Agriculture News

FACULTY ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

Western Kentucky University owes its excellence in teaching and research/creative scholarship to the exceptionally talented group of faculty who call WKU their academic home. Faculty members play a major role at creating an intellectually vibrant WKU community that creates a campus atmosphere that centers around sharing knowledge that directly effects student success and which positively impact local and regional communities.  However, we are also a large community which at times makes it difficult for all of us to know the influence that faculty across campus are having on WKU and the broader communities.  To this end, I would like to begin having some of the Provost’s Monday Messages highlight just some of the incredible accomplishments of faculty at WKU. 

Professor Mac McKerral led a field trip to Mississippi in October 2021 for students enrolled in the Fleischaker-Greene First Amendment Scholars class. Dr. Saundra Ardrey and students from her Citizenship class joined them. The students visited Philadelphia, Mississippi, a focal point for the 1964 Freedom Summer, and effort to register black voters during the Jim Crowe Era. The group met with the mayor and visited the Mount Zion United Methodist Church, which was burned by the Ku Klux Klan, who also attacked church members. Students met members of the church who lived at the time of the attack. The church grounds also hold a memorial to the civil rights workers murdered by the Klan when the workers went to the aid of the church members after the attack. In June 1964, Neshoba County Klan members kidnapped and murdered Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney. The trip also included a stop in Jackson, Mississippi, for a daylong visit to the Civil Rights Museum. The students met Freedom Rider Hezekiah Watkins, a lifelong activist in Jackson. Watkins was arrested more than 100 times for his work as an activist. His first arrest occurred at age 13, and after that arrest he was transferred from the jail in Jackson to Death Row at the state prison in Parchman, Mississippi, where he spent five days. 

Dr. Allie McCreary, Assistant Professor in the School of Kinesiology, Recreation & Sport, will work with North Carolina State University to evaluate the environmental outcomes of youth conservation corps programs managed by the Public Lands Service Coalition.  Dr. McCreary is leading the national evaluation which will empirically assess the role conservation corps play in reducing invasive species and minimizing wildfire fuel loads on public lands such as state parks and national forests. 

Dr. Ashley Stinnett began a two-year term as president of the Society for Visual Anthropology, while Dr. Tim Frandy was elected to a two-year term on the Executive Board of the American Folklore Society. 

Dr. Josh Durkee, Professor and Assistant Chair of the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Atmospheric Sciences, has positively impacted the University and the region through his years of work on weather and emergency preparedness.  He's helped to build the very strong WKU Meteorology program and founded the College Heights Atmospheric Observatory for Students (CHAOS), which has involved students in hands-on professional research and work experience.  This work led to his founding of White Squirrel Weather, the student-run official university weather service and weather-related emergency preparedness service.  They provide weather monitoring and reporting for university events, including sports, graduation ceremonies, and more.  Durkee and the White Squirrel Weather students were deeply involved in forecasting, communication, and response for the devastating tornados that hit Bowling Green and other communities in December and January.  They and colleagues Jason Wilson and Tyler Baker from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences also worked with the National Weather Service in the wakes of the storms to fully assess the extreme weather event and its resulting destruction.   

Dr. Aquesha Daniels, Assistant Pedagogical Professor of Management, is making significant positive impacts in the GFCB, at WKU, and in our community. Aquesha is serving as the first GFCB Director of Inclusion and Impact. In that role, she is leading our DEI efforts and is serving as a valuable resource to improve inclusivity in our hiring practices, student engagement practices, event planning, and college culture. Aquesha serves on both the GFCB and WKU DEI Committees and has assisted two GFCB search committees with using blind material review for their searches, resulting in a more diverse pool of candidates for interviews. In addition, Aquesha is the founding and current faculty advisor for the GFCB Women in Business student organization. Under her direction, that student organization has grown to almost 100 members in just a few years. Aquesha is an incredible personal and professional mentor to the members of the organization, and many of the members are coming forward as advocates and leaders for change in our college and across campus.  In the community, Aquesha serves as the legal professional on the Board of Directors for POP-UP, a local nonprofit organization that works in collaboration with the Housing Authority to help minority and low-income entrepreneurs secure microloans as a nontraditional funding source to start or bolster their businesses. Aquesha was recently selected to receive the 2021-2022 GFCB Faculty Award for Public Service and the 2021-2022 GFCB Faculty Award for Student Advisement in recognition of her efforts to improve the quality of life for our students and for those in our community. 

Dr. Stacey Leggett, Associate Professor, School of Leadership and Professional Studies (SLPS), reached the 4 in 4 milestone, publishing 4 articles in 4 months. Her publications are included in the Journal of Research on Leadership Education, Educational Renaissance, Education Planning, and the Consortium for Research on Educational Assessment and Teaching Effectiveness. Dr. Leggett served as lead author with co-authors from several interdisciplinary partner colleagues including, Dr. Tom Stewart, Kentucky Department of Education, Drs. Kandy Smith and Sam Evans of the WKU School of Teacher Education and Dr. Margie DeSander, SLPS. 

Thanks to the work of Drs. Fred DeGraves and Paul Woosley and colleagues in the Department of Agriculture and Food Science, WKU is a growing leader in dairy production science through its SmartHolstein Lab.  Growing out of a proposal submitted by DeGraves to the Kentucky Agricultural Development Fund and in conjunction with Holstein Association USA and other dairy industry partners, the SmartHolstein Lab will put technology to work to thoroughly research and understand the conditions that lead to improved milk production in cattle.  An additional element of the lab encourages growth of the SmartHolstein herd through community donations via the "Send a Holstein to College" program.  The WKU SmartHolstein Lab is enhancing the educational experience of WKU Agriculture and Food Science students by allowing them to work with cutting-edge technologies on a daily basis.   

Dr. Mariah Yates, Assistant Professor of Management, is the faculty advisor for the Business Association for Development. BAD was envisioned, designed, and organized by a group of WKU students, under the advisement of Dr. Yates. The organization is focused on the ideals of mentorship, networking, and professional development. The students work extensively with alumni and area business leaders to provide a variety of workshops, guest lectures, mentors, and networking opportunities for its student members. In just a couple of years, BAD has grown to be the largest student organization in the GFCB with members from all across campus. 

Dr. LeAnne Coder, Professor of Management, leads the GFCB assurance of student learning efforts for both SACSCOC and AACSB accreditation. She is piloting the use of Chalk and Wire for assessment on behalf of the university assurance of student learning committee. She has made significant contributions to university and college efforts to make assurance of student learning more efficient and effective as part of our continuous improvement. 

Sincerely,