton, professor and chair of The Ohio State University’s Food Science and Technology Department, will succeed Dr. Johnny Wynne as Linton dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State. Linton holds a bachelor’s degree (1988) in biology and master’s (1991) and Ph.D. (1994) degrees in food science, all from Virginia Tech. His research expertise is in food safety, food microbiology and food defense. Among his awards and honors, Linton is a Fellow of the Institute of Food Technologists and has received the Award of Merit for Extension and Outreach from Gamma Sigma Delta, the agricultural honor s ociety.

In 2012, he was named the outstanding alumnus of Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Watch for more about our new dean on the CALS News Center online and next issue of Perspectives.

perspectives

NC STATE UNIVERSITY

Perspectives is online at the CALS News Center: www.cals.ncsu.edu/agcomm/news-center/

The Magazine of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

FEATURES

Summer 2012 Vol. 14, No. 2 Managing Editor: Terri Leith Design and Layout: Vickie Guin Staff Photographers: Becky Kirkland, Marc Hall, Roger Winstead Staff Writers: Dave Caldwell, Natalie E. Hampton, Terri Leith, Dee Shore, Suzanne Stanard Contributors: Erin McCrary, Tom Mease, Jeanne Marie Wallace, NCSU News Services

Printed by TCGLegacy, Garner, N.C.

39,500 copies of this public document were printed at a cost of $19,750, or $.50 per copy.

Printed on recycled paper.

Perspectives is published by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at North Carolina State University.

contents

2 Accessible to All Vision and tenacity marked the efforts of those who laid the groundwork for the founding of N.C. State and its missions of teaching, research and extension.

5 New and Better Ways In a milestone year, Bob Patterson reflects on the differences made by the land-grants through ag education — yesterday, today and tomorrow.

8 A Philosophical Approach Deanna Osmond carries on the Extension traditions of improving lives and using science to help people make informed decisions.

Third Class Postage paid at Raleigh, NC 27611.

Correspondence and requests for change of address should be addressed to Perspectives Editor, Box 7603, N.C. State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7603.

10 From the Morrill Act, research; from research, prosperity The Morrill Act helped make publicly funded research possible, and that research ushered in an era of American prosperity.

William R. “Randy” Woodson, Chancellor

12 A Vanguard Six CALS students – beneficiaries of the land-grant university education — make their mark in academics, arts, research and more.

Sylvia Blankenship, Interim Dean and Executive Director for Agricultural Programs Sam Pardue, Interim Associate Dean and Director, Academic Programs Joe Zublena, Associate Dean and Director, North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service David Smith, Associate Dean and Director, North Carolina Agricultural Research Service Keith D. Oakley, Executive Director, Advancement 919.515.2000 W. Scott Troutman, Executive Director, Alumni and Friends Society

15 Catching Evolution in the Act CALS biologist explores predictability of evolution in Bahamian blue holes.

18 College Profile Dean Johnny Wynne seeds College’s future success as he cedes the leadership reins.

NOTEWORTHY 21 NEWS FoodCorps marks first year • CEFS keeps adding to its record of successes • Drop by drop: Soil scientists investigate ways to safely treat wastewater for reuse • Extension’s Garner is Onslow’s Woman of the Year • Research symposium highlights evolution of life sciences • Turning the Tide on Poverty in Hertford County • Sam Pardue to lead CALS Academic Programs

perspectives

The Magazine of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Summer 2012

31 ALUMNI Trailblazing alumna makes her mark in clinical microbiology • Alumni couple work to ensure the success of their community college students

34 GIVING JCRA’s 2012 Gala in the Garden is a red, white and green celebration • Mowrey endowment established to support 4-H horse program • Innovation Fund announcement among highlights of gala celebration for Dean Johnny Wynne The

Mission Continues

The Cover: Founded in 1887, N.C. State University has grown from one building, Holladay Hall, to a sprawling campus with a statewide Extension and research presence, where a 150-year-old land-grant mission remains at work. (Story, page 2) Top photo, NCSU Libraries Special Collections Research Center; bottom, Roger Winstead; left inset, N.C. State University; right inset, Becky Kirkland

NCSU Libraries Special Collections Research Center

Accessible to All

In 1890 the student body and faculty of the N.C. College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts posed at the entrance and in the windows of the Main Building, later called Holladay Hall, which was then the entire campus of the land-grant college.

Vision and tenacity marked the efforts of those who laid the groundwork for the founding of N.C. State and its missions of

.

teaching, research and extension

by Terri Leith

n a year of anniversary observances at N.C. State University – the 125th of t founding of the university and the 150th of the passage of the Morrill the A Act which made that founding possible — there have been celebrations of N N.C. State’s past and a determined focus on its future and the transformtion impacts the land-grant university has had and will continue to have tional on North Carolina’s economy and the lives of its citizens.

But in illuminating those subjects, a good way to start is with two names: Justin Smith Morrill and Walter Hines Page. Morrill was born in 1810 in Stafford, Vermont. Page was born in 1855 in Cary, North Carolina.

Though separated by background and generation, these disparate figures’ historic impacts intersect at Pullen Road in west Raleigh.

Morrill, as Vermont’s U.S. congressman, in 1862 introduced the bill that would establish federal funding for public institutions, accessible to the children of all citizens, in each state. More than two decades later, Page would work to ensure the creation of such a land-grant college in North Carolina. Page was a founding member of the Watauga Club, which advocated for a school of agriculture and mechanic arts in North Carolina — efforts that brought about the founding of the N.C. College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (now N.C. State University) in Raleigh and, later, N.C. A&T State University in Greensboro.

Morrill’s career path, first as a merchant and farmer, took him to Washington, D.C., where he served in Congress, elected first in 1854 as a Whig, then as a Republican in five succeeding terms, and moving from there 2

perspectives

to the Senate, in which he served from 1866 until his death in 1898.

As a congressman, he sponsored the Land Grant College Act, also known as the Morrill Act, to establish federal funding for public institutions of higher education in every state in the nation. It was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln July 2, 1862.

The Morrill Act of 1862 (and the Second Morrill Act of 1890) established the federal mandates for funding higher education in agricultural and mechanic arts.

It was the foundation of today’s public research universities, their accessibility and affordability — and the sharing and extension of their research-based knowledge for the public benefit.

In its observance of the Morrill Act Sesquicentennial Anniversary, the Association of Public and Landgrant Universities (APLU) has noted, “This is not a celebration for just the land-grant institutions, but a celebration that marks the democratization of higher education and emphasizes the critical importance of research and innovation to the nation’s bright future.”

As Morrill himself put it in 1862, “This bill proposes to establish in every state upon a sure and perpetual foundation, accessible to all, but especially to the sons of toil, where all of needful science for the practical avocations of life shall be taught, where neither the higher graces of classical studies nor that military drill our country now so greatly appreciates will be entirely ignored, and where agriculture, the foundation of all Morrill present and future prosperity, may look for troops of earnest friends, studying its familiar and recondite economies, and at last elevating it to that higher level where it may fearlessly invoke comparison with the most advanced standards of the world.”

NCSU Libraries Special Collections Research Center

The bill based the funding of agricultural schools through the sale of public land. The money, called “land scrip,” obtained through the sale of the land, would be used to endow at least one college that would teach the practical agricultural education in each state. This was also the beginning of the landgrant educational mission of schools founded to democratically serve the children of all citizens, not founded in the European tradition of serving mainly the monied classes.

Such an institution was in keeping with the views of Page, a proponent of a new economically progressive South.

Educated at Trinity College (later Duke University), Radolph-Macon College and Johns Hopkins University, he became a jouPage nalist and publisher (including partner and vice president of Doubleday, Page and Co.) and served as U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. Believing that education is the key to a better life, he urged the establishment of a school offering industrial and agricultural education. His hope to move North Carolina from Reconstruction to a modern economy informed the zeal that he and his fellow Wataugans – who questioned whether classical universities served the children of all citizens — would exercise in pushing for the kind of school in North Carolina that Morrill’s act would enable.

It wasn’t until after the Civil War that North Carolina claimed its land scrip allotments. However, the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, in great debt after the Civil War, worked to secure the scrip monies for itself. Historians note that the Chapel Hill offering was meager at best, with just one professor hired to teach a sampling of courses in which few students were even enrolled.

The first faculty to teach at N.C. A&M College included (seated, from left) William A. Withers, pure and agricultural chemistry; college Pres. Alexander Q. Holladay, history; Daniel Harvey Hill Jr., English and bookkeeping; (standing) John H. Kinealy, mathematics and practical mechanics; Wilbur F. Massey, botany, horticulture and arboriculture; and Joseph R. Chamberlain, agriculture, livestock and dairying.

Page, his fellow Watauga Club members William Joseph Peele, Charles W. Dabney and Arthur Winslow – along with other New South reformers, such as Gen. Daniel Harvey Hill, Daniel Augustus Tompkins and Leonidas L. Polk, the first state commissioner of agriculture – all leaders in a movement for agricultural education, felt that the children Justin Morrill hoped to reach were getting no return on the money. Polk called for the scrip money to be used to establish a new “People’s College.”

Polk So, in 1887, the demand for the new agricultural college in North Carolina took the form of a bill in the North Carolina legislature written by Dabney and sponsored by August Leazar of the state board of agriculture. It passed on March 7, 1887, the date now celebrated as Founder’s Day at the farmers’ college envisioned by Polk and built on 60 acres of land donated

by Richard Stanhope Pullen: N.C. State University.

The Morrill Acts, the 1887 Hatch Act (which provided funding for agricultural research at the new colleges) and the 1914 Smith-Lever Act (which provided for the establishment of agricultural extension work) set forth the following mandates for the land-grant institutions: to provide education for an agrarian-based economy, research for agribusiness and extension services to reach the farmers and benefit all citizens.

The delivery by the land-grants of that education, research and outreach has served to free up a majority of the U.S. population from subsistence farming and ultimately made possible that a small percentage of an average American’s paycheck goes to buying food, as opposed to 50 percent and even beyond in other countries.

It was historically important to have the workforce freed from agriculture, so they could do other work for the economy, according to N.C. State’s Dr. David Smith, CALS associate dean and director of the N.C. Agricultural Research Service (NCARS), who noted that research at the land-grants made possible the technology and the shared know-how to increase yield summer 2012

3

and food production. Fewer farmers were needed to grow the food, so people moved from subsistence farming to farming for sale to others or into other modes of work.

Today, the university’s agricultural research directly supports the state’s largest industry and the approximately 700,000 jobs North Carolina agriculture provides.

T

N.C. State University

he tripartite land-grant mission is reflected in the structure of N.C. State’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences with its Academic Programs, North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service and N.C. Agricultural Research Service administrative divisions.

Just as Morrill and then Page and his colleagues might have

envisioned, CALS Academic Programs provides the children of the state’s citizens a full range of higher education degree options from associate’s degree programs in the Agricultural Institute to bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degrees in biology-based disciplines, agriculture and the environmental sciences.

The North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, based in CALS, sustains a network of upwards of 1,000 staff members, working with tens of thousands of volunteers and advisers, making 2.5 million face-to-face contacts annually to enhance the state’s economy, environment and quality of life. It is a national leader in educational and applied research programs for al-

Becky Kirkland

Members of the first freshman class of N.C. A&M College (shown above) arrived Oct. 3, 1889. Shown on the same steps of Holladay Hall (below) is a group of current N.C. State University students.

ternative agricultural crops and enterprises, childhood nutrition and physical activity, school-age care and disaster preparedness.

And the CALS research programs – which range from basic discovery in the agricultural and biological sciences to crop and animal production — are fully integrated with Academic Programs and Cooperative Extension to implement the land-grant mission of research, education and outreach. The land-grant university’s research in human health, food safety and wellness, ecosystem diversity, environmental protection and land use improves our state for both urban and rural citizens.

The NCARS also partners with the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to manage one of the nation’s most extensive research station operations.

Dr. Johnny Wynne, recently retired CALS dean, had these words about the anniversary year of the university, the Morrill Act and the College as it prepares for the next 125 years at N.C. State: “We honor and celebrate our past, but do so while looking forward to a great future. As a national and international leader in research, teaching and extension, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences continues to address statewide, national and global challenges such as food security, human health and nutrition, environment and energy sustainability and economic development.”

In the articles that follow, we look at how far the university and its College of Agriculture and Life Sciences have come — and where we’re going.

4

perspectives

Acknowledgements: North Carolina State University: A Narrative History, Alice E. Reagan, N.C. State University Alumni Association, 1987 North Carolina State University: A Pictorial History, Burton F. Beers and Murray S. Downs, NCSU Alumni Association, 1986 “The Compleat Cow College,” Terri Leith, NCSU Alumni Magazine, November 1991 “Page in History,” A.S. Knowles, NCSU Alumni Magazine, May 1994 “Morrill Act Sesquicentennial Anniversary,” Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), www.aplu.org, 2012 Wikipedia: Justin Smith Morrill; Walter Hines Page; May 2012

New

and

Better Ways

Dr. Bob Patterson instructs a class of CALS crop science students at one of N.C. State’s teaching units on Lake Wheeler Road.

