The Planted Heritage

Jump from page 7 “Biology’s philosophy is that we don’t want to take these things on and make the mistake of making it name only,” he said.

“We want to make a good rigorous program that when a person graduates from here they can get a job or go to graduate school.”

Lee said, however, that both departments are very different culturally, and therein lies a challenge.

“Our culture is a pretty rigorous – or very rigorous in some cases – culture to get students into med school, so we might not seem like we’re very embracing of the ag folks even though we teach a lot of them,” he said.

“Sometimes they can feel very overwhelmed when they come over here by our culture of pretty rigorous teaching, not saying that ag isn’t, but that’s the way it has to be here. Otherwise, our students can’t succeed if we’re not pretty tough on them.”

Kennan, who has a biology minor in addition to his environmental science major, said the two departments differ significantly.

“Yesterday, we had departmental Chapel with them as a sign of friendship, I guess you could say,” Kennan said. “But those students are systematically different. I’m not saying that

in a negative way. I’m just saying there’s a different culture.”

Brokaw said he fears the university will have difficulty recruiting students.

“There are a lot of Christian schools that offer biology programs,” he said. “So there is no uniqueness in them needing to come all the way to Abilene, Texas, for that.”

Rhodes said he hopes preserving funding for some of the department’s traditions will help preserve its uniqueness. He said he thinks the students believe they are losing a community as much as they are losing a department and recognized the danger that that type of loss can present.

“I think if we’re not careful, we lose an important part of who we are,” he said. “ACU Rodeo, the Wildlife Club, Block and Bridle; it is important to have those kind of department and cultural aspects to continue to exist within a new environment.”

Kennan said he does not think the ACU Rodeo will continue after the department is closed, though.

“That event will be done – unless a new group forms a club and takes on the responsibility of putting on a rodeo,” he said.

“There will be no department to support it. I don’t think the biology department is going to put

on a rodeo. It’s an animal science thing.”

This department was not just a home for living, breathing animals. It was a home to faculty and students that carry on living, breathing stories. Stories like S.N. Allen’s Stetson hat or Anabel Reid’s passion to bring pure water to developing nations.

Stories that the entire university are a part of, like the ACU Rodeo, or the horses and horsemanship P.E. course. It’s these stories that the department’s community was built on.

While the future of the degree plans, the faculty and all the nuts and bolts, are still foggy, it’s evident that both the university and the department hope these stories can adjust to a new life on the campus where they were born.

“There is this phrase in environmental science,” Cooke said.

“You’ve got three options when your environment comes crashing down and your habitat is falling apart: You can either adapt, you can migrate or you die. I’m ready to adapt.”

ROOTED HISTORY FACES UNCERTAIN FUTURE

ACU creative services contributed photos

Top: Students observe sow at Allen Farm. Right: Students bull ride at the ACU Rodeo, at least a 60-year-old tradtion.

On writing the story that wrote itself FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK VAGABONDAGE

SAMANTHAMADELINE SUTHERLAND ORR EDITOR IN CHIEF

When I started writing this story in November, it was just another assignment for class. I planned on turning in the required 750 words and hoped for a good grade.

But over the next few weeks, the story began to reveal its depth through sources who wouldn’t talk to me and fading documents that barely could.

On a Thursday, I went to the agriculture and environmental science Chapel. Walking into their classroom on the bottom floor of the Har-

08 The Optimist

din Administration Building, I knew I had entered a crowd I didn’t belong in, but at the same time, they made everyone there feel welcome.

I was trying to meet the professors and the students in the department, hoping to write a little feature about the ACU farm or maybe the rodeo, but as soon as I mentioned the Optimist, no one wanted to talk to me. Not an uncommon experience.

But what I wasn’t aware of was that over the past few days, hard decisions had

been made behind closed doors. I didn’t know the group I had targeted that morning was actually a single, living, breathing organism – with more than 70 years of history – that was about to be targeted by the very university they belonged to.

The reason they couldn’t talk wasn’t because they didn’t want to. It was because they were told not to.

I was seen as a nosy reporter, trying to break the news they knew was coming. All the while, I was entirely unaware. There was a meeting scheduled the next Wednesday between the provost and AES students to make the announcement about the proposal to restructure.

Understandably, they didn’t want the Optimist to break

the news before they could tell their students.

By the time I realized what was happening, I still needed a story to turn in for a grade, and still, no faculty or administrator would talk to me.

That ‘s when I turned to the history.

I dug through seven decades worth of newspaper clippings and photo archives about the department. I saw every story ever published about every stock show, new tractor and rodeo queen.

I visited Rhoden Farm. I played with the farm dog. I talked to students about their classes and their animals and their quail-tagging project, and everything but the future of the department that had yet to be announced.

The story began to tell

itself. I didn’t have to have quotes from the ones living it to see what was happening.

The future of the department and the consequences of its closure began to become clear. This story was already over 1,200 words long before I even conducted a single interview about the news.

This department has built a heritage and culture unlike any other department on campus. These students care about their vocation almost as much as they care about each other.

Ag didn’t need me to write their story. They’ve been writing it for 71 years. I’m just the one who got to publish it.

Front cover: William “Bice” Jennings, animal husbandry major from Farmersville, plays with piglets at Allen Farm in 1953.

For more photos and video interviews, visit www. ag.acuoptimist. com for a special multimedia edition.

A special section of the Optimist By Madeline Orr

contact orr at mco10b@acu.edu

Visit www.ag.acuoptimist.com for more photos and videos.

“

“A

CC RECLAIMS ITS WAYWARD BULL.” Beneath that headline on the yellowed pages of the Abilene Reporter-News, the story from 1965 describes how sheriff’s deputies found a 1,200-pound stray Hereford bull on the R.C. Arnold place – three miles north of Elmdale – and returned it to its owner, Abilene Christian College.

The Department of Agriculture and Environmental Science, known then as just “the ag department,” has a history full of stories, traditions and a culture unlike any other department on campus.

But now this department, with its rich and rooted history, is being closed for good. University officials say it’s the reality of where the budget draws the line. Students and faculty in the department say it’s a sad ending for majors that once played a central role in the university’s identity. But despite all the changes, the unique aggie community will live on through its history–wayward bulls and all.

