Levon Esters ‘00 knew that he wanted to continue his education in the agricultural sciences. But the Florida A&M graduate hadn’t considered being an Aggie.
He was working as the coordinator for the agribusiness career pathway at the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences and taking a college tour when a chance encounter changed all that.
“While I was on the tour, I met Dr. Dawn Mellion-Patin, who was a professor at Southern University in Baton Rouge,” said Esters. “She was a graduate of A&T and I told her I wanted to go to graduate school and earn my master’s degree. She said, ‘You should think about A&T.’ She gave me the name of a professor. I reached out to him and started talking back and forth, and I applied for my master’s degree at A&T in agricultural education. The rest is history.”
Since then, Esters’s career has grown at some of the top land-grant universities in the country.
Now the current associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion and faculty affairs for Purdue University’s Polytechnic Institute, where he is also a professor of agricultural sciences education, Esters has been named dean of Penn State’s Graduate School and vice provost for graduate education. He will begin his appointment on May 1.
Esters received his master’s degree in agricultural education from N.C. A&T in 2000 before receiving his Ph.D. in agricultural and extension education from Penn State in 2003, Hes received his bachelor’s degree in agribusiness from Florida A&M University in 1995.
“I am excited about this new career opportunity, returning to Penn State to help advance graduate education across the entire university system,” said Esters. “I look forward to helping ensure that current and future graduate students reach their full potential intellectually and professionally, as A&T did for me, and achieve academic success.”
His time at A&T was, Esters said, “phenomenal.”
“My thesis advisor was Dr. Terrence Thomas,” said Esters. “On my committee were Dr. Donald McDowell and Dr. Alton Thompson, and they were great committee members. To this day, Dr. Thompson and I still talk. He was an excellent mentor. Dr. Thompson also helped cultivate my love for statistics and research methods, which developed as a result of taking his courses.”
As a student in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Esters served as vice president of the MANRRS (Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Science) chapter and held a graduate assistantship, working on a collaborative project with several other 1890 institutions.
“A&T taught me a lot about what it meant to be a leader,” said Esters. “I also learned what it meant to be student-centered.
“When I left to pursue my doctoral degree at Penn State, I wasn’t intimidated at all. Like all HBCUs, they do a great job of instilling confidence in students. What was interesting was that my advisor at Penn State was an A&T grad as well. Having that shared experience made my time at Penn State even more gratifying.”
Esters would serve as an assistant professor at Iowa State University from 2004 to 2009 before teaching at Purdue University for the next 14 years. He was named associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion and faculty affairs for the Polytechnic Institute at Purdue in August 2021.
“I am a firm believer in the value of public education and what it can contribute to enhancing the lives of people,” said Esters. “My beliefs are evident from having attended and worked at public land grant institutions, such as Florida A&M, N.C. A&T, Iowa State, Penn State, and Purdue University. In addition to the tripartite mission of teaching, research, and outreach, through Cooperative Extension, land grant institutions have a long history of providing access and opportunity with a focus on the public good, and that has influenced how I engage with students.”