Becky Kirkland

In a milestone year, Bob Patterson reflects on the differences made by the land-grants through ag education — yesterday, today and tomorrow.

by Natalie Hampton

W

hen Dr. Bob Patterson came to then N.C. State College in Raleigh as an undergraduate student in 1957, he was amazed to find a place that was addressing the problems that “kept farmers awake at night” in his home north of Hickory.

Except for a brief stint of doctoral work at Cornell University, Patterson has remained at N.C. State University, where he is Alumni

Distinguished Professor of Crop Science. One of the most beloved professors in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Patterson has now taught generations of State students.

It’s not unusual for Patterson’s students say, “Dad said to tell you ‘hello.’” And he’s not sure how he’ll react when they say, “My granddad said… .”

Patterson, whose teaching has received multitudes of accolades, continues to see how the work of the College is giving today’s students – especially those who want to return to their family farms – choices that earlier generations didn’t have. Recently, he sat down to reflect on how he saw N.C. State from his earliest days as a student and how he sees the land-grant university’s future.

Bob Patterson grew up on a small dairy farm in northwestern Catawba County, where cows were milked by hand. He never saw a milking parlor until he came to N.C. State as a freshman and started work at the University Research Dairy – where Wolf Village is today — to earn money for tuition. Milking started at 6 a.m., so Patterson had

summer 2012

5

to arrive at the campus farm every other day by 5:30 a.m.

But some of his most valuable agriculture lessons took place before he came to N.C. State. Back home, he would often listen as local Catawba farmers gathered weeknights at Mr. Hutto’s store, and he still recalls two specific problems they talked about.

The first was a problem that his father had mentioned to him – that “Flit,” a pesticide used to keep flies away from the dairy herd, didn’t seem to work any longer.

The second problem involved the wild onions and garlic in pastures that prevented his mother from selling hand-churned butter in the spring. The foul taste that onions and garlic produced in milk from cows that grazed in the pastures made it necessary to feed the milk to hogs during the times those weeds were in the pastures.

“So I wondered, what can we do about the flies, and what can we do about the onions and the garlic?”

Patterson said.

“That curiosity about how to deal with the kind of problems that were so common on the farm, that curiosity was with me when I arrived at N.C. State,” he said. “And it was the most wonderful feeling to know that I had arrived at a place where my questions could be answered.”

As a student, Patterson saw the research, teaching and extension branches of the College working to address farmers’ problems. He had every intention of absorbing knowledge as an agronomy student and returning to his family farm.

But when his mother called to say the family had to sell the farm, he realized that he had to take his studies more seriously.

Through his journey from student to faculty member, Patterson saw agricultural practices change and saw his land-grant colleagues at both N.C. State and Cornell finding new and better ways to address farmers’ problems.

6

perspectives

When Patterson was a student at State, the College’s Agronomy Club sponsored seven educational booths at the nearby State Fair. At the time, farmers came to the fair to learn, and one year Patterson’s booth had an important and timely message: Now is the time to treat alfalfa to control the alfalfa weevil.

Heptachlor was the preferred pesticide for controlling the alfalfa weevil, and it was most effective at

“I was so relieved to know that my colleagues on this campus were at the vanguard of doing the research that enabled us to say we will no longer use chlorinated hydrocarbons in areas where there is human activity,” Patterson said.

“What I learned as a graduate student and as a member of the faculty early in my career is just how dedicated we are at N.C. State to identifying and using resources to

‘The fact that we have given farmers more options, more choices, regarding how to manage their total farm resources has empowered our farmers to think in ways they could not have allowed themselves to think in an earlier time ... .’

a specific time during the growing season and in the life cycle of the weevil. It happened that the proper week for using Heptachlor coincided that year with the fair.

The pastures and forages subcommittee developed a stellar exhibit, with containers of alfalfa plants and Heptachlor, and a jar of weevils. Elvis Presley’s hit, “It’s Now or Never,” played in the background. The group won the blue ribbon for their exhibit in the fall of 1960.

Five years later while studying at Cornell, Patterson saw a newspaper headline that read, “Heptachlor Banned.” Researchers had discovered that the chemical could be passed from pregnant mothers to fetuses. When he returned to N.C. State as a faculty member, Patterson learned that his research colleagues were focusing on alternatives to chlorinated hydrocarbons like Heptachlor, newer and safer pesticides that would remain toxic for much shorter periods of time.

address the kinds of problems that kept farmers awake at night.”

P

atterson returned to N.C. State in 1968 with a research and teaching appointment. Though he never worked for Cooperative Extension, he understood the role of Extension in bringing knowledge to farmers. He made a point of riding with N.C. State Extension specialists who worked with crops that he focused on in his crop sciences classes.

Some of Patterson’s students have gone on to work for Cooperative Extension or in other roles that support farmers. One student he recalls is Wayne Nixon of Bagley Swamp in Perquimans County. At the time, Nixon came from the only farm family Patterson knew that didn’t have to borrow money to plant crops for the coming season.

Wayne Nixon told Patterson that he wanted to earn his master’s degree so he could serve the farmers

Becky Kirkland

Patterson’s students are taught lessons of global food needs, including ways to increase production on diminishing farmland. As a CALS student and professor, he has seen firsthand how the research, teaching and extension branches work together to address such issues.

Students in Patterson’s World Population and Food Prospects undergraduate course and his Global Sustainable Human Development graduate seminar learn well the lessons of world food production. As the world prepares for a projected population of 9 billion by the year 2050, Patterson’s students grapple with questions of how to increase food production on diminishing farmland.

For these classes, the answer may be as simple as, “Think globally. Act locally.” Patterson sees hope for agriculture’s future in efforts to produce organic grains in North Carolina to foster a growing market for niche and organic meats. He is pleased that students see value in being “locovores,” eating more food produced locally.

He sees hope in the movement to create community gardens and to involve young people in planting, managing, harvesting and cooking the food they grow.

Patterson encourages his students to get to know international students in N.C. State’s diverse student body. He suggests that they join a club outside their discipline – find out what Engineers Without Borders are up to and how their

in his part of the state. Nixon imagined starting a lab on his own family farm where he could address farmers’ problems. He started out with Cooperative Extension, and later decided to take a job as a state agronomist. Patterson said that today Nixon remains a respected adviser to farmers in the northeastern part of the state.

He recalls students who wanted to leave the farm because farming left no time for other things in life.

He talks of farmers whose operations became so large, they could only practice “windshield farming” – observing their fields through the windshield of their truck, rather than walking the fields. And he remembers heart-breaking stories of farmers who were “one crop away from the poor house.”

The work of N.C. State and other land-grant colleges has made farm life easier by giving farmers choices, Patterson said.

“The fact that we have given farmers more options, more choices, regarding how to manage their total farm resources has empowered our farmers to think in ways they could not have allowed themselves to think in an earlier time and to sleep at night,” he said.

agricultural background could help engineers develop projects to help people.

“We have a responsibility to connect with other disciplines toward the goal of finding out what we do have in common,” he said. “My job is to encourage our students to think about the value of interacting with other students.”

Each spring after N.C. State’s graduation, Patterson heads for Prague, Czech Republic, where he teaches World Population and Food for six weeks. This summer when he returns to campus, he says he needs to get out and talk with farmers and employers to make sure crop science students are graduating with the academic knowledge they’ll need to make the right choices.

“The value of our research, extension and academic programs is that they have given our students the chance to realize that we do have choices,” Patterson said.

“And if we choose wisely, we can achieve our dreams.”

summer 2012

7

A Philosophical Approach Deanna Osmond carries on the Extension traditions of improving lives and using science to help people make informed decisions.

Becky Kirkland

by Suzanne Stanard

T

o Dr. Deanna Osmond, the terms “Cooperative Extension”

From her office, Dr. Deanna Osmond leads a national Environmental Protection Agency webinar on how to use public and private resources for better protection of water quality.

and “land grant” are synonymous.

“As Extension specialists, we take the most current information

that has been developed through research and translate it into practice that improves people’s lives,” said Osmond, professor of soil science and department Extension leader. “To me, that’s what the land-grant mission is.”

With offices in each of the state’s counties and with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Extension reaches all North Carolina citizens.

Specialty areas range from agriculture to youth development, with new programs developed regularly to meet the evolving needs of North Carolina’s rural and urban communities. Programs are avail-

8

perspectives

able to people of all ages and from all walks of life.

The words of Ira O. Schaub, North Carolina’s first Extension youth-development agent, are as true today as when he wrote them in 1952: “Extension work is a philosophy. ... And the satisfaction that one gets in seeing the improvement in the stan-

dard of living of the people served is the most satisfying remuneration that anyone can experience.”

Osmond joined North Carolina Cooperative Extension in 1992 as a water quality specialist. In 1997, she became part of the Neuse Education Team, an initiative through which Extension worked to reduce nonpoint source pollution and better protect the river and estuaries.

“We were hired as a team, and we worked with the agricultural sector, the urban sector, elected officials, government agencies, citizens … the whole gamut of Extension’s stakeholders,” she said. By the time the program dissolved in 2011, some members of the Neuse

Osmond joined Cooperative Extension in 1992 as a water quality specialist.

Becky Kirkland

put into the tool to make it more credible,” she said.

“I keep coming back to that word – credible – because it’s a critical part of our jobs to use science to help people make the most informed decisions,” Osmond said.

In addition to training farmers as part of the Neuse Education Team, Osmond helped administer training to Extension agents. This train-the-trainer model, she said, is

‘I see the research and extension missions being indistinguishable. If I don’t have credible research to extend, then I don’t have an Extension program.’

“The piece that is missing for most scientists is the translational piece. How do you go from science to implementing what you’ve been researching into practice or policy?

Extension provides the structure that allows us to do that. It provides the missing link.”

Some of Osmond’s research has been used as the scientific basis in the creation of environmental regulatory tools required by the state.

Under the Neuse Rules, she said, farmers were required as a group to show that they had reduced nitrogen use by 30 percent. She worked with an interagency team to develop a tracking and accounting tool “and provide data from research to

most effective because stakeholders receive the information from local, trusted deliverers.

The most gratifying part of being an Extension specialist, Osmond said, is seeing that she has made a difference in people’s lives.

Her work transcends North Carolina, to the national and international levels. In the spring, she led a national Environmental Protection Agency webinar focused on how to use public and private resources for conservation practice implementation to do a better job protecting water quality.

And her work in other countries over the years has proven to be eye-opening.

“I’ve worked overseas, and one of the huge differences between the United States and other countries, whether they’re developed, like in Europe, or developing countries in Africa where I’ve worked, is that Extension has made a profound difference in the lives of farmers here in the United States,” she said. “Those structures don’t exist or those services are privatized in other countries, and this oftentimes reduces the capacity to translate research into actual practice or knowledge for farmers.”

She cites the Master Gardener Program, 4-H and Family and Consumer Sciences as particularly exemplary in carrying out Extension’s mission in North Carolina.

“Of course, there are many Extension specialists and agents all over our state who touch a lot of people’s lives,” Osmond said.

Extension also fuels progress by uniting multiple disciplines to work together on a single, important issue, such as the current local foods initiative, she said.

“We’re in a unique position to work across sectors and to serve an incredibly diverse clientele,” Osmond said.

“What I’m really proud of is being able to bring all of these lessons to bear from both the state and national levels into a coherent framework for all of my clients,” she said.

“It’s very rewarding work.”

Education Team and county Extension agents had trained more than 4,000 farmers in better nutrient management applications, and another team member developed a highly recognized and effective urban stormwater program.

“One of the things I most enjoy about Extension is the contact with our clients and the diversity of opportunities to deliver sciencebased information to many different stakeholders,” Osmond said.

“Oftentimes, in the environmental world I work in, different factions have different opinions, so it’s really nice to be able provide credible information to help them make informed decisions.”

Research also is a big part of Osmond’s environmental work and, to her, research and extension are one and the same.

“I see the research and extension missions being indistinguishable,” she said. “If I don’t have credible research to extend, then I don’t have an Extension program.

summer 2012

9

Dr. David Smith stops by the Feed Mill Educational Unit, part of N.C. State University’s 1,500-acre Lake Wheeler Road Field Laboratory.

From the Morrill Act, research; from research, PROSPERITY The Morrill Act helped make publicly funded research possible, and that research ushered in an era of American prosperity.

by Dave Caldwell

funny thing happened on the way to educating “the industrial classes” in “agriculture and the Becky Kirkland

mechanic arts,” which is what the Morrill Act set out to do 150 years ago.

The institutions charged with doing the educating, the landgrant colleges that the Morrill Act allowed each state to create, developed laboratories and publicly funded research programs in addition to classrooms.

While providing a means to educate vast swaths of the population who would otherwise not have 10 perspectives

had access to higher education was doubtless an important element in building the nation, so too were the discoveries that came out of land-grant labs, particularly where agriculture is concerned.

Which is why Dr. David Smith, associate dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and director of the North Carolina

Agricultural Research Service, describes the Morrill Act as “the single most impactful economic development legislation in the history of this country.”

When Congress passed the Morrill Act in 1862, half of Americans lived on farms. But farming tended to be subsistence in nature. Americans farmed in order to feed themselves. Agriculture was not necessarily a livelihood.

Smith contends that the research programs the Morrill Act made possible produced discoveries that transformed American agriculture and made farming more efficient, which allowed members of farm families to move to cities, where they took jobs in industry and became part of the nation’s industrial revolution.

