Dr. Benjamin Gray, a rural sociologist
in the Department of Agribusiness,
Applied Economics and Agriscience
Education, is the recipient of the SAES’s
Outstanding Teacher Award for the aca-demic
year 2014-15.
A well-rounded academician whose
substantial research and outreach efforts
focus on rural poverty, especially in the
Black Belt region of the Southeast, Gray
nevertheless has always valued his role
as teacher first and foremost.
“One of my goals is for students to
gain a sincere appreciation for the sub-ject,
so, for instance, students may say
they were not aware of the distinct dif-ferences
that exist among rural residents
when compared to urban residents.
Bringing this type of awareness to stu-dents
is very rewarding,” he said.
Students and colleagues alike rec-ognize
and appreciate Gray’s dedication
to the classroom, as evidenced by stu-dents
consistently ranking his instruc-tion
in the “excellent” range, and his
consistently superior annual evaluations.
A colleague in his department,
Dr. Donald McDowell, says of Gray:
“He pushes his students very hard, but
he pushes himself even harder. In the
process, he develops excellent relation-ships
with his students. His courses
are regarded as being among the most
challenging courses they take, and at the
same time, Benny is regarded as one of
our most caring, helpful and dedicated
professors.”
In his writings and presentations,
Gray often stresses that all sectors of
society should pay more attention to the
Black Belt, an agricultural region across
the Southeast plagued by persistent pov-erty
and containing a high proportion
of African Americans. Among his many
civic activities, Gray chairs the Southern
Rural Development Center Technical
Operational Advisory Committee. He
has designed, conducted and analyzed
numerous surveys through the SAES’s
Applied Social Research Laboratory,
and has published dozens of refereed
publications in the form of journal
articles, technical reports, or conference
proceedings and other publications.
He has led or participated in research,
capacity building and teaching projects
that brought more than $1.6 million to
the University. Gray, whose Ph.D. is
from N.C. State, joined the faculty as
assistant professor in 2000. His climb
up the academic ladder began at A&T
in 1982. He has both bachelor’s and
master’s degrees in agribusiness and eco-nomics
from A&T.
Preparing. Finding. Implementing solutions.
The SAES continues to focus its resources on the Local Food
and Health Initiative as evidenced by its newest academic
major in Nutrition, Health and Wellness (NHW), which will
be available to students seeking a bachelor’s in Food and
Nutritional Sciences starting fall 2015.
The new curriculum is responsive to the increasing
emphasis on nutrition education in health care, as demon-strated
by the latest forecast from the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics, which predicts a robust 21 percent increase in
jobs for nutritionists and dietitians through 2022. Experts
attribute the higher-than-average demand for nutrition pro-fessionals
to America’s obesity epidemic, its rapidly aging
population, and the Affordable Care Act, which has given
millions of previously uninsured Americans access to health
care for the first time.
The NHW concentration will provide students with a
foundational science background in chemistry, anatomy,
physiology, and microbiology, while incorporating courses in
nutrition, food science, wellness, disease prevention, weight
management, and metabolism.
Supplementing their classroom training are opportunities
for NHW majors to gain hands on experiences in health care
settings, child care centers, schools, research laboratories,
and the food industry. The new major also meshes with two
of the SAES’s major initiatives, the Strong Families Build
Strong Health Initiative as well as the SAES’s Local Food and
Health Initiative.
Nutrition professionals work in many settings, including
hospitals, nursing homes, cafeterias and clinics. Some also
pursue private practice. The median annual salary for the
profession is currently $55,240.
“We are delighted to offer this new option to our students,
and anticipate that employers will readily recruit them
upon graduation,” said Dr. Valerie Giddings, chair of the
Department of Family and Consumer Sciences.
For more information or to enroll, contact Dr. Giddings at
336-334-7850 or vlgiddin@ncat.edu.
Nutrition is focus of new program
Dr. Antoine J. Alston (left), the SAES’s associate dean for
Academic Studies, adds his endorsement to the Outstanding
Teacher Award presented to Dr. Benjamin Gray.
on the move North Carolina Agricultural and
Technical State University
School of Agriculture and
Environmental Sciences Newsletter
www.ag.ncat.edu
June 2015 • Vol. XIV, No. 3
Gray receives Outstanding Teacher Award
Newcomb-Hopfer receives Junior
Faculty Excellence Award
“Tireless … enthusiastic … an inspiration and a role
model to students … possessing a drive for excellence….”
Those are only a few of the descriptors students and col-leagues
used in enthusiastically endorsing Dr. Elizabeth
Newcomb-Hopfer’s qualifications for the SAES’s Junior
Faculty Teaching Excellence Award for 2014–15.