“As long as our Creator allows us to remain on this earth, he has something for us to do. It is our duty to learn what it is – and then do it.”

West Texas rancher S.N. Allen, a man instrumental in the establishment of ACU’s agricultural program, wrote these words along with other memoirs. Seventy years later, they live on in the mission of the AES department.

Allen, dubbed the “Godfather of the ACC Department of Agriculture,” was a member of the ACC Board of Trustees from 1929 to 1951. In 1944, he donated the first land for farming purposes to ACC, specifically for soil preservation.

The 114 acres just northeast of campus launched the first higher education program for agriculture in Abilene and the only non-tax-supported agriculture program in the Southwest. The land quickly became known as Allen Farm. Other board members contributed livestock, equipment and funds to start the farm.

Several surplus Army barracks provided classroom space.

A department brochure from the ’50s quotes Allen: “West Texas economy is built primarily around agriculture, and the soil will be with us when the oil is gone.”

He wanted to see farmers with an education who would appreciate the soil and their opportunities to cultivate it.

Once called a “real cowboy” by former

02 The Optimist

ACC president Don H. Morris, Allen continued to assist with the farm project, occasionally lending a hand or word of advice, until his death in 1960.

By mid-century, the farm had acquired beef cattle, dairy cattle, sheep and swine, with its chief enterprises being milk and hay production.

In a 1948 interview, President Morris told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “We want to make a contribution to the vast agricultural section which has long supported this school and furnished much of its enrollment.”

That year, a quarter of ACC students came from families who lived on farms or ranches. Realizing many students came from rural communities and were looking for practical training, the Department of Agriculture became an important tool in meeting the needs of students.

“We always have stressed the need for a Christian education,” Morris said.

“There’s a need for Christian leadership in agriculture and livestock.”

Dewey Davis, department head at the time, said the farm would be used to demonstrate whether good practices would be able to rehabilitate the worn-out West Texas land. For decades, the department excelled in bringing agricultural and environmental projects and partnerships to the farm. An award-winning Jersey cattle program, an egg-production project with the local Power Feed Mills utilizing

THE SOIL WILL BE WITH US

more than 6,000 chicks, and a successful movement to revive the native grasses on Allen Farms were just a few of the projects undertaken by students and faculty throughout the ’50s and ’60s.

When Abilene experienced a growth spurt in the ’60s, the farm felt the squeeze of the city’s northward expansion. Soon, the construction of I-20 cut Allen Farm in two. Development began to squelch the peaceful, rural quality of the land.

As a result, students in the department took initiative and began a capital campaign for $150,000 to find larger, unspoiled land outside the city limits. By 1965, the “Acres for Aggies” campaign allowed ACC to purchase a 600-acre farm south of Hawley which students dubbed Aggie Acres.

In the ’50s and ’60s, enrollment fell off at agricultural schools across the nation.

America was changing from an agrarian society to an urban nation. But the dip didn’t hit ACC like other schools. In 1963, the university created the agribusiness major as a response to student demand.

By 1964, the department was the fifthlargest department on campus.

Dr. Keith Justice, department chair from 1962-80, told the Big Spring Herald that same year that the post-war college boom gave the program impetus, and then came the lag.

“We held our own during the enrollment dip,” he said.

Contributed ACU CREative services

A news clipping from the Abilene Reporter News, March 19, 1965.

There’s a need for Christian leadership in agriculture and livestock.”

Dr. Don H. Morris Former President of the university

ACC ranked third among the nation’s private colleges and universities in number of agricultural majors — nearly 100 students in 1964-65. Allen Farm continued to serve as base for classes in addition to Aggie Acres.

A recession in the late ’70s changed the profile of the farm industry, and small family farms gave way to much larger operations. As a result, the university made a decision to sell the farm south of Hawley and establish a student scholarship fund with the proceeds.

Justice told the Optimist in 1996 that students and faculty in the department would have liked to keep the farm, but the they understood the problem.

“There was more sentiment,” he said, “to put more emphasis on agricultural business and not so much on the actual farming operation.”

Shortly after, in 1979, the Anderson Clayton Co., a local farm business, decided to scale down its operations and donate a Hamby feed lot to the most suitable institution. After submitting a proposal, the university won ownership of the 400 acres. The farm was named Rhoden Farm after the late Clifford Rhoden, an ACU trustee instrumental in securing the agreement.

Since then, Rhoden Farm has served as the main hub for all labs in the department. In the late ‘90s, Allen Farm became unsuitable for student needs.

The southern half of the farm was a flood plain and allowed no room for growth. The farm is still owned by ACU, but it is not in use. Remaining courses offered there, such as a popular Horse and Horsemanship class that many students took for P.E. credit, were moved to Rhoden Farm.

To drive up the dusty road to Rhoden Farm today would mean being greeted

by Peeta, the fluffy white farm dog that rolls over even before being pet– a sure sign he is spoiled with attention by students every day.

The grassy property contains a horse barn, goat pens, a chicken coop, a warehouse for large machinery and projects, a farmhouse and the Allen Events Center, or the “Big House,” which is a house frequently used as a retreat location for ACU groups and offices.

The story continues. Read on to learn about the future of the department.

contributed by ACU creative services

Top: The Allen Farm was located northeast of ACU at the corner of Judge Ely Boulevard and Ambler Avenue. Bottom left: The barn welcomes the first horse donated to the university. Bottom right: S.N. Allen, known as “the godfather of ACC Department of Agriculture,” shows a visitor to ACU campus how to wear a traditional Stetson cowboy hat in 1955.

“

“A

CC RECLAIMS ITS WAYWARD BULL.” Beneath that headline on the yellowed pages of the Abilene Reporter-News, the story from 1965 describes how sheriff’s deputies found a 1,200-pound stray Hereford bull on the R.C. Arnold place – three miles north of Elmdale – and returned it to its owner, Abilene Christian College.

The Department of Agriculture and Environmental Science, known then as just “the ag department,” has a history full of stories, traditions and a culture unlike any other department on campus.