“Before you can have an industrial revolution, you have to have an agricultural revolution,” says Smith, who speaks from the perspective of what he calls a “historical agronomist.”

Indeed, before Smith was an administrator, he was an extension tobacco specialist, so it’s not surprising that tobacco is among the examples he notes of agricultural efficiency made possible by land-grant research. Tobacco is a notoriously labor-intensive crop, and according to Smith, in 1940 producing a pound of tobacco required 45 minutes of labor. Today, it takes two minutes or less of labor to produce a pound of tobacco.

“That’s amazing,” says Smith.

“It’s a huge gain in efficiency.”

Similar gains in agricultural production efficiency have been realized for all major agricultural commodities, plant and animal, thanks largely to land-grant research.

For example, for the five-year period from 1958 to 1962 the average North Carolina corn yield was 50 bushels per acre, Smith points out. From 2003 to 2007, the average corn yield in the state was 100

‘We do some of the most basic research to understand the how and the why. We train the students who are working for industry, and we do the integrative kinds of research to get technology adopted and fitted into society.’ does not believe the decision should be either public or private.

Rather, he sees different goals for public and private sector research and thinks the two complement each other.

“What I would argue from the agricultural side is that consumers and farmers benefit from the sum total that’s spent on research, both on the public side and the private side,” says Smith.

He adds, “I think what public institutions like CALS bring to the mix is that we work on different things than industry does. Industry does research and development to help the company’s bottom line. Their research is for

search to get technology adopted and fitted into society,” says Smith.

“I think you need both public and private.”

And despite the impact landgrant research has had over the last 150 years, Smith said research is needed now more than ever.

Society in the global sense faces a range of challenges associated with global population growth, from food production to environmental degradation and fuel production. Smith points out that the world’s population is expected to increase by 2 billion people by mid-century. This growth is expected to put tremendous strains on existing systems. We

Becky Kirkland

the most part built around products, whereas, I think what universities bring is the discipline expertise, why things work the way they work and how.”

He points to herbicide tolerance in crops as an example. Farmers have embraced what are known as Roundup Ready crops, crops that are able to tolerate Roundup herbicide. Because the crop is herbicide tolerant, farmers can spray it with herbicide to control weeds, making weed control easier and more efficient. Roundup Ready crops were developed by the private sector, by Monsanto.

Yet some weeds have developed resistance to glyphosate, the active herbicide in Roundup, lessening the usefulness of Roundup Ready crops.

University research is helping growers deal with herbicide resistance in weeds so growers can continue to plant Roundup Ready crops.

“We do some of the most basic research to understand the how and the why. We train the students who are working for industry, and we do the integrative kinds of re-

Smith visits the NCSU Beef Education Unit. With support of university research and extension, raising animals — poultry, hogs, horses, beef and dairy cattle and more — has become the most valuable segment of North Carolina agriculture. Today, animal agriculture accounts for about 65.9 percent of the state’s total farm cash receipts.

will need more food (50 to 100 percent more, most experts think) and more energy, while providing for human health and well-being and economic development and protecting the environment may also be more difficult.

Smith sees agricultural and life sciences research playing a central role in meeting these challenges and argues for a continued investment in publicly funded research.

He points to the cumulative nature of research, explaining that the “breakthrough” is typically research that has built on previous research, which may not have collected headlines.

“I think you have to do the research now to be prepared for the future,” says Smith.

Land-grant research has contributed significantly to the standard of living Americans now enjoy. Smith sees land-grant institutions like N.C. State University well-positioned to continue to provide research that benefits not only Americans but people around the globe.

“We don’t have a dog in the fight other than to search for the truth.

That’s really what our job is, to seek the truth,” Smith says. “I don’t know how the public cannot benefit from that.”

bushels, while some of the state’s farmers now produce 300 bushels per acre.

“Yields of all the major crops have either doubled or tripled over the last 70 years,” Smith says.

Productivity gains have been realized primarily through research in breeding and genetics (with both plants and animals), improved nutrition, pest management, mechanization and post-harvest handling, Smith adds.

There is some irony in the fact that the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Act and the attention the anniversary focuses on the impact of the legislation come at a time when the recessionary economy has scaled back investment in land-grant research programs significantly. At the same time, a long-running debate about the relative value of public versus privatesector spending appears to be a central element in this year’s political campaigns.

Where agricultural and life sciences research is concerned, Smith

summer 2012

11

A

VANGUARD

Photos by Becky Kirkland

Six CALS students – beneficiaries of the land-grant university education — make their mark in academics, arts, research and more.

by Dee Shore

T

he College of Agriculture and Life Sciences student body of today is much more diverse than in the past, and so are the opportunities available for them to engage in research, travel

domestically and internationally and to pursue other interests — academic and otherwise. The College’s online Student Perspectives series highlights this diversity, as some of the College’s outstanding students tell the stories behind their achievements and their hopes for the future. Here are some of tomorrow’s transformational leaders:

Rachel Turner Future vet conducts colic research and travels afar for animal care internships For as long as she can remember, Rachel Turner has wanted to be a veterinarian. And when she takes a step closer to that dream as a doctorate of veterinary medicine (DVM) student in N.C. State University this fall, the May 2012 CALS graduate will bring along experience as a Turner researcher and an international animal health intern and volunteer.

As an animal science major, Turner traveled to Costa Rica to

12 perspectives

help with a spay-and-neuter clinic and to Sri Lanka, where she was an intern with the Millennium Elephant Foundation. The elephant organization provides housing and medical care for injured elephants, and it provides elephant education programs to tourists. “It gives them an idea of what conscientious interaction with elephants is like,” she says.

Turner, a native of San Jose, Calif., also got to try her hand at research while she was a CALS undergraduate. Working with Dr. Matthew Gerard, a clinical associate professor large animal surgery with N.C. State’s College of Veterinary Medicine, Turner conducted an equine colic study that Gerard presented at an international symposium last fall. Equine colic is the leading cause of premature death

in horses, and Turner analyzed data on colic surgeries to determine the risk factors that led to post-surgical infections.

Turner says she got involved in research because research is particularly important to conservation medicine, which she hopes to specialize in.

“There’s just so much that we don’t know about wildlife,” she says. “And there’s so much we don’t know about how they reproduce and how they behave and what they eat and what their habitat is like and things like that. And all that information really, really impacts how we are able to keep them in captivity and how comfortable we are able to make them, and then how we are able to bring back their species and rehabilitate them and reintroduce them into the wild.”

Emily Meineke Ph.D. student scales up reseach on tiny pest The research that entomology Ph.D. student Emily Meineke is conducting on scale insects has important implications for understanding the potential impacts of climate change. Meineke is looking

at why scale insects are so much more abundant in cities than in towns, with the idea that the heat generated in cities might be advantageous to the insects.

Meineke “The hypothesis is, ‘The reason that scale are so abundant in urban areas is that it is hotter in urban areas due to the heat-island effect — and the scale benefit from that heat,’” Meineke says. “The urban heat-island effect is a phenomenon where urban areas are between …

1 and 11 degrees Celsius warmer than rural areas because of development and impervious surfaces like sidewalks and roads and also vegetation removal.”

She notes that if insects benefit from urban heat, they may be able to benefit from heat that results from climate change, “which means,” she says, “over a longer timescale, as climate change progresses, we may see the abundance of scale go up — and scale can kill plants.”

Meineke grew up in Winterville, in eastern North Carolina, and holds a bachelor’s degree from UNC-CH. She’s traveled extensively throughout Southeast Asia and the Unites States. She hopes to become a university professor, and she’s also interested in K-12 insect education and in learning how to reach out to teenagers and young adults about the discovery process.

As she works toward her doctorate in entomology over the next four years, Meineke is pursuing several projects of interest. “I’m working on a story-telling series,” she says, “with [fellow Ph.D. students] Heather Campbell and Colin Funaro, where professors share their experiences with students; serving as outreach coordinator for the Entomology Graduate Student Association; and continuing [N.C.

State University Insect Museum’s] annual Hexapod Haiku contest.”

Justin Hills Rising junior travels to Ghana as he works to address health disparities For Justin Hills, working in the lab of CALS biologist Dr. Rob Dunn sparked an interest in science communication and public health that he hopes one day to put to use to address racial and ethnic health disparities.

And Hills is not wasting any time in reaching this goal: The rising junior was selected to participate in the Minority Health International Hills Research Training Program, which allowed him to spend 12 weeks this summer conducting liver cancer research at a teaching hospital and doing community service work in Kumasi, Ghana.

After that, he planned to be back at N.C. State pursuing a major in biological sciences, serving as a university ambassador and a member of the Minority Association Pre-Health Students. And then he hopes to go to medical school and, ultimately, into a public health career, helping investigate and eradicate the kinds of illnesses and diseases that disproportionately affect minority communities.

“I’ve always been one to like to explain my biology homework to my mom or to my friends, but I didn’t realize I could make a career of it or there were people who did that for a living,” says the rising junior majoring in biological sciences. “Working in the Dunn Lab afforded me an exceptional opportunity to understand the mechanics of citizen science and its potential benefits to our world.”

Dunn is an internationally known scientist and science writer,

and his lab explores the ecology and evolution of everyday species. Hills worked throughout the 2011-2012 academic year on Dunn’s citizen science projects Bellybutton Biodiversity and the Wild Life of Your Home. He helped with tasks that ranged from assembling kits for the School of Ants project to writing the post “Your backstage pass to DNA extraction” for the Your Wild Life blog at http://yourwildlife.org.

Through his work in the Dunn lab, Hills has seen how citizen science can raise people’s interest in research, and he believes this interest can be key to helping reduce the incidence of such health problems as diabetes, hypertension and HIV/AIDS. “I believe that if we inspire people to find wonder and amazement in hands-on scientific research,” he says, “evolutionary lifestyle changes can occur that will alter the prevalence of common complications in nutrition, reproductive health and even chronic disease.”

David Higgins Fellowship-winning student focuses on flower development A lifelong interest in plants blossomed for May 2012 graduate David Higgins as he worked with Dr. Bob Franks in the Department of Genetics to find out more about how plants make flowers. Higgins, who earned his bachelor’s degree in genetics and plant biology, plans to pursue a Ph.D. in plant biology at the University of Georgia starting this fall.

While growing up in WinstonSalem, Higgins and his father Higgins gardened together, always trying to think up ways to make the plants grow better. “As I grew older and took high school biology courses, my questions …

summer 2012

13

went on to perform in Philadelphia Story and Rent during the 2011-2012 season.

Though the practice schedule is demanding – up to four hours a night for the month leading up to the show – Williams says she finds acting fun and a release from the dayWilliams to-day stress of academic work.

As the rising senior balances her college workload with her theater schedule, Williams also makes time to serve as an animal care and tour volunteer with Carolina Tiger Rescue in Pittsboro. She enjoys the interaction she gets there with exotic cats, and that experience – coupled with a study-abroad trip related to ecology and conservation in Namibia – cinched her decision to pursue a career in wildlife conservation and rehabilitation.

During her senior year, Williams hopes to secure an animal care internship and begin applying for jobs in “animal care, training, rehabilitation and maybe even educating the public about animals,” she says.

“I like doing hands-on things,” she says, “and interacting with animals is exciting – they all have such different personalities.”

Brett Williams Aspiring wildlife biologist stars on N.C. State’s stage While working hard to earn a bachelor’s degree in zoology, Brett Williams has also made time for play – or, more precisely, plays.

The young actress received the N.C. State arts program’s 20102011 Performing Artist Award for Theater for roles in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and the satirical comedy musical Urinetown, and she

14 perspectives

Alex Johnson Graduate student and Wolfpack basketball player aims high Alex Johnson came to N.C. State University in the fall of 2011 mainly to play basketball, but as he has pursued his master’s degree studies in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ family and youth development program, his desire to work with young people has grown. And so now the self-

described go-getter now has not one career goal but three: to play professional basketball, to work in sports communication and to serve as a mentor for troubled youth.

“Working with youth … has become the recent goal that I want to accomplish,” Johnson says, “because, growing up, I didn’t have someone to look out for me, to mentor me through the good times and bad times. I didn’t have a father figure. It was just my mom and I and my sisters.”

Johnson grew up in Toronto, Canada, where basketball became his passion. As an undergraduate, Johnson played for California State-Bakersfield and earned a bachelor’s degree in communication.

Because Johnson was injured and unable to play for a year there, he was eligible to continue playing collegiate ball after graduation.

That’s why he came to N.C. State for graduate school. With the Wolfpack, Johnson was a point guard and had the chance to play to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA tournament.

As for his next move,“I am still trying to figure it out,” he Johnson says. “I’m trying to complete my master’s, but I’m also looking to play professionally. Right now, I’m looking for an agent to represent me and, God willing, will be able to play somewhere.

“I’ve told myself not to worry – don’t look so far in the future and just live for today,” he says. “I’ve been happy with the journey so far.”

changed from how could we grow better plants to how do plants grow themselves.”

And that was precisely the question that occupied him during his CALS research experiences as he and Franks looked at how different genes are involved in flower development.

While at N.C. State, Higgins was a member of the University Honors Program and the marching band. From the American Society of Plant Biologists, he received a 2011 summer undergraduate research fellowship.

