Deans' List | Apples & Cranberries
Time was when you might have thought of Food and Natural Resources as a kind of a schitzy place -- a college not only large and various but having at least one antithesis built right into it: the antithesis, or anyhow the conflict, between wildlife and agriculture.
We know we used to think of CFNR as personified by, on the one hand, guys who put radio collars on bears and harbored a certain fellow-feeling for coyotes, and on the other hand, guys who put chemical contracts out on potato-beetles and were more likely to sympathize with sheep.
Dean Robert Helegesen is the well-combed, well-spoken, and good-natured Midwesterner and entomologist in charge of the cluster of 11 departments, plus the Stockbridge School of Agriculture and the new interdisciplinary major in environmental science, that make up CFNR.
Though he undoubtedly knows just how ignorant, as well as gender-objectionable, our sheep-and-coyotes image is, he also says he knows what we mean.
"But there are places where there's a convergence," says Helgesen. "Wetlands is an example. We have faculty in plant and soil sciences working on wetlands issues, and also faculty in forestry and wildlife management. And both participate in the environmental sciences program, both departments contribute faculty who help deliver that curriculum.
"That's one example of the confluence. Another is entomology: they have faculty dealing with pesticides, but they also have faculty that deal with the toxicology, with the fate of the chemical in the environment. And that faculty member is part of the environmental science program.
"So environmental science ends up being one of those programs that helps integrate between the different departments that you might have perceived as being" -- the dean spreads his arms -- "out here and out there."
This does not mean, adds Helgesen, that all CFNR faculty agree on all the issues that arise in the course of food production, processing, and consumption. (Which covers so much of what's important, doesn't it?)
"But there's value to the disagreements," he says. "We have people on the agriculture side who carry a certain perspective on issues of wetlands as they impact agriculture, and then you have wildlife people who have a view of wetlands as habitat, and the impact of agriculture on that.
"Ten years ago we didn't have a mechanism for those people to be working together in the same program area. Environmental science has allowed that."
As an example of the evolution of the college, the environmental science program is but one of many Helgesen could mention. The dean and his faculty, and probably many of their students, are keenly aware that theirs is UMass' ancestral college, the place where it all began. "UMass started out as Massachusetts Agricultural College; that was us," says Helgesen. "When it became Mass. State, with ___ divisions, two of those divisions were us." Deep though its roots, however, the college has been anything but static. As Helegesen contemplates its history he sees a major change about every 25 years.
As recently as 1973, the former college of agriculture became the that of food and natural resources, reflecting the ongoing widening of its interests. Over the years it has come to include not only non-agricultural resource fields such as wildlife, landscape architecture, and resource economics, but applied managment areas such as sports management and hotel, travel, and restaurant administration.
Overlap exists between these departments and the more traditional ones: consider shared interests in turf grass, for instance, or in nutrition, or food science. And the third "applied management" area -- consumer studies -- is the lineal descendent of home economics, which represented the first broadening of the agricultural curriculum to include women.
It's possible, though, that in the future the applied managment areas may evolve away from CFNR and toward the school of management, where the theory underlying their endeavors is central. Likewise, some of the applied science departments may join others now housed in natural sciences and mathematics, to form a new college of life sciences.
All of this, like all that came before, is the interest of more effective teaching, more stimulating collaboration and -- for the commonwealth -- more dynamic outreach. That's what this college, by any of its names, has always been about.
"In the end CFNR may not exist," says its dean. "Which none of us are fearful of."
Research, Outreach, Teaching
CFNR enjoys an abundance of workplaces -- kitchens, paddocks, surgeries, studios, shops, and barns in addition to offices, lecture halls, and labs. The most idyllic are surely the orchards, plots, and bogs of the various field facilities. "Research, teaching, outreach -- the field labs are a real easy way to talk about it all," said Dean Helgesen last fall. Here we try to sum up with a view, above, of the Belchertown Horticultural Center in October, and a report, below, from Wareham.
If the cranberry sauce looked especially appetizing on the Thanksgiving table this year, some of the credit should go to the UMass Cranberry Experiment Station. The staff of the 85-year-old East Wareham facility -- a cluster of buildings and 16 acres of bog -- is intent on finding ways to grow bigger, juicier, more disease- and pest-resistant berries.
Research projects on plant pathology and nutrition, weed science, entomology, and integrated pest management keep 10-12 staff members busy year-round, with the number growing to about 30 during the growing season. Two current deterrents to juicy fruits are the nasty little cranberry fruit worm, which eats the berries, and a dozen organisms that collaborate on rotting the fruit. As a possible solution, the station is experimenting with "cultural water management" -- flooding the bogs at critical moments to suppress the worms, halt the rot, and control the weeds.
According to Carolyn Demoranville `76 Ph.D. `92, a plant nutrition specialist, cranberries are "the state's largest farmgate-value food crop." (Carolyn's dad, Irving `51 M.S. `52, just retired as director of the station; John Bewick takes over in January.) Massachusetts has been the number-one cranberry producer in the nation eight out of the last ten years. Wisconsin, our rival for supremacy, held the top spot last year.