But now this department, with its rich and rooted history, is being closed for good. University officials say it’s the reality of where the budget draws the line. Students and faculty in the department say it’s a sad ending for majors that once played a central role in the university’s identity. But despite all the changes, the unique aggie community will live on through its history–wayward bulls and all.

“As long as our Creator allows us to remain on this earth, he has something for us to do. It is our duty to learn what it is – and then do it.”

West Texas rancher S.N. Allen, a man instrumental in the establishment of ACU’s agricultural program, wrote these words along with other memoirs. Seventy years later, they live on in the mission of the AES department.

Allen, dubbed the “Godfather of the ACC Department of Agriculture,” was a member of the ACC Board of Trustees from 1929 to 1951. In 1944, he donated the first land for farming purposes to ACC, specifically for soil preservation.

The 114 acres just northeast of campus launched the first higher education program for agriculture in Abilene and the only non-tax-supported agriculture program in the Southwest. The land quickly became known as Allen Farm. Other board members contributed livestock, equipment and funds to start the farm.

Several surplus Army barracks provided classroom space.

A department brochure from the ’50s quotes Allen: “West Texas economy is built primarily around agriculture, and the soil will be with us when the oil is gone.”

He wanted to see farmers with an education who would appreciate the soil and their opportunities to cultivate it.

Once called a “real cowboy” by former

02 The Optimist

ACC president Don H. Morris, Allen continued to assist with the farm project, occasionally lending a hand or word of advice, until his death in 1960.

By mid-century, the farm had acquired beef cattle, dairy cattle, sheep and swine, with its chief enterprises being milk and hay production.

In a 1948 interview, President Morris told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “We want to make a contribution to the vast agricultural section which has long supported this school and furnished much of its enrollment.”

That year, a quarter of ACC students came from families who lived on farms or ranches. Realizing many students came from rural communities and were looking for practical training, the Department of Agriculture became an important tool in meeting the needs of students.

“We always have stressed the need for a Christian education,” Morris said.

“There’s a need for Christian leadership in agriculture and livestock.”

Dewey Davis, department head at the time, said the farm would be used to demonstrate whether good practices would be able to rehabilitate the worn-out West Texas land. For decades, the department excelled in bringing agricultural and environmental projects and partnerships to the farm. An award-winning Jersey cattle program, an egg-production project with the local Power Feed Mills utilizing

THE SOIL WILL BE WITH US

more than 6,000 chicks, and a successful movement to revive the native grasses on Allen Farms were just a few of the projects undertaken by students and faculty throughout the ’50s and ’60s.

When Abilene experienced a growth spurt in the ’60s, the farm felt the squeeze of the city’s northward expansion. Soon, the construction of I-20 cut Allen Farm in two. Development began to squelch the peaceful, rural quality of the land.

As a result, students in the department took initiative and began a capital campaign for $150,000 to find larger, unspoiled land outside the city limits. By 1965, the “Acres for Aggies” campaign allowed ACC to purchase a 600-acre farm south of Hawley which students dubbed Aggie Acres.

In the ’50s and ’60s, enrollment fell off at agricultural schools across the nation.

America was changing from an agrarian society to an urban nation. But the dip didn’t hit ACC like other schools. In 1963, the university created the agribusiness major as a response to student demand.

By 1964, the department was the fifthlargest department on campus.

Dr. Keith Justice, department chair from 1962-80, told the Big Spring Herald that same year that the post-war college boom gave the program impetus, and then came the lag.

“We held our own during the enrollment dip,” he said.

Contributed ACU CREative services

A news clipping from the Abilene Reporter News, March 19, 1965.

There’s a need for Christian leadership in agriculture and livestock.”

Dr. Don H. Morris Former President of the university

ACC ranked third among the nation’s private colleges and universities in number of agricultural majors — nearly 100 students in 1964-65. Allen Farm continued to serve as base for classes in addition to Aggie Acres.

A recession in the late ’70s changed the profile of the farm industry, and small family farms gave way to much larger operations. As a result, the university made a decision to sell the farm south of Hawley and establish a student scholarship fund with the proceeds.

Justice told the Optimist in 1996 that students and faculty in the department would have liked to keep the farm, but the they understood the problem.

“There was more sentiment,” he said, “to put more emphasis on agricultural business and not so much on the actual farming operation.”

Shortly after, in 1979, the Anderson Clayton Co., a local farm business, decided to scale down its operations and donate a Hamby feed lot to the most suitable institution. After submitting a proposal, the university won ownership of the 400 acres. The farm was named Rhoden Farm after the late Clifford Rhoden, an ACU trustee instrumental in securing the agreement.

Since then, Rhoden Farm has served as the main hub for all labs in the department. In the late ‘90s, Allen Farm became unsuitable for student needs.

The southern half of the farm was a flood plain and allowed no room for growth. The farm is still owned by ACU, but it is not in use. Remaining courses offered there, such as a popular Horse and Horsemanship class that many students took for P.E. credit, were moved to Rhoden Farm.

To drive up the dusty road to Rhoden Farm today would mean being greeted

by Peeta, the fluffy white farm dog that rolls over even before being pet– a sure sign he is spoiled with attention by students every day.

The grassy property contains a horse barn, goat pens, a chicken coop, a warehouse for large machinery and projects, a farmhouse and the Allen Events Center, or the “Big House,” which is a house frequently used as a retreat location for ACU groups and offices.

The story continues. Read on to learn about the future of the department.

contributed by ACU creative services

Top: The Allen Farm was located northeast of ACU at the corner of Judge Ely Boulevard and Ambler Avenue. Bottom left: The barn welcomes the first horse donated to the university. Bottom right: S.N. Allen, known as “the godfather of ACC Department of Agriculture,” shows a visitor to ACU campus how to wear a traditional Stetson cowboy hat in 1955.

mandy lambright Staff Photographer 2011

Adjacent page: The front end of the bus that flipped on Highway 83 nine miles south of Ballinger. Left: Texas DPS officers survey the scene of the incident involving ACU students and faculty. Above: Members of ACU community gather at the Beauchamp Ampitheater to mourn the loss of 19-year-old Anabel Reid. daniel gomez Staff Photographer 2011

daniel gomez Staff Photographer 2011

A

‘THE PERFECT STORM’

CHANGES, LOSSES AND TRAGEDIES CREATED DEPARTMENTAL COMMUNITY

s industries change, organizations shift and grow accordingly. The Department of Agriculture and Environmental Science has been no different. For seven decades, it has catered to the needs of students and their industry. But the close community and tight bonds between students and faculty have stood firm throughout the years.