Higgins said his undergraduate research experiences helped him learn more about what it takes to achieve his career goal: to become a scientist working in either academia or industry. “I’m learning how to phrase the questions you are asking and how to turn those questions into experiments – and how to get answers from your experiments, even if they don’t turn out the way that you planned them to,” he says.

The research process also helped Higgins learn more about himself, he says. “I’m learning that I’m not content with just leaving something unanswered. And if something goes wrong, I want to go back and flip through all my notes and figure out what I can change and do again to make it better.”

Catching

EVOLUTION IN THE ACT CALS biologist explores predictability of evolution in Bahamian blue holes.

Courtesy Brian Langerhans

By Dee Shore

orr biologist Brian Langero h a cerulean sinkholes that hans, d do o the Bahamas are places dot off m yst mystery and intrigue – environments that contain clues to help answer one of science’s most captivating questions: How predictable, he wants to know, is the course of evolution?

Dr. Langerhans is an assistant professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Department of Biology, and for the past decade he has been studying fish of the genus Gambusia living in submerged Bahamian caves known as blue holes.

The deep, water-filled holes were dry during the last Ice Age, but as sea levels began to rise about 15,000 years ago, the water table rose and flooded the ancient caves from the bottom up. Soon,

fish colonized many of these newly aquatic environments, but different kinds of fish wound up in different blue holes.

Most of the blue holes – at least on Andros Island, where Langerhans conducts much of his research – have Gambusia. And some, but not all, of those holes have bigmouth sleepers, a larger species of fish that preys on the Gambusia.

“The inland blue holes are really isolated environments – basically aquatic islands in a sea of land,” Langerhans says. Paired with Gambusia, a diverse genus of fish that bear live young, the blue holes become veritable test tubes for examining all sorts of questions about how the fish – and possibly other animals – have evolved.

“It’s an interesting system for studying all kinds of evolutionary

Inland blue holes, submerged caves in the Bahamas, are the homes of the small fish called Gambusia. The isolated environments made an ideal site for studying evolutionary questions.

questions,” Langerhans explains.

“We focus on the predictability of evolution: In other words, if we understand enough about organisms, can we actually predict the course of evolutionary change across different environments? Can we identify what causes changes within species, and what drives the formation of new species? And then, what explains these broader patterns among taxa – the major macro-evolutionary patterns across species?” summer 2012

15

The varying sizes of the Gambusia heads and tails, affecting their speed, reflect the extent of predation in their environment.

Becky Kirkland (background); Insets Courtesy Brian Langerhans

In the past, some biologists argued that evolution depends on too many chance events to be predictable. But more recently, studies on organisms as diverse as bacteria, tiny worms, fruit flies – and now, Gambusia – suggest that evolution can be replicated. And if it can be replicated, some biologists believe, it can, at least to some degree, be predicted.

And that leads to the questions that occupy Langerhans. To get at the answers, he has been studying Gambusia since the early 2000s, when he was a graduate student at Texas A&M University. While only two species of Gambusia inhabit most of the United States, Texas harbored no less than nine native Gambusia species, and there are more than 40 known Gambusia species in the world.

What, Langerhans wondered, was behind that diversity? It was in 2002 when Langerhans saw his first blue holes and his ideas about the predictability of evolution began taking shape.

“It was evident right away – the fish were behaving differently in blue holes with and without predatory fish. They looked different.

Just by walking up and looking, I thought, ‘Something really interesting is happening here,” he recalls.

16 perspectives

Since then – through his Ph.D. studies at Harvard University, a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Oklahoma and his appointment at N.C. State in 2010 – the scientist has immersed himself in the task of understanding everything he can about Gambusia living in the blue holes.

By observing the small, minnowlike fish in the wild and testing them in the lab, Langerhans and his lab colleagues – post-doctoral researchers as well as graduate and undergraduate students – have studied such traits as their body shape, how fast they can take off swimming, which mates they prefer, their coloration, their fat content, the number of babies that the females bear — the list goes on.

Based on general ideas of how fish swim and the advantages different types of swimming provide under different ecological contexts – specifically, with and without predators – Langerhans has created models to predict how traits might evolve, and he’s tested them to see if those predictions held true in the blue holes.

And it turns out, Langerhans says, “there’s a lot of predictable evolution in blue holes.”

“Depending on predators being present or absent, we know what

kind of body shape they are going to evolve. We know the general size of the male genitalia. We know how their locomotor abilities are going to evolve, their acceleration capacity, their endurance, many aspects of their life histories,” he says.

“All these things are predicted by evolutionary theory, and it turns out that most of the predictions are met,” he says. Although the measurements aren’t precisely the same with every population, he adds, the fish do tend to evolve in the same direction, according to the level of predation in their environment.

To explain, he points to differences in body shape: When there are predators, Langerhans says, the fish’s tail region tends to become larger, and their heads get smaller.

That body shape lends itself to fast starts. “The fish go ‘boom,’” he says, with a clap, “to get away from a predator.”

But something very different happens to Gambusia that have evolved where there are no bigmouth sleepers. They tend to take on a streamlined shape.

“They are not fast any more, but they don’t need to be that fast,” he says. “Instead, they have high levels of endurance, so they can swim around all day long without using large amounts of energy.”

That’s important, he adds, because without predators, populations get denser, which means more mouths – and less food per mouth. “So it’s all about cruising around the water finding food,” Langerhans says. “These fish that are in the low-predation sites are always moving, looking for food.

They’ve got to cruise around all the time.”

Even among different populations of the same species, Gambusia from high-predation environments tend not to interbreed with those from low-predation environments.

“These fish seem to hate each other. The body shape is wrong, the color is wrong, it’s possible other things like behavioral and olfactory traits that we haven’t examined yet are involved. Overall, all the evidence has shown that when given the opportunity they choose to spend much more time with fish from their own population – it’s like the fish from the other population don’t exist,” he says.

“If you put them in the same tank, eventually they go to opposite sides of the tank and stay there. I’ve left them there 6 to 8 months, and they literally stay there,” he adds.

“It’s like, ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with that guy.’”

Body shape, Langerhans believes, appears to be a clear factor in speciation, but it doesn’t explain it completely. Right now, he’s pursuing ideas related to differences in the size and structure of the male’s sex organ, called the gonopodium, within species.

“It’s pretty obvious if you evolve differences in the genitalia you can

very quickly get reproductive isolation and form a new species,” he says. “But so far, scientists haven’t concentrated on within-species variation (in fish genitalia) – probably because it’s usually presumed to be very small – but that’s where you can catch evolution in action.

As speciation is occurring, that’s actually how you can figure out why it’s evolving this way.”

As Langerhans continues to study the predictability of evolution in the blue-hole Gambusia, he’s also pursuing research aimed at understanding whether we can predict how the changes people are making to the natural world will affect evolution. To find answers, he’s studying fish that live in Bahamian tidal creeks that have been fragmented by roads.

“We are looking at this on a number of different islands, and we are seeing that the fish are evolving differences really rapidly in response to human-induced changes,” Langerhans says. “How predictable it’s going to be across all these different species and all these different islands, I don’t know yet.”

Understanding that could give us insights into where the changes we are making in the natural world now could lead to many centuries from now, Langerhans adds.

“I think the point of all this is trying to figure out how the world works. Why are there so many species on this planet, and why on Earth do they look the way they look? How do we explain all this diversity?” he asks.

“And if we can get answers to those questions, it gives us information not only about the evolutionary trajectories of these species, but it also can help us understand such things as how we are affecting these ecosystems and what that’s going to mean in the future.”

Becky Kirkland

The pattern Langerhans has seen – larger tails and smaller heads in high-predation sites, and more streamlined bodies in lowpredation sites – occurs over and over, both in the blue holes and among generations of fish raised in Langerhans’ labs.

“It’s not,” he says, “like there was a single evolutionary split, and then these fish moved around to different blue holes to find an environment that suits their phenotype. Molecular genetic evidence suggests that every time they get to a blue hole, these fish just evolve whatever body shape is needed in that blue hole.”

The model also seems to work beyond the blue holes: Langerhans has analyzed other scientists’ data related to body shape and predation and seen that his model holds with at least 20 fish species from six different families found in diverse environments around the world.

Natural selection – survival of the fittest, as Darwin put it – is at work, Langerhans says, and so is sexual selection. In low-predation environments, the females prefer the streamlined shape, and in highpredation environments, they like the opposite.

In his N.C. State lab, Langerhans and his students discuss the natural-selection lessons that the Gambusia have provided.

summer 2012

17

Becky Kirkland

College Profile Dean Johnny Wynne seeds College’s future success as he cedes the leadership reins.

by Dee Shore

W

hen it comes to the U.S. land-grant university system, there is no stronger advocate and supporter these days than Dr. Johnny C. Wynne.

The system — which evolved over the past 150 years through several federal legislative acts to create universities for everyday people and to enable these universities to make knowledge available to all — has been at the center of Wynne’s life for half a century.

N.C. State, one of the nation’s 106 land-grant universities, opened its doors to Wynne as a student in 1961. And since he first arrived, Wynne has never really left. He earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in crop science here, and he worked his way up the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ ranks, serving as professor, department head, associate dean for research and dean.

18 perspectives

And even as he does leave – he retired from his post as CALS dean July 1 – his presence will continue to be felt in the form of the Wynne Fund for Innovation. Wynne created the fund to give future deans the means with which to seed programs that promise to strengthen the economy, protect the environment, enhance human health and nutrition, and ensure a safe and abundant agricultural supply.

Wynne emphasized those four areas – agricultural production and safety, environmental sustainability, economic development and health and nutrition – during his tenure as dean. They pose some of our society’s grandest challenges, he frequently points out, and they are the ones that the College’s academic, research and extension programs are perhaps uniquely positioned to address.

Maintaining and strengthening that position was Wynne’s chief goal as a CALS administrator. That he ever became such an administrator, much less an internationally recognized agricultural scientist, is perhaps surprising, given his humble roots, his reserved demeanor and his early uncertainty about the career path he should take.

Wynne was born in Bear Grass, a tiny community of 50 or so people that’s right in the middle of eastern North Carolina, just a few miles from Williamston. His father was a part-time grower and carpenter who didn’t see a future for his son on the farm. So at his mother’s and father’s insistence, Wynne applied to, and was accepted by, N.C. State and UNC-CH. Although he thought he might want to go to UNC as a pre-law student, home was closer to

Raleigh than to Chapel Hill, so Wynne ultimately chose N.C. State.

Wynne came to N.C. State intending to get a degree in biological and agricultural engineering, but he changed his mind after taking a part-time job with Dr. John Dudley, a quantitative geneticist and alfafa breeder.

“He’s the one who really shaped my life,” Wynne says. “If you took a look at my college transcript, I was down to maybe a 2.3 at that point. When I started working with him, he told me that to become a plant breeder I’d need to go to graduate school — and if I wanted to go to graduate school, I’d need to graduate with at least a 3.0. So that changed my attitude.”

When it came time for graduate school, Wynne wanted to study under Dudley, but he wasn’t willing to leave North Carolina when Dudley took a position at the University of Illinois. So he remained at N.C. State, earning his master’s in crop science in 1968.

Wynne joined the faculty that year as a crop science instructor, then became an assistant professor when he earned his Ph.D. in 1974.

His research over the next decade and a half led to new peanut cultivars and breeding lines with higher yields, earlier maturity, drought tolerance and disease and insect resistance.

It was during this time that he came to understand that it was important not only to listen to what growers and agribusinesses needed but also to try to anticipate and get ahead of those needs. He points to his experience helping breed NC7, a large peanut that growers initially scoffed at – and later adopted widely.

“When we submitted NC7 to the industry, they looked at it and said it was too big. ‘We don’t want it,’” Wynne recalled. “So we put it in the freezer. And in a couple of years, they said, ‘We need something bigger. We have to compete.’

So we pulled it out of the freezer

and showed them, and they said, ‘That’s exactly what we need.’ And it became a very prominent variety.”

Wynne takes pride in NC7 and some of the other peanut varieties he developed, and he likewise takes pride in developing graduate students who have gone on to make significant contributions of their own in private industry, government and universities here in the United States, as well as in Africa and Asia.

Among those he mentions: Dr. Thomas Isleib, who followed in Wynne’s footsteps as a peanut breeder at N.C. State; Dr. Cindy Green, who is involved in international germplasm research with Monsanto Co.; Dr. Bill Anderson, a research geneticist at the University of Georgia; Dr. Tim Schilling, who works in international programs at Texas A&M University; Dr. Michael Fitzner, who oversees research and extension programs related to plant systems for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture; and Dr. Sanun Jogloy, peanut breeder at Khon Kaen University in Northeast Thailand.

Wynne says that working with international graduate students and participating in the multistate Peanut Collaborative Research Support Program (Peanut CRSP) funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development rank among the most broadening experiences of his life. The Peanut CRSP was designed to enhance peanut research in the United States as well as in developing countries such as Malaysia, Burma and the Philippines, so the man who once balked at being far from home found himself traveling widely to consult and work with growers, researchers and others worldwide.

Meanwhile, he began growing his leadership skills, serving as an officer and on committees for scholarly societies and for research projects. At the university, he made his move into administration in 1989, when he was named head of

the Department of Crop Science.

After three years, he became associate dean and director of the N.C. Agricultural Research Service.