There were high hopes that we would take back the title in 1996, but due to the residual effects of the 1995 drought the crop was smaller than the 1.9 million barrels projected. Wisconsin's final tally wasn't in at press time, so Mass. may make it yet with a yield of over 1.6 million barrels. At 100 pounds per barrel, that's enough beries to string around 483 Christmas trees the size of the one in Rockefeller Center. (Go ahead, prove us wrong.)
-Faye S. Wolfe
DEANS' LIST
Recent awards, honors, and large-scale grants to UMass faculty.
EDUCATION
- $500,000 and $250,000 USAID grants, David Evans, educational policy, research and administration.
- Lilly Teaching Fellowship, Preston Green, educational policy, research and administration.
- Teacher of the Year, Association of Hispanic Educators of Massachusetts, Sonia Nieto, teacher education and curriculum studies
- Community Service Learning Faculty Fellowship, Howard Peelle, teacher education and curriculum studies.
- $138,000 Massachusetts Department of Immigration and Naturalization contract, George Urch, educational policy, research, and administration.
ENGINEERING
- $398,000 NSF grant, John Collura, civil and environmental engineering, David Kaufman, mechanical and industrial engineering.
- Lilly Teaching Fellowship, Kathleen Hancock, civil and environmental engineering.
- Gold Medal, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Stephen Malkin, mechanical and industrial engineering.
- Distinguished Teaching Award, Michael Malone, chemical engineering.
- Distinguished University Professorship, Robert McIntosh, electrical and computer engineering.
FOOD AND NATURAL RESOURCES
- Chair, Food Forum, Food and Nutrition Board, National Academy of Sciences, Fergus Clydesdale, food science.
- Community Service Learning Faculty Fellowship, Guy Lanza, food science.
- Steering Committee, Commission on Ecosystem Management, International Union for Conservation, Joseph Larson, forestry and wildlife management.
- Change Award for Lipid or Flavor Science, Institute of Food Technologists, Wassef Nawar, food science emeritus.
- Special Achievement Award, Southern New England Chapter, American Fisheries Society, Michael Ross, forestry and wildlife management.
- Distinguished Teaching Award, Gail Schumann, plant pathology.
- Community Service Learning Faculty Fellowship, John Stoffolano, entomology.
- $350,000 NIMH grant, Maureen Perry-Jenkins, consumer studies.
HUMANITIES AND FINE ARTS
- Chair, Modern Hebrew Division, National Association of Professors of Hebrew, Shmuel Bolozky, Judaic studies.
- Distinguished Teaching Award, Deborah Carlin, English.
- Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal, Yale University Graduate School, Miriam Chrisman, history emeritus.
- New York Foundation Fellowship, Norman Cowie, film and video.
- Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Grant, Martin Espada, English.
MANAGEMENT
- Outstanding Educator Award, Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants; Lilly Teaching Fellowship; Dennis Hanno, accounting and information systems.
NATURAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS
- Outstanding Professional Achievement Award, Albertus Magnus College, M.K. Bennett, mathematics and statistics.
- Lilly Teaching Fellowship, Elizabeth Brainerd, biology.
- Graduate Teaching Award, Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools, James Kurose, computer science.
- Honorary doctorate, Tulane University, Lynn Margulis, biology.
- Lilly Teaching Fellowship, Vincent Rotello, chemistry.
- Lilly Teaching Fellowship, Ramesh Sitaraman, computer science.
- Distinguished Teaching Award, David Van Blerkom, astronomy.
PUBLIC HEALTH AND HEALTH SCIENCES
- President's Lecture, National American College of Sports Medicine, Priscilla Clarkson, exercise science.
- $102,000 Cowls Media Foundation grant; inductee, American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education; Patty Freedson, exercise science.
- Fellow, American Statistical Association, David Hosmer, biostatistics and epidemiology.
- Co-president, Council of Supervisors in Speech Language Pathology and Audiology, Patricia Mercaitis, communications disorders.
- Foundation Lecturer, American Society of Microbiology, Linda Nolan, environmental health sciences.
- Heustis/Mood Award for Public Health Excellence, Jesse Ortiz, environmental health.
- Grants Mentor, Alliance 2000 Project, U.S. Department of Education, Harry Seymour, communications disorders.
SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
- Lilly Teaching Fellowship, Diane Brooks, legal studies.
- Lilly Teaching Fellowship, Nancy Forger, psychology.
- Outstanding Advisor Award, National Academic Advising Association, Lucille Halgin, psychology.
- Community Service Learning Faculty Fellowship, Arthur Keene, anthropology.
- Community Service Learning Faculty Fellowship, Deirdre Royster, sociology.
- Community Service Learning Faculty Fellowship, Gordon Sutton, sociology.