“There’s always been a lot of camaraderie among the students in the department,” said Dr. Ed Brokaw, chair of the Department of Agricultural and Environmental Science.

This friendship comes from a history of students who often come from similar agricultural backgrounds with similar aspirations, from sharing similar recreational and physical activities outside of their academics and from enduring times of tragedy and change together.

Dr. Robert Rhodes, provost of the

04 The Optimist

university, said each aspect of the department, even its departmental Chapel, is enriched by the culture the department has created.

“Every department has their traditions, but this group is tradition-laden,” he said.

Brokaw was an animal science major in 1967, when the department was housed in “The Annex,” an old army barracks on what is now the library parking lot.

“It had some appeal,” he remembers.

“It had some presence on campus. People knew that was the ag program.”

When the library was built in the ‘70s, the department moved to the Foster Science Building.

In 1986, Abilene Christian Schools moved out of Zona Luce and the building sat empty until the ag department approached administration about moving in.

“We had to do quite a bit of the re-

Contributed ACU CREative services

A news clipping from the Optimist, Dec. 6, 1989.

modeling on our own,” Brokaw said.

Students painted and cleaned up the building so it was usable. Then in 1997, they led a capital campaign to raise about $800,000 for remodeling.

They occupied Zona Luce until 2012, when the university moved AES out of the building to make room for the newly established School of Nursing.

“Of course we were disappointed that they decided they could make better use of that with somebody else in there than us,” Brokaw said. “Maybe that was the handwriting on the wall we should have been reading better.”

The department’s offices and classrooms are now in the Administration Building, and its labs meet in a remodeled house across Campus Court. The announcement that the department would move out of Zona Luce came less than five months after two of the most significant events in the department’s 70-year history.

On Nov. 1, 2011, Dr. Charles Mattis, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the time, sent an email to faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences announcing the agribusiness major would be closed while animal science and environmental science majors would be realigned into the Department of Biology.

This was just one of several restructuring proposals to be made across the university at that time, but it was the only one that would later be retracted.

Three days later, a group of students and faculty from the department were traveling to Medina for their annual service project at Medina Children’s Home. Dr. Michael Nicodemus, then an associate professor of agriculture and environmental science, was driving the bus when it drifted off the road and hit a concrete culvert. It f lipped end-overend and landed on its wheels with the

body nearly removed from the frame.

One student, Anabel Reid, 19-year-old sophomore environmental science major from Petersburg, was pronounced dead at the scene. Several other passengers were hospitalized.

“It was a traumatic experience all the way around,” Brokaw said.

Anna Ciufo was a freshman animal science major in 2011 and one of the 16 students on the bus that day. Ciufo said Reid, who had welcomed her into the department only a few months before the incident, was sitting a couple of seats over from her on the back row of the bus. Ciufo remembers talking about sheep or goats and Reid excitedly leaning over and joining the conversation.

“I remember us all talking, and then my memory shuts off until I woke up in the hospital,” she said.

Dr. Jim Cooke, professor of environmental science, was also on the bus.

He said he is reminded of it every day when he goes for a swim and his shoulder aches from injuries that have not yet healed completely.

“Our classes were disrupted, our students were in the hospital, it was a very chaotic time,” he said.

A few weeks later, Dr. Gregory Straughn, interim provost at the time, sent an email to faculty and staff announcing the department would remain under its existing structure.

“We kind of got the mercy vote,” Cooke said. “The timing of it was awkward for the administration.”

The accident brought the already close-knit AES community even closer.

Even students who were not enrolled at ACU at the time of the accident could feel the importance of community within the department – and still can today.

“My class was the first class coming

in since that accident, and because we saw how close they were, that’s what we did; that’s who we are,” said Mike Keenan, junior wildlife and natural resource management major from Redwood City, California.

They still gather every year on Nov. 4 to remember the loss of Reid. Some of her ashes were even spread outside of Zona Luce. Following their move to the Administration Building, a tree was planted outside the building in her honor.

“I try to live out her example of Jesus and the impact she had on the world around her,” Ciufo said.

Ciufo said there is something special about the people and the department.

“I’ve seen it grow in numbers, I’ve seen people grow closer together,” she said. “I think it is because of all the obstacles they’ve had to face.”

And Brokaw agrees.

“Some have more physical scars and some have more emotional scars,” Brokaw said. “Can’t say one is any worse than the other.”

The story continues. Read on to learn about the future of the department.

“

MY CLASS WAS THE FIRST CLASS COMING IN SINCE THAT ACCIDENT, AND BECAUSE WE SAW HOW CLOSE THEY WERE, THAT’S WHAT WE DID. THAT’S WHO WE ARE.” MIKE KEENAN junior environmental science major

mandy lambright Staff Photographer 2011

Adjacent page: The front end of the bus that flipped on Highway 83 nine miles south of Ballinger. Left: Texas DPS officers survey the scene of the incident involving ACU students and faculty. Above: Members of ACU community gather at the Beauchamp Ampitheater to mourn the loss of 19-year-old Anabel Reid. daniel gomez Staff Photographer 2011

daniel gomez Staff Photographer 2011

A

‘THE PERFECT STORM’

CHANGES, LOSSES AND TRAGEDIES CREATED DEPARTMENTAL COMMUNITY

s industries change, organizations shift and grow accordingly. The Department of Agriculture and Environmental Science has been no different. For seven decades, it has catered to the needs of students and their industry. But the close community and tight bonds between students and faculty have stood firm throughout the years.