Wynne was in that post until 2003, and during that time, CALS began working to consolidate and expand field laboratories at a central site along Lake Wheeler Road, just south of the Raleigh city limits.

The laboratories are used not only for research but for teaching students and for extending knowledge to farmers and others.

Strengthening the Lake Wheeler Road Field Laboratory became one of Wynne’s priorities after he had a chance to tour similar facilities in other states. “I realized our facilities were near the bottom in quality,” he says. “So we developed a strategic plan, and we spent time on – and still are working on – fulfilling that plan. But we now have quality facilities, and since the site is close to campus, it gives our students experiences other universities can’t offer. I really feel good about the progress we made.”

Today, the field lab has new poultry and swine facilities, along with structural pest control and soil and water erosion facilities. It’s also home to an outdoor turfgrass lab, the only educational feed mill on the East Coast and Wake County’s historic Yates Mill public park. And a dairy milking parlor is in the works.

A

sked to name some of his accomplishments as dean beginning in 2003, Wynne is modest, pointing only to some of the many statewide and national accolades won by CALS faculty members.

But the College did, indeed, make other substantial strides under his leadership. For example, it launched programs related to value-added agriculture to help growers produce new products, reach new markets and start new enterprises. A stronger N.C. local foods industry, growing wineries and vineyards and promising biofuels and bioprocessing research are among the results of those efforts. summer 2012

19

“N.C. State has been very good to me,” says Wynne, as he heads into retirement.

when exploding world population growth, expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, will demand more from agriculture.

‘Land-grant universities were established to support the citizens of the state and to help them address the problems and issues that they face.’

As he looks back, Wynne identifies that diversity as one of the most striking changes since the time he was a student.

Wynne also has noticed a difference in the way that students are supported. “There have always been caring professors at the departmental level, but the atmosphere and attitude by administration toward students has changed a lot over the years,” he says.

Looking ahead, Wynne sees a couple of trends that make him concerned. First, as N.C. State has become more selective, rural students are having a more difficult time getting in. That could mean fewer well-trained farmers, agribusiness professionals and agricultural scientists at a time

20 perspectives

“Having a growing world population means we have in North Carolina an opportunity for markets all across the world,” he says.

“Of course, that opens big issues.

How do we increase yields to feed this population? And at the same time, how are we going to protect the environment?

“These are the issues that our College should help provide the answers to.”

The second trend that causes concern for Wynne relates to the ability of land-grant colleges to address these types of issues – ones that affect all people. Land-grants rely on public funding to fulfill their teaching, research and extension missions, and that funding depends on public support. And

today, Wynne says, “a lot of people have the attitude that higher education is a private benefit and, therefore, the individual should pay for it through higher tuition and fees.”

And less public support will mean that more students – students like him, whose parents lack the money to pay fully those tuition and fees – won’t be able to attend colleges, even those colleges that were created expressly for them.

“Land-grant universities were established to support the citizens of the state and to help them address the problems and issues that they face,” he says. “Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but it’s been very important to me. It’s the only reason I got an education, and I think it’s still important to our citizens.”

“I’m a product of the land-grant system” is how he puts it. “But,” he adds, “I’ve also seen other evidence my whole career of the value of the land-grant system.”

Wynne speaks with certainty about that value. But when it comes to himself and his future, he speaks with less assurance.

Once again, Wynne finds himself at a crossroads. He says he has a lengthy honey-do list, but beyond that he hasn’t made plans. A father of four – all of whom have gone to N.C. State – he hopes to spend more time with his children and the rest of his family.

“I don’t have to work, I don’t think, but I don’t know. We’ll just see,” he says. “What I do know is that I’ve enjoyed working at N.C. State. It’s been very good to me.”

Becky Kirkland

Meanwhile, CALS opened labs to provide researchers and students with infrastructure and equipment to conduct genomic, proteomic and metabolomics research that has become increasingly vital to life sciences industries, agriculture and human and animal health.

During Wynne’s time as dean, Cooperative Extension redoubled its water quality programs and worked to address a national obesity problem by helping North Carolinians eat healthier diets and exercise more. The College also strengthened its efforts to advise and aid students interested in pursuing post-graduate study in medical, veterinary, dental, optometry and other health professional schools. And it moved forward with efforts to increase diversity among students, faculty and staff.

noteworthy

NEWS

FoodCorps marks first year

Becky Kirkland

Leah Klaproth (right) of FoodCorps works with Guilford County students in their school garden.

A

t Oak Hill Elementary School in High Point, third graders have spent time this year learning how to plant a garden, harvest the plants and eat what they grow. The school is one of five FoodCorps sites in Guilford County where FoodCorps service member Leah Klaproth has worked with students and teachers since the beginning of the 2011-12 school year.

As classes were winding down for the year in late May, Klaproth helped students in Sabrina Peacock’s class to harvest some of the crops from their garden. Klaproth reminded the students how they had planted the potatoes with pieces of seed potato. Then students took turns harvesting greens and digging potatoes for a local food pantry, supported by Share the Harvest.

Since August 2011, N.C. State University, N.C. 4-H and the Center for Environmental Farming Systems have hosted six Food-

Corps service members, serving eight counties: Brunswick, Gaston, Guilford, Moore, New Hanover, Wake, Warren and Wayne. The service members, like Klaproth, serve in local schools to conduct nutrition education, engage students in building and tending school gardens and expand access to local, fresh produce in school cafeterias.

In September, “NBC Nightly News” featured a story on North Carolina’s FoodCorps program, including interviews with service member Sebastian Naskaris and program coordinator Liz Driscoll, Cooperative Extension 4-H specialist in crops, horticulture and soils.

FoodCorps is a non-profit national service organization that seeks to reverse the effects of childhood obesity by increasing vulnerable children’s knowledge of, engagement with and access to healthy food. The Corporation for National and Community Service awarded $625,000 to support 50

AmeriCorps members this year to serve 42 FoodCorps sites across the country. AmeriCorps public service program recruited young leaders for a year of service in limitedresource communities experiencing a high incidence of diet-related disease.

In North Carolina, program coordinators include Driscoll and Tes Thraves, youth food systems coordinator for the Center for Environmental Farming Systems. Driscoll and Thraves recently met with N.C. FoodCorps service members and state advisory council members as the school year was drawing to a close.

“We’re really excited about all we’ve learned this year,” Thraves said. “We’ve generated great ideas for how FoodCorps can support farm-to-school efforts across the state, increasing the network of people working in farm-to-school programs and developing new resources and tools to support more programming.”

The six service members in North Carolina had different approaches to their school programs, she said. With a year’s experience, “the service members have been able to share multiple models that will be useful in other farm- toschool efforts.”

In addition, Driscoll said the coordinators learned lessons about summer 2012

21

22 perspectives

Becky Kirkland

what types of training and orientation might be most valuable to the service members. Last summer, she and Thraves took the service members on a tour of North Carolina to give them a taste of the state’s culture and to meet school gardening leaders in a variety of regions.

This year, even more time will be devoted to basic horticulture and nutrition education lessons, as well as ways to integrate this work with the school cafeteria.

Guilford County Extension staff members Karen Neill, Extension horticulture agent; Shannon Wiley, Extension 4-H agent; and Peggie Lewis Joyce, Extension 4-H agent, helped write the grant proposal for North Carolina’s FoodCorps program.

When the Guilford Extension staff learned late last spring that the county would receive a service member, it worked hard to prepare school gardens at the five selected schools before the FoodCorps service member arrived in late August.

In Guilford County, Klaproth stayed busy visiting five schools where gardens were established, teaching mostly third graders because the state’s science curriculum for that grade level includes the study of soils and plants. She worked with as many as 15 classes in a week – sometimes traveling to three different schools in one day to accommodate schedules.

“The kids love her,” Joyce said of Klaproth. “Parents know when she’s coming to their child’s class because the kids don’t want to miss school.”

The program was very popular, and now other schools are establishing their own gardens and asking for some help from a FoodCorps service member.

Helping students learn to eat what they grow was a challenge for the FoodCorps program. Different strategies were rolled out in different schools. At Fairview and Kirkman Park elementary schools, culinary students from Guilford Technical Community College

The FoodCorps farm-to-school program aims to improve students’ nutrition and extend healthy eating habits to their families.

cooked and served dishes made from vegetables grown by Guilford County farmers.

Students also ate the vegetables they grew in their school gardens.

“We had to be creative in finding ways to taste foods,” Klaproth said.

Some of the school garden tastings involved “kid-constructed” dishes, including veggie wraps made with collard leaves. The radish harvest was so successful, that Klaproth sent radishes home with the students.

The tasting component is important in helping improve students’ nutrition, and hopefully extending healthy eating habits to their families. “Research has shown that when kids work in the garden and make healthy snacks with what they grow, they are more likely to make healthy choices in the school cafeteria and at home,” Driscoll said.

In Moore County, FoodCorps’ Naskaris arranged for the company that provides foods for Moore County school cafeterias to purchase and serve locally grown sweet potatoes. Warren County’s service member Celeste Frisbee started after-school culinary clubs to teach students some basic cooking skills. As the program ends, the clubs were planning on preparing a final celebration dinner for their families.

Thraves is confident that more can be done on the farm-to-school

initiative. “There’s so much going on right now with farm-to-school programs in this state,” she said.

“FoodCorps is one more tool on the ground to help get North Carolina food products into school cafeterias.”

The lessons of the gardens extended well beyond food. At one of Guilford’s sites, plants in the school garden were pulled up and left for dead – twice. Both times, Klaproth and the students replanted the plants and watered them well, hoping for a miracle. Klaproth was surprised at how well the twicevandalized garden actually fared.

“The kids were grief stricken,” Klaproth said. One student who had had discipline problems in his own classroom reported that the experience of having the class garden vandalized helped him see how much it hurts to have something you value taken away or destroyed.

For next year, Guilford County would like to have a second FoodCorps service member to reach four additional schools.

Making the FoodCorps efforts sustainable will be a continuing goal, Driscoll said. Some ways of doing that include training teachers on garden curriculum and getting additional community members involved in caring for the school gardens. — Natalie Hampton

CEFS keeps adding to its record of successes

Becky Kirkland

During field day activities in Goldsboro, faculty guides from N.C. State and N.C. A&T, including CALS’ Dr. Matt Poore (right), presented research projects at the CEFS

F

aculty and staff at the Center for Environmental Farming Systems have been busy this year.

Hardly a week goes by without news of how CEFS is expanding some already successful programs, starting new ones and collecting awards recognizing their work.

CEFS is a partnership of N.C. State University, N.C. A&T State University and the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. CEFS develops and promotes food and farming systems that protect the environment, strengthen local communities and provide economic opportunities in North Carolina and beyond.

In the 2010 report, From Farm to Fork: A Guide to Building North Carolina’s Sustainable Local Food Economy, recommendations included bringing new farmers into the state. In the last year, CEFS began working toward that goal through its Bringing New Farmers to the Table program, coordinated by Joanna Lelekacs.

In March, the program selected five North Carolina communities to receive support in planning and developing incubator farms.

Partner organizations chosen to receive support include the Town of Robbins, Moore County; LINC, Inc., Wilmington and New Hanover County; Wayne Food Initiative,

Goldsboro; Onslow Incubator Farm, Jacksonville; and Guilford County.

Incubator farms provide new farmers with land to begin their operations and hone their farming skills before they make an investment in a more permanent location. With the average age of North Carolina farmers at 59, incubator farms are a way of helping young people transition to farming.

In addition, Bringing New Farmers to the Table conducted workshops across the state designed to help N.C. Cooperative Extension agents to better support beginning farmers. More than 60 Extension agents participated in five workshops. Of the agents who participated in the workshops, 60 percent reported that they are already working with more than 10 beginning farmers, and 25 percent are working with more than 20 beginning farmers annually.

Another CEFS project, the 10% Campaign, which generates and tracks the demand for local food in North Carolina, recorded more than $16 million in local food purchases by May 2012 since the project’s inception in 2010, through the efforts of more than 5,000 individuals and 600 businesses across the state. The campaign is aimed at getting consumers and businesses

to spend at least 10 percent of their food budget on locally sourced food.

After last year’s successful Carolina Meat Conference in Concord, NC Choices — CEFS’ program that supports North Carolina’s locally marketed, niche meat industry — hosted a second butchery training workshop in March in Silk Hope, as well as a Whole Animal Butchery Workshop in Asheville.

Both workshops featured Kari Underly of Range Inc. in Chicago and Craig Deihl of Cypress in Charleston, S.C. As a result of the meat conferences’ success, NC Choices received a $325,000 grant from the N.C. Rural Economic Development Center.

The funds will be used over two years to continue providing smallscale, commercial meat processors across the state with assistance, including business development and technical training.

A second annual Carolina Meat Conference will be held near Winston Salem in early December 2012.

May was an especially busy month for CEFS. The center hosted a field day and local foods dinner at CEFS Goldsboro units for more than 300 friends and policy makers across the state. Farm tours gave participants a close look at research activities in the Farming Systems Research, Organic and Livestock units.

At the field day, faculty from N.C. State and N.C. A&T State universities explained research projects in the areas of soil and water studies, agroforestry, no-till organic corn production, organic canola production, vacuum systems summer 2012

23

Becky Kirkland

CEFS field day participants got a hands-on tour of organic production at one of the Goldsboro units.

for removing flies from dairy cows and outdoor swine and more.

