Mohamed Ahmedna, Ph.D.
Dear CAES Community,
We have a proud history in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, and in 2019 we have made great strides to ensure that our future is equally bright.
We completed our blueprint for the coming years, CAES Preeminence: Horizon 2023. This strategic plan ensures that our core values, mission, vision and goals align with those of the university. One of those core values is excellence, and it is demonstrated daily by our faculty and students.
Valerie J. McMillan, Ph.D., an associate professor of family and consumer sciences, received the University of North Carolina System’s 2019 Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching at commencement on May 11.
Alexandra Hauke ’19, a biological engineering major, was selected to study, conduct research and assist teachers abroad for the 2019-20 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. She is spending nine months in Vienna, Austria, researching waste-to-energy systems at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences.
Milosh McAdoo, an animal science major and Cheatham-White Scholar, is serving as a vice president of North Carolina FFA. He’s the first state FFA officer from A&T in more than 40 years.
We graduate more African Americans with degrees in agriculture than any other university in the nation. During this past year, 10 of our students were admitted to vet school. In the coming year, we look forward to expanding our academic enterprise even further with the addition of an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program opening doctoral training to students in all our academic units.
Cooperative Extension at N.C. A&T reached hundreds of thousands of the state’s residents during the past year, sharing research-based information to help underserved farmers, families, individuals, youth and communities make decisions to improve their lives. We’re reaching even more people through the use of technology, such as our how-to videos for plasticulture, making a handwashing station, and a dedicated hemp website to assist farmers.
Our Small Farms Week, Small Farms Field Day and Hemp Field Day attracted hundreds of farmers from across the state. We’re also meeting people where they live with our AgriShops: Small Farmer Production Workshops, which provide region-specific training for small, limited-resource and socially disadvantaged farmers.
In Fall 2019, we were joined by Chancellor Harold L. Martin Sr. for a 500-mile, two-day tour of Extension outreach in action in Eastern North Carolina. We’ll be visiting the western half of the state in 2020.
STEM outreach continues to be an area of focus. We provided financial support that enabled underserved youth to attend NASA’s Space Camp, where they had life-changing experiences. Innovation Station, our mobile STEM lab, has traveled the state, providing lessons for thousands of children and youth.
Learn more about our Extension outreach in Solutions for North Carolina 2019 and Mission Possible in Motion 2019.
In the area of research, the CAES leads the university with more than $20 million in external funding. We’ve also learned recently that USDA – NIFA is funding five of our capacity building grant proposals, projects that will strengthen our teaching and research, for a total of $1.3 million.
During the past several years, our faculty have published hundreds of articles in refereed journals and received nine patents for their discoveries. On Feb. 11, we’ll be sharing our research by hosting a conference on campus to help small farmers learn more about growing hemp. Read more about our research excellence in Re:search 2019.
We have much to be proud of and thankful for as 2019 draws to a close. Thank you all for making it such a special year. I know that together we will reach even greater heights in 2020.
Happy holidays,
Dean Mohamed Ahmedna