“There’s always been a lot of camaraderie among the students in the department,” said Dr. Ed Brokaw, chair of the Department of Agricultural and Environmental Science.

This friendship comes from a history of students who often come from similar agricultural backgrounds with similar aspirations, from sharing similar recreational and physical activities outside of their academics and from enduring times of tragedy and change together.

Dr. Robert Rhodes, provost of the

04 The Optimist

university, said each aspect of the department, even its departmental Chapel, is enriched by the culture the department has created.

“Every department has their traditions, but this group is tradition-laden,” he said.

Brokaw was an animal science major in 1967, when the department was housed in “The Annex,” an old army barracks on what is now the library parking lot.

“It had some appeal,” he remembers.

“It had some presence on campus. People knew that was the ag program.”

When the library was built in the ‘70s, the department moved to the Foster Science Building.

In 1986, Abilene Christian Schools moved out of Zona Luce and the building sat empty until the ag department approached administration about moving in.

“We had to do quite a bit of the re-

Contributed ACU CREative services

A news clipping from the Optimist, Dec. 6, 1989.

modeling on our own,” Brokaw said.

Students painted and cleaned up the building so it was usable. Then in 1997, they led a capital campaign to raise about $800,000 for remodeling.

They occupied Zona Luce until 2012, when the university moved AES out of the building to make room for the newly established School of Nursing.

“Of course we were disappointed that they decided they could make better use of that with somebody else in there than us,” Brokaw said. “Maybe that was the handwriting on the wall we should have been reading better.”

The department’s offices and classrooms are now in the Administration Building, and its labs meet in a remodeled house across Campus Court. The announcement that the department would move out of Zona Luce came less than five months after two of the most significant events in the department’s 70-year history.

On Nov. 1, 2011, Dr. Charles Mattis, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the time, sent an email to faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences announcing the agribusiness major would be closed while animal science and environmental science majors would be realigned into the Department of Biology.

This was just one of several restructuring proposals to be made across the university at that time, but it was the only one that would later be retracted.

Three days later, a group of students and faculty from the department were traveling to Medina for their annual service project at Medina Children’s Home. Dr. Michael Nicodemus, then an associate professor of agriculture and environmental science, was driving the bus when it drifted off the road and hit a concrete culvert. It f lipped end-overend and landed on its wheels with the

body nearly removed from the frame.

One student, Anabel Reid, 19-year-old sophomore environmental science major from Petersburg, was pronounced dead at the scene. Several other passengers were hospitalized.

“It was a traumatic experience all the way around,” Brokaw said.

Anna Ciufo was a freshman animal science major in 2011 and one of the 16 students on the bus that day. Ciufo said Reid, who had welcomed her into the department only a few months before the incident, was sitting a couple of seats over from her on the back row of the bus. Ciufo remembers talking about sheep or goats and Reid excitedly leaning over and joining the conversation.

“I remember us all talking, and then my memory shuts off until I woke up in the hospital,” she said.

Dr. Jim Cooke, professor of environmental science, was also on the bus.

He said he is reminded of it every day when he goes for a swim and his shoulder aches from injuries that have not yet healed completely.

“Our classes were disrupted, our students were in the hospital, it was a very chaotic time,” he said.

A few weeks later, Dr. Gregory Straughn, interim provost at the time, sent an email to faculty and staff announcing the department would remain under its existing structure.

“We kind of got the mercy vote,” Cooke said. “The timing of it was awkward for the administration.”

The accident brought the already close-knit AES community even closer.

Even students who were not enrolled at ACU at the time of the accident could feel the importance of community within the department – and still can today.

“My class was the first class coming

in since that accident, and because we saw how close they were, that’s what we did; that’s who we are,” said Mike Keenan, junior wildlife and natural resource management major from Redwood City, California.

They still gather every year on Nov. 4 to remember the loss of Reid. Some of her ashes were even spread outside of Zona Luce. Following their move to the Administration Building, a tree was planted outside the building in her honor.

“I try to live out her example of Jesus and the impact she had on the world around her,” Ciufo said.

Ciufo said there is something special about the people and the department.

“I’ve seen it grow in numbers, I’ve seen people grow closer together,” she said. “I think it is because of all the obstacles they’ve had to face.”

And Brokaw agrees.

“Some have more physical scars and some have more emotional scars,” Brokaw said. “Can’t say one is any worse than the other.”

The story continues. Read on to learn about the future of the department.

“

MY CLASS WAS THE FIRST CLASS COMING IN SINCE THAT ACCIDENT, AND BECAUSE WE SAW HOW CLOSE THEY WERE, THAT’S WHAT WE DID. THAT’S WHO WE ARE.” MIKE KEENAN junior environmental science major

FORCED DOWN A

BEATEN PATH

adrian patenaude staef Photographer 2013

The Horses and Horsemanship class rides down to the arena on Rhoden Farm for a few hours of riding exercises.

N

ow, the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Science has entered the final chapter of its story. Three years after the bus accident, the university reintroduced the plan to move the large degrees of the department into the Department of Biology, discontinuing the seven smaller tracks and closing the department.

This is the second department closure for Dr. Jim Cooke. In 2003, the Department of Industrial Technology was closed while Cooke was department chair.

“I should have been in the baseball game,” he said. “They pay closers pretty good.”

Rhodes said the decision was mutual between his office and the College of Arts and Sciences. He said it was evident that strong programs within AES were not going to be able to continue unless a change was made.

“There is a loss here, so I wouldn’t pretend like it’s all the same,” Rhodes said. “But I think that if we wait longer, we will suffer an even greater loss.”

Dr. Gregory Straughn, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, offered the primary reasons for the proposed restructuring.

First, the distribution of majors in the de-

06 The Optimist

partment’s nine tracks is concentrated in two majors that take up two-thirds of the department’s students. Second, a reduced budget for the department means several faculty members who left have not been replaced.

“We made reduction in roles that were vacated and didn’t renew a hire,” he said.

“There is not funding available for the university to say we can fund two or three positions to keep the department in the same structure it is now.”