A week later, U.S. Department of Agriculture Under Secretary Kevin Concannon came to Goldsboro’s City Market to launch the Produce Ped’lers project, which will provide fresh produce to local food “deserts,” delivered by youngsters on bicycle. The riders are engaged in a youth food systems leadership development project called SWARM. Finally in May, CEFS, along with Slow Food Triangle and the N.C. Agricultural Foundation, hosted the annual Farm to Fork Picnic at Orange County’s Breeze Farm Incubator. Dubbed the “Best All You Can Eat Feast in the Country” by Bon Appetit magazine, this year’s Farm to Fork picnic featured the combined talents of 28 farms, 28 chefs and 11 food artisans. More than $23,000 was raised for the apprentice farmer programs at CEFS and Breeze farm incubator, with more than 700 in attendance at the picnic.

In addition, CEFS received several honors this year. Two partner universities of CEFS – N.C. State and N.C. A&T State – were among those named regional winners of the C. Peter Magrath University Engagement Award for 2012, presented by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. The 24

perspectives

Outreach Scholarship and Magrath University Community Engagement Awards recognize four-year public universities that have redesigned their learning, discovery and engagement functions to become more deeply involved with their communities.

CEFS also received N.C. State University’s Opal Mann Green

Engagement and Scholarship Award, which recognizes the creation of teams to pursue community-based learning and action around issues of local importance.

CEFS was honored for its comprehensive statewide local food systems work.

CEFS also continues its popular workshop series, Seasons of Sustainable Agriculture. The workshops, for commercial and home growers, focus on topics ranging from beneficial insects, legume cover and no-till production, small poultry flocks, beekeeping, shiitake mushroom production and agroforestry. — Natalie Hampton

Drop by drop: Soil scientists investigate ways to safely treat wastewater for reuse

W

hen N.C. State University soil scientist Mike Hoover decided more than two decades ago to put a series of advanced septic systems above ground at a field research site near Pittsboro, Chatham County’s Cooperative Extension Center was doing something no one had ever done before: creating a place where people could see and understand how various small-scale, on-site wastewater treatment technologies worked.

County health departments, state regulatory agencies, technology consultants and product manufacturers all pitched in to develop the handson training site. Other universities and agencies followed suit, and today there are some 25 such systems located around the world.

The latest hands-on training site, based on the model developed

by Hoover and his colleagues, is being planned for Indonesia. The Research Triangle Institute (RTI) is working in partnership with a local university and other organizations to develop a wastewater training and demonstration center that would serve as a knowledge and training hub and promote appropriate sanitation technologies throughout the region. According to RTI’s Dave Robbins, the goal is to establish similar demonstration facilities in targeted universities in South and Southeast Asia to accomplish technology transfer and real capacity building for on-site and decentralized wastewater treatment, reuse and recycling.

Hoover said, not only extends the water supply, it also uses less energy than it would take to pump the wastewater to a centralized facility for treatment before sending it back again to the community via another separate set of pipelines.

In addition to demonstrating the technologies, Hoover and Pradhan are working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to wrap up research into technology performance and health effects of such decentralized water reuse technologies. They are studying seven systems employing different technologies to treat and reuse wastewater for non-potable purposes at apartment buildings, resort communities, schools and clusters of houses. The systems are in New York, North Carolina and Texas and have flows ranging from about 1,000 to 500,000 gallons a day. They are also working with smaller systems, including those for single-family homes whose owners want to stop wasting drinking water

Courtesy Mike Hoover

The site that Dr. Hoover and his colleagues first built in Chatham County during 1989-90 was moved to N.C. State University’s Lake Wheeler Road Field Laboratory 15 years ago, and since then, he and his soil science colleagues have continued to break scientific ground as they help address one of the biggest challenges facing our nation: how to ensure a safe and plentiful water supply in the face of projected water shortfalls.

Hoover and Dr. Sushama Pradhan, a soils and on-site water technology research scientist, use the field lab site to demonstrate how new decentralized technologies can be used to produce non-potable waters – those that aren’t used for drinking, cooking, showering or bathing – at the point where the water is initially used, whether it be in an individual home, a small business or small communities.

Recycling the water for such uses as landscape irrigation, toilet flushing and building chiller systems,

Bill Fenner (left) of Envirotech, with N.C. State’s Dr. Sushama Pradhan, explains the Bioclere decentralized wastewater treatment system donated for training sessions at the Lake Wheeler Road Field Laboratory.

in Orange and Davidson counties, as well as in Los Angeles County, Calif.

The CDC research is the firstever conducted in the United States on decentralized water reuse for non-potable purposes. “Australia and Germany are literally 10 years ahead of us when it comes to decentralized reuse,” Hoover said.

“Research in other countries has shown the safety, but people here want research done here, in the United States.”

Pradhan noted that decentralized reuse can be successful in rural, suburban and urban communities. “Even inside the city center, where public sewers already exist, decentralized reuse can occur using a process sometimes called sewermining,” she said.

As an example, she pointed to the Visionaire, a 35-story building with 251 condominiums in lower Manhattan. New York City’s drinking water and sewer systems serve the building, but the building also has an on-site wastewater treatment system in its basement.

“The non-potable waters produced from the sewage are then pumped back up into the building after treatment. These waters are acceptable for use for toilet flushing, grounds irrigation, water display fountains, makeup waters for chillers and other similar uses,” she said.

“This approach diverts about half of the sewage that would normally be going into New York City’s sewers. Once this water is treated, it gets used a second time, a third time and so on. This reduces drinking water use by 48 percent in this high-rise community,” she added. “Not only does it save money, but this approach also extends the life of the city’s drinking water supply by as much as 30,000 gallons a day. The capacity of the city’s wastewater treatment plant is also extended by an even larger amount.”

summer 2012

25

Closer to home, Pradhan and Hoover have seen increased interest in decentralized water reuse.

At a new city park in Raleigh, for example, there are plans to provide reclaimed water for toilet flushing. Recycled waters are also being used to irrigate golf courses from Lexington in the Piedmont to Corolla in the Outer Banks. And a high school-middle school complex in Greensboro uses harvested rainwaters and locally treated wastewaters for toilet and urinal flushing as well as for athletic field irrigation.

Many decentralized reuse technologies are also demonstrated at the Lake Wheeler Road Field Laboratory facility.

Meanwhile, with the support of the Irish company Anua, which has its North American headquarters in Greensboro, the N.C. State University team has been assessing pilot wastewater treatment and water reuse technologies at the T.Z. Osborne Wastewater Treatment Plant in Greensboro.

The research the team conducts is just part of what Hoover believes it will take to push past the so-called “yuck factor” and gain public acceptance of decentralized wastewater reuse. That’s why, as part of his responsibilities as a Cooperative Extension specialist, Hoover gives frequent 26

perspectives

decentralized wastewater reuse presentations, demonstrations and workshops for scientists, system operators, environmental health specialists, engineers, builders and developers.

For example, this August, he’s speaking at the N.C. Green Industry Council’s second annual water symposium at N.C. State and in September nationally at the annual WateReuse Association Symposium in Florida.

The CALS Soil Science Department’s Extension team has also developed one-day and two-day short courses on-line, including virtual tours of reuse sites, that provide lessons learned and real-life experiences from those whom Hoover characterized as a “who’s who” of decentralized wastewater reuse.

Dee Shore

Dee Shore

Dr. Mike Hoover presents technologies used for recycling water for non-potable uses, during a January workshop at the Lake Wheeler Road demonstration site (shown below).

Courses and presentations also take place at the Lake Wheeler Road site. “Here people can get their hands on the technologies,” Hoover said, “and be able to ‘kickthe-tires’ in person, so to speak.”

At a January workshop, Pradhan discussed the CDC research and showed participants one of the German technologies that can be installed in a home’s basement and treat wastewater for reuse within the home and its yard. Dr. Barrett Kays, an N.C. State University Soil Science Department alumnus who leads the Raleigh-based environmental consulting firm Landis Inc., discussed several pioneering wastewater reuse systems that he’s helped develop.

Hoover told workshop participants that centralized wastewater reuse has gained increasing acceptance in recent years, with cities and large communities treating wastewater and using separate pipelines to carry the treated nonpotable water to customers for irrigation and other uses. “But decentralized wastewater reuse is still in its infancy in our state and in the U.S., as well,” he said.

Many North Carolinians – about 50 percent, he said – will never be served by such centralized systems and instead rely on septic systems. If these people were interested in water reuse, they would need the types of decentralized technologies that Pradhan and Hoover are studying.

While the N.C. State scientists stress the efficiency of decentralized wastewater reuse, they also empha-

size the need to treat water to the safety level that matches the water’s intended uses, instead of treating all water to drinking water standards.

As Pradhan noted, getting river water, brackish groundwater and ocean water clean enough to drink can get expensive and takes a lot of energy. Yet every day the average American uses 400 gallons of water treated to drinking water standards.

“Only three of those gallons are consumed,” she said. “Some more is used for cooking food and taking showers, but the vast majority of the water we bring into our houses doesn’t need to be treated to the

same extent as drinking water. So that’s why our team is focusing on the non-potable water supply – on having water supplies that are fit for their purpose.”

Hoover added that locally treating water supplies based on their intended purposes using this decentralized wastewater reuse approach is more efficient and less expensive than many centralized reuse options.

“It’s clear we need to improve and enhance our water supply choices. We need to be sure there is more than just one menu choice for the future of water,” Hoover said. “Decentralized reuse for non-

potable water supply production is one means of doing that.

“Decentralized wastewater reuse works facility by facility, community by community, home by home, business by business,” he added. “A drop of water becomes a quart, a quart becomes a gallon, a gallon becomes thousands of gallons. Thousands of gallons become millions of gallons. Millions of gallons are a water supply for a community. And it adds up.

“Decentralized wastewater reuse is a way of extending our water supply drop by drop. — Dee Shore

A

s Peggie Garner rushed in the pouring rain to the Onslow County Chamber of Commerce “Woman of the Year” luncheon, her biggest concerns were arriving on time and staying dry.

Little did she know she had been nominated for the award, and in fact, would be making an acceptance speech mere moments later.

“As they began describing the winner, I kept thinking to myself, ‘That’s really cool. I wonder who it is?’” says Garner, director of Cooperative Extension in Onslow County. Then recognition dawned, and she felt her face flush crimson.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” she says. “Then I turned around and all I could see were my parents. My dad has Parkinson’s disease and uses a walker … and my brother was there with his wife. He’s been living with brain cancer. Then I saw this trail of people behind them, and I just lost it.

“And, of course, that’s when they called me up to accept the award,” she says with a laugh. “Despite the mascara running down my face, it was awesome.”

Born in Carteret County and raised in Craven County, Garner earned a bachelor’s degree in school and community health in 1983 and master’s degree in

Suzanne Stanard

Extension’s Garner is Onslow’s Woman of the Year Peggie Garner, Onslow County Extension director, was honored for her commitment to community service.

education in 1993, both from East Carolina University. After a 12year stint as a health educator and later a health education supervisor for the Onslow County Health Department, she joined Cooperative Extension in 1995, and she says, “I never looked back.”

When she became director of the Onslow County office in 2001, her duties grew to include more administrative work, but her engagement in and passion for her community never waned.

Garner has received a number of awards and honors throughout her career, including the Individual Distinguished Service Award from the mayor’s Committee for Persons

with Disabilities. She served as president of the Onslow County Partnership for Children from 1999 to 2002 and has served on the North Carolina Board for Health Education Inc. She has worked with AIDS patients, the elderly, children, new parents, individuals with developmental disabilities … the list goes on. Asked to name the one cause closest to her heart, she replies, “All of them.”

Her favorite part of the job?

That’s an easy one: the people.

“If something happened and I had to retire tomorrow, I can easily say that this has been a great career,” Garner says. “I have a wonderful, creative staff. We’re like brothers and sisters, and I’m grateful for that.”

Their current list of projects includes the ground-breaking of the Onslow Discovery Garden, a fouracre arboretum that will include an ability garden, children’s garden and pavilion for community gathersummer 2012

27

Marc Hall

ings; two popular farmers markets; and the Horticultural Entreprenuerial Leadership Program (HELP), which eventually will include a 15-acre incubator farm for citizens interested in starting their own vegetable gardens.

“The HELP initiative takes them from soil sampling to selling,” Garner said. “And last year’s class was able to donate more than $1,000 worth of produce to the soup kitchen.”

In a typical day, Garner’s work runs the gamut of issues people face in their everyday lives, from housing issues to financial planning.

“Just the other week, I talked with young couples at the hospital’s ‘baby boot camp’ about infant

CPR, ate lunch, then led a class on fall prevention at the senior center,” Garner says.

“My internal mode, the thing that keeps me plugging along is, ‘What can I do that will make a difference in somebody’s life?’” she says. “We have a tremendous opportunity in Extension to make real change, to help our communities.”

It is this philosophy and her unwavering commitment to her community that earned Garner “Woman of the Year” honors.

“Some people say they’ve dreamt of stuff like that, but I never did … I just didn’t see myself that way,” she says. “I do what I do because I love to do it and not for any other reason.”

Research symposium highlights evolution of life sciences Nobel Laureate Dr. Phillip A. Sharp delivers the conference keynote address.