“Students can feel the energy and optimism radiate
from her teaching,” wrote one student.
“As a future entrepreneur, I have gained crucial
hands-on experience in how to successfully run an apparel
company,” wrote another.
Newcomb-Hopfer, assistant professor of fashion
merchandising and design in the Department of Family
and Consumer Sciences, joined the faculty in 2010.
Colleagues say that she has continued to grow and excel
as an instructor and mentor, and often cite her friendly,
approachable teaching style.
Newcomb-Hopfer sees her role as preparing students
to stand out in a demanding industry that she describes as
“brutally competitive.”
“To help them stand out, I must arm them with
industry-specific knowledge and creative and technical
skills, as well as instill in them a true excitement about
fashion,” she says. Early on, Newcomb-Hopfer spotted an
opportunity to do so, and thus developed a much-needed
course, Apparel Construction and Evaluation II, which
she now teaches. She also teaches seven other courses in
the fashion curriculum. A large majority of her student
evaluations rank her in the “superior” range.
In addition to teaching, Hopfer maintains a heavy
advising load, serves as advisor to the student organiza-tion
Fashion Xcetera, and serves on numerous committees
at the department, school and university level, several
of which she has chaired. She is also active in com-munity
outreach, as leader of a USDA-funded project,
“Addressing Nutrition and Well-Being of Teen Mothers
Through a Mentoring Program.”
“I love to learn; and I want to pass this love of learn-ing
to my students,” says Newcomb-Hopfer.
Dr. Radiah Minor of the Department
of Animal Sciences was part of an inter-disciplinary
team of A&T faculty hon-ored
with the University’s Community
Engagement Award for 2014–15. Minor
and three members of the School of
Engineering faculty have applied grants
from two sources to a “Girls in Science”
program that is coordinating summer
camps and other STEM activities for stu-dents
in grades K–9.
The chair of the SAES’s Department
of Natural Resources and Environmental
Design, Dr. Abolghasem Shahbazi, was
adviser for the doctoral dissertation
honored as A&T’s best for the 2014–15
academic year. Dr. Jeremy Ferrell’s disser-tation,
guided by Shahbazi, was “A dis-tributed
model of oilseed biorefining, via
integrated industrial ecology exchanges,
Analysis of Economic Modeling, Process
Simulation, and Life Cycle Assessment at
the North Carolina EcoComplex.” Ferrell’s
research compared costs for different
methods of oilseed and biodiesel pro-duction
with a focus on new metrics for
small-scale production.
Dr. Jianmei Yu, an SAES research
scientist, received an Intellectual Property
Award from A&T that recognized her
contributions to an allergen-reducing
process for peanuts that was licensed
to a Canadian firm, Xemerge — a devel-opment
that the news service Reuters
heralded as hope that “help could soon
be on the way for the roughly 2.8 million
Americans with a potentially life-threaten-ing
allergy.”As exclusive licensee of the
patented hypoallergenic process, Alrgn
Bio, is now open for business in Gateway
University Research Park, becoming the
third-ever spinoff company to market
intellectual property developed at A&T.
James Williams, an SAES computer
network specialist and the head coach of
the North Carolina A&T women’s bowl-ing
team, was named MEAC Coach of
the year in mid-March. The recognition
came as he led the Aggie keglers to the
highest ranking in program history —
10th in one national poll — only a few
weeks before the team won the XBowling
Intercollegiate Team Championship in a
competition in Wichita, Kan., April 16–18.
Dr. Sung-Jin Lee of the SAES’s
Department of Family and Consumer
Sciences received the North Carolina
Association of Family and Consumer
Sciences’ 2015 New Achievers Award.
As an assistant professor of housing
research, Lee has received more than
$500,000 in funding from USDA for
research into assessments of lending
patterns in rural North Carolina, as well
as “aging-in-place” strategies that older
homeowners in the state are using to
remain in their homes and other issues
involving housing and homeownership.
faculty & staff notes
Four SAES honors students represented their departments during the annual
Student Awards program in April. Here are profiles of each of them:
Wesley Wolfe’s college plan was set: major
in criminal justice and then go to law school.
But once at A&T, he went to a campus job
fair, discovered information about fashion
design, and found his perfect fit.
“I knew instantly that was my passion
and I changed my major,” Wolfe says.
Three years since, the only time Wolfe
looked back was to make sure a model was
properly fitted in one of his designs. He gradu-ated
with a degree in fashion merchandising
and design in May and credits faculty in the
Department of Family and Consumer Sciences
with shaping his passion, immersing him in
clothing and textiles disciplines, and for a pur-poseful
education that included the econom-ics
of retail markets as well as runways.
“I give a huge, huge thank you to Dr.
