January 23, 2023

As you may have seen, I was recently appointed as the Kellogg Endowed Chair in Agricultural Ecosystems, and Director of the Agroecosystem Management Program (AMP) in the college.  Many of you have reached out to congratulate me and ask what this means in terms of my role in SENR, and I wanted to share a few details.

First – I’m excited to be able to devote more of my time to rekindling energy and activity through AMP. The program (and our endowment) is devoted to supporting interdisciplinary and engaged work on agricultural ecosystems, and approaches that leverage ecological processes to advance resilience and sustainability at the farm, community, and landscape level. I plan to invest our time and resources in helping facilitate collaborative work among research and extension faculty, farmers, and other key stakeholders on these topics.

While a college-level program, the work of SENR is directly relevant and needed to carry out fully integrated projects. I would love to support and partner with many of you whose work might fit with the AMP mission (e.g., exploring above and below ground carbon dynamics on different farming systems; exploring the potential for agroforestry in Ohio; understanding how different arrangements of crops, pastures, and woods affect biodiversity, etc.).  PLEASE REACH OUT TO LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT TO BE IN THE LOOP!

Second – since this new role is a 50% FTE role funded by the college, I will need to reduce my SENR role by half.  I will stay on with a 35% research, 10% teaching, and 5% extension role in SENR – continuing to teach ENR5600.

As outlined in our Pattern of Administration (POA) document, my Associate Director role requires me to manage our Wooster operations (overseeing Wooster-based staff, coordinating with campus administrators and other Wooster-based associate chairs) as well as providing leadership on Research policies and practices in SENR (Chairing the Research Committee, facilitating Hatch reporting, etc.).  After the transition, I plan to stay on the Research Committee.  An announcement of the Associate Director - Wooster position will be made soon.

Bottom line – I am not going anywhere and hope to continue growing our partnerships and relationships in the coming years!

Warmly,

Doug