F

rom evolution to the economy, the “Stewards of the Future: Research for Human Health and Global Sustainability” conference covered an array of topics and drew more than 400 participants representing science, industry and academia.

Produced by the North Carolina Agricultural and Life Sciences Foundation, with major support from lead sponsors Bayer CropScience and BASF, the April 17 28

After regaining her composure at the awards luncheon, Garner was quick to credit the people around her with her success.

“I was the first girl in our family who had gone to college, and my parents were the wind beneath my wings,” she says. “I’m very blessed.

I have a very caring, loving family that I was born into, and I also have a very loving and caring family that God has blessed me with. And not everybody has that.

I try very hard not to take that for granted.

“As you get older, you realize the luxuries in life,” she says.

“It’s not the huge material things.

It’s the blessings that matter most.” — Suzanne Stanard

perspectives

conference was designed to foster research collaborations in the agricultural and life sciences to meet urgent challenges to human health, the environment, social well-being and the global economy.

In his morning keynote address, “A New Biology for the 21st Century,” Dr. Phillip A. Sharp, Nobel Laureate and Institute Professor at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, described how the evolution of biological science has happened on the MIT campus and its impact on the surrounding community.

At the start of his remarks, Sharp said, “I’m really blown away by what North Carolina is investing in health science and life science … you should be really able in the next 10 to 20 years to become the leading life science community in the country.”

He went on to describe the new biology concept, saying, “The takehome message, the bottom line take-home message that you should think about is the following: Life science is a very new science.”

Before Juan Enriquez took the podium for the afternoon keynote address, conference participants engaged with a panel of industry leaders on “Corporate and Institutional Sustainability Strategies,” interacted with College of Agriculture and Life Sciences researchers showcasing their work in the Innovation Fair and listened to an economic forecast by William Neal Reynolds Professor and Extension economist Dr. Mike Walden.

Enriquez, managing director of Excel Venture Management, challenged the audience to rethink the evolution of creation in his talk, “Homo Evolutis.”

“For better or worse, what we’re seeing is that we’re beginning to take direct and deliberate control over the evolution of bacteria, plants, animals and ourselves …

and that makes us a fundamentally different creature than Homo sapiens who are simply aware of their existence,” he said during the mind-bending presentation. “We’re calling it ‘Homo evolutis.’”

The conference closed with the announcement of award winners.

Dr. Ignazio Carbone and Rodrigo Olarte, both of the CALS Depart-

ment of Plant Pathology, won the Outstanding Faculty and Student Research Awards, respectively. The winning Innovation Fair exhibits were as follows: • First place: Jet Fuel from Camelina at NCSU: A Systems Approach, Department of Plant Biology

• Second place: Weaving the Wisdom of Nature into the Web of Life & Genetic Pest Management, Department of Entomology • Third place: Advances in Safeguarding Water Supplies, Department of Plant Biology — Suzanne Stanard

Turning the Tide on Poverty in Hertford County n Hertford County, public school students aren’t lugging heavy book bags home. Though literacy is a problem there, the county schools don’t have enough textbooks to go around, so students share books during the school day, rather than taking them home.

But an anti-poverty effort of N.C. Cooperative Extension in Hertford County is improving young people’s access to books. In April, Extension celebrated nearly a year’s work through the program Turning the Tide on Poverty, which included book donations to youth programs.

Turning the Tide on Poverty began in North Carolina when several Cooperative Extension professionals participated in a threeday training program last summer.

The Southern Rural Development Center trained facilitators to help communities identify solutions and execute programs to fight poverty.

Robin Roper, family and consumer sciences Extension specialist and one of the trained facilitators, looked at the economic demographics of Hertford County in northeast North Carolina and saw potential for Turning the Tide there. This was a new program for Extension, and Roper knew that Hertford County Extension Director Crystal Smith would be the perfect person to facilitate the program there.

On April 23, Extension held its “Hertford County Home Grown” event to celebrate book donations through Read, Lead, Succeed, the program that grew out of Turning

Natalie Hampton

I

Representatives of the Delta Academy mentoring program receive bags of books from Cooperative Extension’s Turning the Tide program.

the Tide conversations. During the event, guests sampled a variety of local food products provided by Hertford food producers.

“Parents reading to kids, and kids having access to books outside school is important to literacy,” Roper said. “In homes of poverty, books are a luxury.”

The evening was bittersweet however, as the community also said farewell to Crystal Smith, who had moved to Cooperative Extension’s Warren County center to be closer to her home.

Turning the Tide started last summer as Cooperative Extension held community meetings in Hertford County. About 20 people attended the first meeting at Roanoke Chowan Community College.

“They recognized that poverty was huge in Hertford County,” Smith said.

The group came together during a series of meetings, facilitated by

Cooperative Extension staff, and decided that education was the key to fighting poverty in their county.

Specifically, they wanted to work on literacy and expanding children’s access to books.

“This is a democratic process, to determine what works in the community and what needs to happen to ‘turn the tide’ in that community,” said Susan Jakes, community development specialist with N.C. Cooperative Extension at N.C. State University.

Access to books is a problem in Hertford County, Smith said.

In public schools, textbooks are shared, so most students can’t take books home. There is a county library, but not everyone in Hertford has access to transportation to visit the library regularly.

“Students are expected to read at home. A book list exists, but there aren’t enough copies to go around,” Smith said. summer 2012

29

Hertford County Schools administrators were thrilled that education, particularly literacy, was identified as a means for fighting poverty, Smith said. “The superintendent has been involved, as well as people from local churches,” she said. “I have to remind them [the community group] to start with one thing!”

Over the year, the literacy effort came to be known as Read, Lead, Succeed. Community groups contributed to the literacy program and identified groups to receive the books. At the April celebration, several local groups supporting county youth received books for their members.

The groups that received books were • Princess Ministry of First Baptist Church, Murfreesboro, a mentoring program for high school girls • Two mentoring programs of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., Ahoskie Chapter Delta GEMS and Delta Academy, also for girls • Most Men Mentoring Inc., a mentoring program for young men

Dr. Sam Pardue,

Poultry Science Department since

head of the De-

July 2005. Before serving as depart-

partment of Poultry Science at N.C.

ment head, he was undergraduate

State University, was appointed in-

coordinator and a faculty member

terim associate dean and director of

of poultry science.

Academic Programs in the College

He earned three degrees from

of Agriculture and Life Sciences,

N.C. State: bachelor’s degree in

effective July 1. He replaced Dr. Ken

poultry science and master’s degree

Esbenshade, who returned to the

and doctorate in physiology. His

Animal Science Department after

post-doctoral training was in genet-

11 years as associate dean.

ics at the University of Massachu-

Pardue has been he ad of the

setts-Amherst.

• New Ahoskie Baptist Church After-school Academy.

In addition, a number of books from the Hertford Schools’ reading list were distributed to those attending Hertford County Home Grown. Participants were encourNatalie Hampton

• Hertford County High School Emergent Readers

Sam Pardue to lead CALS Academic Programs

Turning the Tide donates these books to youth programs.

30 perspectives

aged to pick up a book for themselves or to give to a friend in the community.

Read, Lead, Succeed is already looking toward its second phase.

The Read, Lead, Succeed Community Group has raised more than $3,500 in an enhancement fund of N.C. Cooperative Extension Service Foundation that will be used to support future literacy projects.

Two Hertford County Extension professionals – Stephanie ParkerHelmkamp, family and consumer sciences agent, and Wendy Drake Burgess, agriculture agent – have agreed to serve as advisers for phase II of Read, Lead, Succeed.

Phase II will continue the goal of improving literacy in Hertford County by purchasing books and resources to support new curriculum course study, providing parent involvement in literacy and continuing the literacy collaboration with Hertford County Schools. — Natalie Hampton

ALUMNI

Dee Shore

noteworthy

Trailblazing alumna makes her mark in clinical microbiology Dr. Lizzie Harrell made history in 1978 as the first AfricanAmerican to receive a Ph.D. in microbiology at N.C. State.

F

or nearly as long as Lizzie Johnson Harrell can remember, she has been, in some form or fashion, a teacher – whether she was leading a make-believe classroom at home with some of her 12 brothers and sisters, instructing first-year medical school students, or serving as a mentor to emerging microbiologists.

Harrell was a trailblazer at N.C. State as the first African-American to receive a Ph.D. in microbiology. She considers the instructing, guiding and mentoring she went on to do both locally and nationally to be the foremost contribution of her 33-year career at Duke Univer-

sity Medical Center – and a contribution she continues to make today.

Though she retired last fall as the associate director of the hospital’s Clinical Microbiology Laboratory.

In December 2011, the Duke University Board of Trustees granted Harrell emeritus status; she is now Research Professor Emerita of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology.

Harrell remains involved as a mentor with the American Society for Microbiology. A Fellow of the society’s distinguished American Academy of Microbiology and a Diplomate of the American Board of Microbiology, Harrell helped establish a nationwide microbiology mentoring network several years ago, and she also informally advises scientists-to-be through local schools and universities in the Research Triangle and beyond.

Reaching out to others, she says, is something she learned from the numerous people who reached out to her over the years. When acknowledging those who have supported her efforts as a scientist, Harrell begins with her parents, who insisted she go to college.

Always a curious child with an academic bent, Harrell left her hometown in Shallotte in 1961 to study biology at N.C. Central University in Durham.

It was there, in biology and chemistry classes, that she met Sampson Harrell, who would become her husband. After graduating, Lizzie served as a research technician in pharmaceutical research for DuPont in Newark, Del., where she analyzed specimens from animals that had been given experimental drugs.

Three years later, with Sampson studying medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Harrell chose to enter graduate school there. And after earning a master’s degree in bacteriology and immunology, she followed her husband as he moved to Washington,

summer 2012

31

D.C., for his medical residency.

She went to work as research microbiologist at a Veterans Administration Hospital there from 1972 to 1974.

The couple then returned to North Carolina, and Lizzie soon enrolled as a Ph.D. student at N.C. State University. She earned her degree in 1978, working under Dr. Jim Evans, the late head of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Department of Microbiology, studying how anaerobic conditions affect antibiotics used to treat infectious Staphylococcus. Harrell acknowledges Evans as key in her development as a scientist. “Dr. Evans took me under his wings,” she recalls. “He was so gracious in guiding me.”

Upon graduation, Harrell went to work as a bench-level technologist in the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory at Duke University Medical Center. The laboratory plays a critical role in patient care at the hospital, responsible for detecting, isolating and identifying infectious microorganisms in patients’ samples, performing tests to determine the most effective antibiotics for treatment, and advising physicians on related issues.

Starting at the bench was, Harrell says, “the best thing that could have happened to me because I got all the basics. I really pride myself on having done that – on taking time to understand the organization and to know my field from the inside out.”

That experience, she believes, made her a better supervisor as she worked her way up to become assistant laboratory director in 1982 and associate director in 1998. The first full-time African-American faculty member in the basic science departments at Duke, Harrell also earned the rank of full professor in Molecular Genetics and Microbiology and in Pathology.

At Duke and among microbiologists, Harrell became known for her research on emerging antibiotic-resistant bacteria and for 32 perspectives

bringing molecular microbiology techniques into the Duke Clinical Microbiology Laboratory. In 1993, after having taken molecular microbiology courses at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Harrell took a year-long sabbatical at the Durham VA hospital to get more in-depth knowledge and experience in examining DNA and RNA using such tools as the polymerase chain reaction and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis.

When she returned to Duke, she began introducing these new methods into the laboratory to detect infectious agents more rapidly, to measure the amount of virus in patients’ samples, and to discriminate between strains of pathogenic microbes.

The Molecular section soon became the fastest-growing section of the laboratory, and Harrell says that keeping up with discoveries in the burgeoning field and their applications to patient care has helped satisfy her scientific curiosity.

She has also enjoyed the range of ever-changing health challenges she’s been asked to help address, from respiratory and urinary tract infections to infections in organ transplant patients. She also was

involved in detecting HIV and the novel N1N1 influenza virus.

“People sometimes look at me and say, ‘Thirty-three years – didn’t you get bored?’ And I say to them, ‘Never. Never a dull moment,’” she says. “There’s always a challenge to learn more and to apply newer methods in order to do the best for your patients.”

Likewise, Harrell is finding new challenges as a retiree. She’s spending more time with her three grandchildren, her son and daughter in-law; traveling with her husband; serving on a Federal Food and Drug Administration advisory committee; and continuing her involvement in the church and community.

“I will spend less time on science, but more time on other activities. However, anytime anybody mentions microbiology and science, I get excited,” she says. “I’ve been lucky to have had many mentors throughout my life —in high school, in elementary school and grad school — who’ve helped me get to this point. And I’m grateful for the support I’ve gotten from my immediate family and my in-laws.

“I feel like much was given to me,” she says, “and I feel like giving back to others.” — Dee Shore

Alumni couple work to ensure the success of their community college students

H

e’s known fondly on campus as “Dr. Don.” She lights up a room with seemingly boundless energy. Together, they’re two of the top administrators at Coastal Carolina Community College (CCCC). Each is a force of nature driven by a single goal: student success.

Don and Marianne Herring, who both earned degrees from N.C. State’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, met as graduate students and married a few years later. Both native to Onslow County, they grew up just eight miles

apart but never crossed paths until they came to N.C. State.