Rhodes said it’s not likely that resources will be spent on programs that, in some cases, have fewer than 20 students across all four years, such as agribusiness or environ-

“

There is a loss here, so I wouldn’t pretend like it’s all the same. But I think that if we wait longer, we will suffer an even greater loss.”

Dr. Robert Rhodes Provost Of the university

mental science, with other programs in the same college growing rapidly. The two programs that will be moved to the biology department – pre-veterinarian medicine and wildlife and natural resource management – make up 70 percent of the students in the AES department. Despite the high percentage, it’s not enough to make up a department of their own.

“Organizations add to and subtract from the kinds of products they offer all the time, and I don’t think higher ed is any different,” Straughn said.

Dr. Susan Lewis, assistant provost who presides over the University Academic Council, explained the decision-making process the council will follow. She said the UAC will consider the proposal from the College of Arts and Sciences and the response from the department before making a decision.

“The selected programs being closed is just a proposal at this point, however, I do think this is the most likely path forward,” she said in a meeting with AES majors announcing the closure.

Straughn and Lewis reiterated to currently enrolled students that they were committed to teaching their programs out to

completion.

“Our commitment is to ensure that you get the education that you came here to pursue,” said Dr. Phil Schubert, president of the university, in a meeting with AES students Oct. 30, two days after the announcement was made.

This year, the department is down to two full-time professors after a number of faculty members retired or moved to different universities within the last five years. When the university had funds available to fill one position, no one with the needed credentials could be found to hire. A few years and a few fewer faculty later, they had people ready to hire, but no funds available.

“It was the perfect storm,” said Brokaw, chair of the AES department. “The university was having budget issues, they couldn’t fill the positions and we got stuck with people retiring at the wrong time.”

Dr. Emmett Miller retired in May of 2014.

A few months later, Dr. Michael Nicodemus left to take a position at Harding University.

“The reality of the situation is that when Emmett retired and his position wasn’t replaced, he didn’t want to be the last man standing,” Brokaw said of Nicodemus.

Students began to notice their two pro-

fessors taking on more classes and more courses were being taught by adjuncts.

“We have some excellent adjuncts in our department,” Keenan said. “But when you have seven adjuncts and two full-time professors, and there hasn’t been a new professor hired in the three years that you’ve been in the department, you start to question what’s going on.”

Keenan said students weren’t entirely surprised when the decision was made to close the department.

“It was pretty evident we were being phased out, even if no one was going to say anything,” he said.

Rhodes said part of the timing is relative to the construction of a new science complex.

“As we begin to look at programming, we want to think down the road about partnerships and like departments to be sure that we have a solid home for this long-standing department,” he said. “Let’s not wait until after building new buildings and look back and say, ‘I wish we would have thought about that.’”

Cooke and Brokaw agreed the closure is coming at a critical time for the future of agriculture.

“We’re on the cusp of a grassroots movement where people are concerned about their food more than they used to be,” Cooke said.

Brokaw said not only are more people interested in food, but mankind is also facing the greatest challenge it has seen in history in terms of providing the amount of food needed to feed the increasing population.

“Nine billion people by 2050; that’s double food production,” he said. “How are we going to do that and do that without utilizing the technology that’s available for use to increase food production?”

Following the rise in national interest in agriculture, student interest has increased as well. According to Brokaw, more high school students are involved in Future Farmers of America today than in the organization’s 86-year history.

“Ag programs at other schools in Texas are growing,” he said. “Every program has increasing enrollment. We’ve been increasing enrollment in the last three years. It looks like we’re fighting a trend rather than buying into one.”

However, Rhodes said he thinks the national interest hasn’t translated into enrollment and ACU is competing with other schools in the state, such as Texas A&M. “I think the problem is that the potential that’s there hasn’t carried over into enrollment over a period of time,” he said.

Even though the department has more than 100 students and has gained 30 freshmen each fall for the past three years, the department can’t afford to hire faculty for the seven smaller agriculture-related tracks, Rhodes said. The college’s logic for moving pre-veterinarian and wildlife and natural resource management is that they are able to save 70 percent of the majors with the already existing faculty in biology.

“This program isn’t going to exist on campus anywhere,” Brokaw said. “People can still get pre-vet training, but that’s not anything new; they could always do that. A student could have always gone to biology and gotten pre-vet if that’s what they wanted.”

Students are concerned that when the wildlife and natural resource management degree moves underneath biology, the content will change.

Keenen said he considers his degree the liberal arts degree of environmental science.

“You learn about wildlife, the habitat, the water resource management,” he said. “It’s not simply how a deer gets from point A to point B.” Kennan said to say the degrees are transferring to biology is not an accurate description. Rather, two different and new degrees are being developed.

“It’s not so much that degrees will be coming over from the ag department, because to say that would be to say that you’re bringing the classes over, and that’s just not what’s going to happen,” he said. “The biology department will not be teaching animal science, agriculture or environmental science courses.”

Dr. Tom Lee, chair of the Department of Biology, said he knows this is a difficult tran-

sition with the loss of a 70-year program.

“We didn’t cause this to occur, but we were tasked with trying to salvage it, and we’re going to do the best we can,” he said.

Lee said his department is ready to take on these students and their tracks.

biology is the most robust and best it’s ever been,” he said. “There has never been a faculty this good in biology. We can take on a lot more than even what we’re doing now.”

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

Deanna Romero chief Photographer 2011

Deanna Romero chief Photographer 2014

“I think Lee said he feels confident in what the deTop:The Rhoden Farm and Field Laboratory is home to young kids. Top: Greg Ponder, senior environmental science major from Abilene, performs his duty as rodeo clown at the 2014 ACU Rodeo. Bottom: Andrew Dillard, senior family studies major from Hyattsville, Maryland, dives under a steer at the ACU Rodeo.

FORCED DOWN A

BEATEN PATH

adrian patenaude staef Photographer 2013

The Horses and Horsemanship class rides down to the arena on Rhoden Farm for a few hours of riding exercises.

N

ow, the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Science has entered the final chapter of its story. Three years after the bus accident, the university reintroduced the plan to move the large degrees of the department into the Department of Biology, discontinuing the seven smaller tracks and closing the department.

This is the second department closure for Dr. Jim Cooke. In 2003, the Department of Industrial Technology was closed while Cooke was department chair.

“I should have been in the baseball game,” he said. “They pay closers pretty good.”

Rhodes said the decision was mutual between his office and the College of Arts and Sciences. He said it was evident that strong programs within AES were not going to be able to continue unless a change was made.

“There is a loss here, so I wouldn’t pretend like it’s all the same,” Rhodes said. “But I think that if we wait longer, we will suffer an even greater loss.”

Dr. Gregory Straughn, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, offered the primary reasons for the proposed restructuring.

First, the distribution of majors in the de-

06 The Optimist

partment’s nine tracks is concentrated in two majors that take up two-thirds of the department’s students. Second, a reduced budget for the department means several faculty members who left have not been replaced.

“We made reduction in roles that were vacated and didn’t renew a hire,” he said.

“There is not funding available for the university to say we can fund two or three positions to keep the department in the same structure it is now.”

Rhodes said it’s not likely that resources will be spent on programs that, in some cases, have fewer than 20 students across all four years, such as agribusiness or environ-

“

There is a loss here, so I wouldn’t pretend like it’s all the same. But I think that if we wait longer, we will suffer an even greater loss.”

Dr. Robert Rhodes Provost Of the university

mental science, with other programs in the same college growing rapidly. The two programs that will be moved to the biology department – pre-veterinarian medicine and wildlife and natural resource management – make up 70 percent of the students in the AES department. Despite the high percentage, it’s not enough to make up a department of their own.

“Organizations add to and subtract from the kinds of products they offer all the time, and I don’t think higher ed is any different,” Straughn said.

Dr. Susan Lewis, assistant provost who presides over the University Academic Council, explained the decision-making process the council will follow. She said the UAC will consider the proposal from the College of Arts and Sciences and the response from the department before making a decision.

“The selected programs being closed is just a proposal at this point, however, I do think this is the most likely path forward,” she said in a meeting with AES majors announcing the closure.

Straughn and Lewis reiterated to currently enrolled students that they were committed to teaching their programs out to

completion.

“Our commitment is to ensure that you get the education that you came here to pursue,” said Dr. Phil Schubert, president of the university, in a meeting with AES students Oct. 30, two days after the announcement was made.

This year, the department is down to two full-time professors after a number of faculty members retired or moved to different universities within the last five years. When the university had funds available to fill one position, no one with the needed credentials could be found to hire. A few years and a few fewer faculty later, they had people ready to hire, but no funds available.

“It was the perfect storm,” said Brokaw, chair of the AES department. “The university was having budget issues, they couldn’t fill the positions and we got stuck with people retiring at the wrong time.”

Dr. Emmett Miller retired in May of 2014.

A few months later, Dr. Michael Nicodemus left to take a position at Harding University.

“The reality of the situation is that when Emmett retired and his position wasn’t replaced, he didn’t want to be the last man standing,” Brokaw said of Nicodemus.

Students began to notice their two pro-

fessors taking on more classes and more courses were being taught by adjuncts.

“We have some excellent adjuncts in our department,” Keenan said. “But when you have seven adjuncts and two full-time professors, and there hasn’t been a new professor hired in the three years that you’ve been in the department, you start to question what’s going on.”

Keenan said students weren’t entirely surprised when the decision was made to close the department.

“It was pretty evident we were being phased out, even if no one was going to say anything,” he said.

Rhodes said part of the timing is relative to the construction of a new science complex.

“As we begin to look at programming, we want to think down the road about partnerships and like departments to be sure that we have a solid home for this long-standing department,” he said. “Let’s not wait until after building new buildings and look back and say, ‘I wish we would have thought about that.’”

Cooke and Brokaw agreed the closure is coming at a critical time for the future of agriculture.

“We’re on the cusp of a grassroots movement where people are concerned about their food more than they used to be,” Cooke said.

Brokaw said not only are more people interested in food, but mankind is also facing the greatest challenge it has seen in history in terms of providing the amount of food needed to feed the increasing population.

“Nine billion people by 2050; that’s double food production,” he said. “How are we going to do that and do that without utilizing the technology that’s available for use to increase food production?”

Following the rise in national interest in agriculture, student interest has increased as well. According to Brokaw, more high school students are involved in Future Farmers of America today than in the organization’s 86-year history.

“Ag programs at other schools in Texas are growing,” he said. “Every program has increasing enrollment. We’ve been increasing enrollment in the last three years. It looks like we’re fighting a trend rather than buying into one.”

However, Rhodes said he thinks the national interest hasn’t translated into enrollment and ACU is competing with other schools in the state, such as Texas A&M. “I think the problem is that the potential that’s there hasn’t carried over into enrollment over a period of time,” he said.

Even though the department has more than 100 students and has gained 30 freshmen each fall for the past three years, the department can’t afford to hire faculty for the seven smaller agriculture-related tracks, Rhodes said. The college’s logic for moving pre-veterinarian and wildlife and natural resource management is that they are able to save 70 percent of the majors with the already existing faculty in biology.

“This program isn’t going to exist on campus anywhere,” Brokaw said. “People can still get pre-vet training, but that’s not anything new; they could always do that. A student could have always gone to biology and gotten pre-vet if that’s what they wanted.”

Students are concerned that when the wildlife and natural resource management degree moves underneath biology, the content will change.

Keenen said he considers his degree the liberal arts degree of environmental science.

“You learn about wildlife, the habitat, the water resource management,” he said. “It’s not simply how a deer gets from point A to point B.” Kennan said to say the degrees are transferring to biology is not an accurate description. Rather, two different and new degrees are being developed.

“It’s not so much that degrees will be coming over from the ag department, because to say that would be to say that you’re bringing the classes over, and that’s just not what’s going to happen,” he said. “The biology department will not be teaching animal science, agriculture or environmental science courses.”

Dr. Tom Lee, chair of the Department of Biology, said he knows this is a difficult tran-

sition with the loss of a 70-year program.

“We didn’t cause this to occur, but we were tasked with trying to salvage it, and we’re going to do the best we can,” he said.