Don, who currently serves as division chair for student services at CCCC, earned CALS master’s and doctoral degrees in agricultural education, in 1980 and 1989, respectively. Marianne, division chair for industrial and applied technology programs at CCCC, earned her 1985 bachelor’s and 1989 master’s degrees in agricultural economics.

“I had been involved with 4-H and originally thought I was going to State for horticulture,” Marianne

Suzanne Stanard

said. “But then I started taking business classes and really enjoyed it.

And once I met [Agricultural and Resource Economics faculty member] Bob Usry, that just sealed the deal. He was a wonderful adviser.”

Marianne grew up in a military family in a rural community and spent her summers working on tobacco farms. Her family raised chickens, and her father built her a little greenhouse in their backyard when she was a child. She credits her family and her experience in 4-H with giving her a foundation for lifelong learning.

“I don’t think the Cooperative Extension professionals realize how much influence they have on those young 4-H’ers,” she said. “They take such great interest in you, help you study and get ready for college.”

Don’s parents were educators who instilled in him the value of learning – and teaching.

“Going into ag education was a natural fit for me,” Don said. “I’ve always had a great passion for agriculture, having grown up on a family farm. I knew that N.C. State was just where I wanted to be.”

Don also was active in Onslow County 4-H, as well as North Carolina FFA. He won awards as a junior beekeeper, and Marianne was a national 4-H champion in horticulture.

After living in Montgomery County for a few years as newlyweds, the couple returned home when Don accepted a vocational director position with the Onslow County School System.

“As luck would have it, I finished my thesis at the same time that Don completed his dissertation, so we were able to graduate together in 1989,” Marianne said. “I was unemployed when we moved back to Onslow County, so I took a parttime teaching position at the community college in developmental math and business law.”

That led to a full-time position as coordinator for continuing education, and eventually her current job

Marianne and Don Herring prepare to attend the May 2012 commencement at Coastal Carolina Community College.

as division chair. Managing programs that range from cosmetology to welding, as well as teaching applied mathematics, Marianne has held the position since 1996. Don joined CCCC in 2000 as division chair for student services and handles everything from admissions to counseling.

A dynamic pair widely respected on campus, the Herrings describe their work as a “natural partnership” enhanced by the fact that they also happen to be married.

Don has implemented a number of successful programs at CCCC, which won the community college system’s “Staff of the Year Award” in 2011. These programs include a career expo for high school students, the Minority Male Mentoring Program and a Wounded Warrior Support Program for military veterans. He also led efforts to transform a local abandoned wastewater treatment plant site into an environmental learning center called “Sturgeon City.”

Marianne has been recognized with a number of honors for her leadership in the community college system and for excellence in Extension.

Asked what they love most about their jobs, Don and Marianne said the same thing: the people.

“I love working with faculty and students,” Marianne said. She runs an instructors academy for her faculty members, helps them manage their budgets and does “whatever it takes for them to be successful.”

The CCCC student population ranges in age from 16 to 76, and about 5,000 students come through campus every day, Don said.

The annual May commencement ceremony is a particularly moving experience for both Don and Marianne.

“It’s life-changing for our students,” Don said. “There’s a story of success and/or challenge in every student who walks across that stage. They’re single parents, they have deployed husbands or sick children or they’re working two jobs. Not a single one just breezed through.”

Marianne said, “We’ve cheered them on, nurtured them and directed them. It’s at graduation that you fully realize they’ve stayed the course. They’re just amazing.” — Suzanne Stanard

summer 2012

33

noteworthy

GIVING

JCRA’s 2012 Gala in the Garden is a red, white and green celebration

Marc Hall

Terri Leith

More than 500 gala guests enjoyed the vibrant surroundings and sumptuous food at the JCRA in May.

A

s N.C. State University’s 125th anniversary year, 2012 has already included many celebratory observances. This year’s Gala in the Garden at the university’s JC Raulston Arboretum was prominent among them, offering its own special commemoration: The annual garden party and fund-raising event doubled as a birthday party for N.C. State.

And that wasn’t the only milestone being marked. This year is the 150th anniversary of the passage of the Morrill Act which enabled the creation of the nation’s landgrant universities. It is also the annual garden gala’s 20th anniversary, and later this year the JCRA will host a celebration of the 10th anniversary of its Ruby C. McSwain Education Center complex.

Held May 6, the ever-popular event at the JCRA – internationally renowned for its diverse gardens, plant collections and horticultural research and education sites – drew 525 registered guests. On a com34 perspectives

fortably cool spring day, garden enthusiasts browsed among eight silent auction tents which featured eclectic collections, botanicals and “finer things.” They were served garden drinks and locally grown gourmet selections, to the accompaniment of live music by the Joy Recorder Ensemble.

And befitting the university’s birthday, red and white were dominant décor colors – from the frothy tablecloths and matching umbrellas to the red lion amaryllises brightening grassy paths to tree-shaded glades.

In the evening, guests moved to the McSwain Center for coffee and dessert of N.C. State ice cream and cupcakes, followed by a program themed around the 125th anniversary.

Dr. Johnny Wynne, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, welcomed guests and recognized the efforts of the 2012 gala event chair, Charlie Kidder, a landscaping business owner, gardening

columnist and longtime JCRA volunteer.

Serving as the gala’s honorary chair was Frank Grainger, member of the UNC Board of Governors and of the N.C. Tobacco and Agricultural Foundations, who was introduced by N.C. State Chancellor Randy Woodson.

Woodson also spoke about the roots of N.C. State and the efforts of the Watauga Club, the group of North Carolina leaders who fought to establish the state’s land-grant institution for higher education in Raleigh. After honoring the university’s past and ongoing transformational impact, Woodson turned his attention to Dean Wynne, who retired this summer after eight years as CALS dean and 50 years of affiliation with N.C. State, as student and faculty member. Listing the many accomplishments of the College during Wynne’s tenure, Woodson said, “Thank you, Johnny, for your dedicated service and leadership.”

Marc Hall

Garden enthusiasts flocked to tents of items for sale in the gala’s silent auction, a significant part of the event’s annual fund-raising efforts, with proceeds supporting the arboretum’s ongoing research, teaching and outreach activities.

Dr. Ted Bilderback, JCRA director, also thanked Wynne and conferred upon him a lifetime membership at the arboretum. He invited the dean to take part in “some terrific volunteer opportunities,” as he presented Wynne a JCRA volunteer “uniform” hat and shirt.

By day’s end, there was something else to celebrate: The silent auction had raised more than $31,000, and sponsor gifts totaled $52,000, according to Anne Porter, CALS director of development for the JCRA.

“When the pre-gala plant sale totals are included, I feel very comfortable saying that we reached our net goal of $80,000 this year,” she said. “Of course this event is the arboretum’s main fund-raising event of the year, and the net proceeds support garden development, maintenance and plant collections – plus many staff salaries — all vital to the daily operations of the JCRA and ultimately the enjoyment of our many visitors.”

Those daily operations include the arboretum’s ongoing workshops, symposia, lectures and family programs – and all the things that grow in the place that is “Raleigh’s Garden.” – Terri Leith

Becky Kirkland

Mowrey endowment established to support 4-H horse program

A

fter 30 years of service to the N.C. 4-H Horse Program, Dr. Bob Mowrey retired in January and established an endowment that will continue to provide support for the program and young people he nurtured for many years.

Mowrey had provided leadership to the North Carolina 4-H Horse Program and Adult Horse Extension Educational Programs since 1981. The Dr. Bob Mowrey Extension 4-H Horse Program Endowment, when fully funded, will provide funds to help youth succeed in horse programs.

The endowment will provide support for the 4-H horse programs in the broadest sense. The 4-H Horse Advisory Board will annually submit requests on use of the income funds when the endowment is fully funded.

As a professor and Extension horse commodity coordinator in

Dr. Bob Mowrey, with his wife, Peggy, signs the endowment, which will provide funds to help youngsters succeed in 4-H horse programs.

the Animal Science Department, Mowrey had tremendous success, said Dr. Todd See, Animal Science Department head. Under his ten-

ure, youth in 4-H horse programs won 204 championships or reserve championships in horse events.

“Bob had an incredible record in summer 2012

35

educating young people. He trained statewide teams that have had unprecedented success in world, regional and national competitions in the areas of judging, horse bowl, hippology, presentations and public speaking,” See said.

“The former program members who spoke at Bob’s retirement event truly credit him as being a teacher and role model,” he said.

Mowrey earned a bachelor’s degree in animal husbandry from

Delaware Valley College of Science and Agriculture and a master’s degree and doctorate in animal industries from Pennsylvania State University. He is a recognized specialist in horse nutrition and farm management. At N.C. State, he published more than 700 Extension bulletins, popular press articles and news articles.

Mowrey and his wife, Peggy, have two children and reside in Chatham County. They own and

operate Hickory Mountain Antiques, a wholesale antique business that sells to dealers for resale.

Gifts to the Dr. Bob Mowrey Extension 4-H Horse Program Endowment may be made to the N.C. 4-H Development Fund, Box 7645, N.C. State University, Raleigh, N.C. 27695-7645. Checks should be payable to N.C. 4-H Development Fund, with the note “Mowrey 4-H Endowment” on the memo line.

— Natalie Hampton

Innovation Fund announcement among highlights of gala celebration for Dean Johnny Wynne r. Johnny Wynne, who retired this summer as dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, was honored June 12 at a gala celebration at N.C. State University’s McKimmon Center. More than 400 well-wishers – including Wynne’s family and N.C. State faculty, students, alumni and friends – gathered at the reception and dinner event, hosted by the College.

Dr. James Oblinger, former N.C. State chancellor and former CALS dean, was host, as Wynne was honored with special presentations and video testimonials.

A highlight of the evening was the announcement that the Wynne Fund for Innovation, established by the College to honor Dean Wynne’s work and vision, had raised more than $411,000. The fund, the first of its kind established to honor a retiring N.C. State dean, will be used by Wynne’s successor and the College to provide funding and support to enhance the university’s expertise in critical areas and allow faculty members to grow ideas into innovative solutions that drive economic impact.

Joining Wynne and N.C. State Chancellor Randy Woodson on stage for a symbolic $411,000 check presentation were major donors Dr. William K. Collins Sr., William H. Culpepper, Charles W. Davenport, S. Lawrence Davenport and Kendall Hill.

Earlier, Britt Cobb, chief of 36 perspectives

Becky Kirkland

D

From left, with the check for the Wynne Fund for Innovation, are Oblinger, Woodson, Wynne, Collins, Hill, Charles Davenport, Lawrence Davenport and Culpepper.

staff to N.C. Gov. Beverly Perdue, made a special surprise presentation. Representing Perdue, he bestowed upon Wynne the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, which honors those who have in more than 30 years of service made a significant difference to the state.

As photos from Wynne’s youth, college days and CALS career played upon a big screen, Oblinger led in sharing anecdotes and reminiscences about Wynne, both on the job and off.

Joining him was Dr. Steven Leath, current president of Iowa State University and former CALS associate dean and director of the N.C. Agricultural Research Service.

Also appearing were Deborah Johnson of the N.C. Pork Council,

who offered the invocation, as well as Teresa James, singer and songwriter, and CALS student Rossie Blinson, both of whom performed special song selections.

In a night when his activities as CALS dean, faculty member and student were extolled by friends and colleagues, Wynne quietly took the stage and said, “I used to say, ‘When I retire, on Friday afternoon, I just want to turn off the lights and go home.’ This has been far from that. I am overwhelmed that over 400 of you are here tonight.”

And always mindful of what’s ahead for the College, he said, “We’re all excited to see how the Innovation Fund will be used.”

– Terri Leith

Join us at CALS

Wolfpack football

2012 !

will be here before you know it!

Get ready to kick off the season right on Sept. 15, 2012, in Dorton Arena!

Come and be part of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ 21st annual tailgate celebration – traditionally the best and biggest N.C. State University tailgate event!

Afterward, you can head over to CarterFinley Stadium, where the Wolfpack will take on South Alabama!

For more information and to register, go to the CALS Alumni & Friends Society site, www.cals.ncsu.edu/alumni, or call 919-515-7222.

2012 CALS Career Expo Mark your calendars for the

Hosted by CALS Career Services, the Expo showcases full-time job opportunities, internships and volunteer organizations.

“Make a Life, Make a Living, Make a Difference”

Register today for the chance to educate students and

CALS Career Expo

Thursday, Sept. 27, 1:00-6:00 p.m.

That’s where Alumni can connect their organizations with CALS students, recent graduates, fellow alumni and industry colleagues. The Career Expo affords participants exposure to more than 1,100 students.

recent graduates about your organization and opportunities that may be available.

Reserve an exhibit booth by visiting the CALS Career Expo link on our website: www.cals.ncsu.edu/career.

Alumni job seekers may also attend.

Report with resumes in hand to the Talley Student Center.

We expect more than 70 employers from career fields in agriculture and life sciences. Links to the attending companies can also be found on our website.

PERSPECTIVES College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Campus Box 7603 North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC 27695-7603

Courtesy Brian Langerhans

NONPROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID RALEIGH, NC PERMIT #2353

A CALS scientist researches the predictability of evolution through studies of the Gambusia fish, inhabitant of isolated blue holes – submerged caves in the Bahamas. (Story, page 15)