Lee said his department is ready to take on these students and their tracks.

biology is the most robust and best it’s ever been,” he said. “There has never been a faculty this good in biology. We can take on a lot more than even what we’re doing now.”

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

Deanna Romero chief Photographer 2011

Deanna Romero chief Photographer 2014

“I think Lee said he feels confident in what the deTop:The Rhoden Farm and Field Laboratory is home to young kids. Top: Greg Ponder, senior environmental science major from Abilene, performs his duty as rodeo clown at the 2014 ACU Rodeo. Bottom: Andrew Dillard, senior family studies major from Hyattsville, Maryland, dives under a steer at the ACU Rodeo.

Jump from page 7 “Biology’s philosophy is that we don’t want to take these things on and make the mistake of making it name only,” he said.

“We want to make a good rigorous program that when a person graduates from here they can get a job or go to graduate school.”

Lee said, however, that both departments are very different culturally, and therein lies a challenge.

“Our culture is a pretty rigorous – or very rigorous in some cases – culture to get students into med school, so we might not seem like we’re very embracing of the ag folks even though we teach a lot of them,” he said.

“Sometimes they can feel very overwhelmed when they come over here by our culture of pretty rigorous teaching, not saying that ag isn’t, but that’s the way it has to be here. Otherwise, our students can’t succeed if we’re not pretty tough on them.”

Kennan, who has a biology minor in addition to his environmental science major, said the two departments differ significantly.

“Yesterday, we had departmental Chapel with them as a sign of friendship, I guess you could say,” Kennan said. “But those students are systematically different. I’m not saying that

in a negative way. I’m just saying there’s a different culture.”

Brokaw said he fears the university will have difficulty recruiting students.

“There are a lot of Christian schools that offer biology programs,” he said. “So there is no uniqueness in them needing to come all the way to Abilene, Texas, for that.”

Rhodes said he hopes preserving funding for some of the department’s traditions will help preserve its uniqueness. He said he thinks the students believe they are losing a community as much as they are losing a department and recognized the danger that that type of loss can present.

“I think if we’re not careful, we lose an important part of who we are,” he said. “ACU Rodeo, the Wildlife Club, Block and Bridle; it is important to have those kind of department and cultural aspects to continue to exist within a new environment.”

Kennan said he does not think the ACU Rodeo will continue after the department is closed, though.

“That event will be done – unless a new group forms a club and takes on the responsibility of putting on a rodeo,” he said.

“There will be no department to support it. I don’t think the biology department is going to put

on a rodeo. It’s an animal science thing.”

This department was not just a home for living, breathing animals. It was a home to faculty and students that carry on living, breathing stories. Stories like S.N. Allen’s Stetson hat or Anabel Reid’s passion to bring pure water to developing nations.

Stories that the entire university are a part of, like the ACU Rodeo, or the horses and horsemanship P.E. course. It’s these stories that the department’s community was built on.

While the future of the degree plans, the faculty and all the nuts and bolts, are still foggy, it’s evident that both the university and the department hope these stories can adjust to a new life on the campus where they were born.

“There is this phrase in environmental science,” Cooke said.

“You’ve got three options when your environment comes crashing down and your habitat is falling apart: You can either adapt, you can migrate or you die. I’m ready to adapt.”

ROOTED HISTORY FACES UNCERTAIN FUTURE

ACU creative services contributed photos

Top: Students observe sow at Allen Farm. Right: Students bull ride at the ACU Rodeo, at least a 60-year-old tradtion.

On writing the story that wrote itself FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK VAGABONDAGE

SAMANTHAMADELINE SUTHERLAND ORR EDITOR IN CHIEF

When I started writing this story in November, it was just another assignment for class. I planned on turning in the required 750 words and hoped for a good grade.

But over the next few weeks, the story began to reveal its depth through sources who wouldn’t talk to me and fading documents that barely could.

On a Thursday, I went to the agriculture and environmental science Chapel. Walking into their classroom on the bottom floor of the Har-

08 The Optimist

din Administration Building, I knew I had entered a crowd I didn’t belong in, but at the same time, they made everyone there feel welcome.

I was trying to meet the professors and the students in the department, hoping to write a little feature about the ACU farm or maybe the rodeo, but as soon as I mentioned the Optimist, no one wanted to talk to me. Not an uncommon experience.

But what I wasn’t aware of was that over the past few days, hard decisions had

been made behind closed doors. I didn’t know the group I had targeted that morning was actually a single, living, breathing organism – with more than 70 years of history – that was about to be targeted by the very university they belonged to.

The reason they couldn’t talk wasn’t because they didn’t want to. It was because they were told not to.

I was seen as a nosy reporter, trying to break the news they knew was coming. All the while, I was entirely unaware. There was a meeting scheduled the next Wednesday between the provost and AES students to make the announcement about the proposal to restructure.

Understandably, they didn’t want the Optimist to break

the news before they could tell their students.

By the time I realized what was happening, I still needed a story to turn in for a grade, and still, no faculty or administrator would talk to me.

That ‘s when I turned to the history.

I dug through seven decades worth of newspaper clippings and photo archives about the department. I saw every story ever published about every stock show, new tractor and rodeo queen.

I visited Rhoden Farm. I played with the farm dog. I talked to students about their classes and their animals and their quail-tagging project, and everything but the future of the department that had yet to be announced.

The story began to tell

itself. I didn’t have to have quotes from the ones living it to see what was happening.

The future of the department and the consequences of its closure began to become clear. This story was already over 1,200 words long before I even conducted a single interview about the news.

This department has built a heritage and culture unlike any other department on campus. These students care about their vocation almost as much as they care about each other.

Ag didn’t need me to write their story. They’ve been writing it for 71 years. I’m just the one who got to publish it.

Front cover: William “Bice” Jennings, animal husbandry major from Farmersville, plays with piglets at Allen Farm in 1953.

For more photos and video interviews, visit www. ag.acuoptimist. com for a special multimedia edition.

A special section of the Optimist By Madeline Orr

contact orr at mco10b@acu.edu

Visit www.ag.acuoptimist.com for more photos and videos.