(Elizabeth) Newcomb-Hopfer. She has really
been my backbone,” Wolfe says of his advi-sor.
“Her working with me has helped me to
perfect my craft. I’ve learned amazing sewing
techniques. I’ve become more creative. I’ve
learned to step outside my comfort zone.”
His designs opened a formal-wear fash-ion
show at Fayetteville’s Crown Coliseum in
January, produced by the bridal boutique An
Affair to Remember, Wolfe says. And when it
came to outfitting A&T’s next top model and
top administrator for the annual Earth Day
Fashion Show in April, Wolfe was picked to
custom design for Chancellor Harold L. Martin
Sr. He constructed a vest for Martin’s ease of
movement, considering that the chancellor
wasn’t used to modeling and that the garment
was made of plastic and laminating paper.
“I was nervous for a second,” Wolfe
says, “but then I know the talent that I have
and people within our department have this
confidence in me, so then I said, ‘I’m going to
crush it’.”
Wolfe’s post-graduation plan was to
continue working retail as he culls internship
offers. Ultimately, Wolfe wants to own “my
own brand name, my own bricks-and-mortar
store.”
One of the fundamental lessons Keegan
Johnson learned about research while get-ting
his degree in laboratory animal science
was “how to bounce back.”
“There’s a trial and error process to
research,” says Johnson, “that guides you
even when the outcome is not what you
expected.”
If anyone is familiar with unexpected
outcomes it’s Johnson, 23. He had been
accepted by UNC-Charlotte but then fell in
love with A&T after a visit during his spring
break.
Initially, he majored in nursing as an
artery to his goal of becoming a medical doc-tor.
Johnson changed course again, though,
after a friend recommended the Department
of Animal Sciences and Dr. Tracy Hanner.
“He changed everything for me,”
Johnson says of Hanner. “I’ve had the best
professors on campus in the School of
Agriculture. I would stand each and every one
of them beside anybody in the University.”
Life in a military family exposed Johnson
to different cultures and environments across
the country and abroad. But A&T reflected
the world to him in its own unique microcosm.
“I’d never seen this many different black
cultures,” Johnson says. “It felt like every
person I walked by, I knew. It made me feel
welcome without really knowing them.
“I stayed for a week and it got better and
better each day. During the spring break while
I was here, I actually applied to go here. I said
‘this is where I need to be’.”
Johnson is headed to Kansas State
University for a research internship. His
undergraduate research at A&T focused on
respiratory diseases in swine, but Johnson
isn’t sure if that will be his dedicated specialty
in the years to come.
Becoming a doctor is still in his long-range
plan, but now the pursuit is for a Ph.D.
in an animal sciences field. Department of
Animal Sciences faculty have so profoundly
affected him that he wants to guide students
in that same way.
“You get to help others,” Johnson says,
“and that’s the main thing I wanted to do.”
The late Tom and Bettie Webster would be
so proud — of that, their granddaughter
Jasmine Scott is sure. Graduating with an
agricultural-education degree and heading to
work for USDA was prime occasion for reflec-tion
by this progeny of Rockingham County
tobacco farmers; one who never envisioned
agriculture in her own future.
“My grandfather had a fourth-grade
education. My grandmother had a 10th-grade
education. They married when they were 16,
and they worked to have something,” says
Scott, who was raised on part of the 100-
acre farmstead that her late grandparents
amassed.
Yet, the farm was no longer active as
Scott was growing up and she had a skewed
perspective of agricultural careers as: “A
farmer in some overalls. Why would I do that?
Why would I major in ag?”
Now, the newly minted agricultural
major not only has the answer to her previous
questions, she is the answer. Her agricultural
awakening began with her mother’s encour-agement
to compete for an 1890 USDA schol-arship,
which Scott won for a four-year ride at
A&T.
“Coming to the School of Ag and being
within this industry,” says Scott, 21 “is one of
the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life.
Hands down.”
Scott’s academic career also includes
two internships, study abroad, top honors in
the N.C. Farm Bureau’s Collegiate Discussion
Meet, and an undergraduate research assis-tantship
with Dr. Kenrett Jefferson-Moore
examining access to local or organic produce
in the Piedmont. That assignment helped
sharpen Scott’s analytical skills and aptitude
for statistical research, preparing her for the
job she is about to begin as a USDA financial
analyst in Albuquerque, N.M.
“I give the School of Ag every piece
of credit for giving me direction in finding a
career,” Scott says. “The School of Ag is the
best-kept secret on this campus. It’s like find-ing
a jewel, a rare jewel.”
On Katie Pritchett’s road to success it was
the unconventional route that worked better
for her, as evidenced by her recent degree in
sustainable land management. A graduate of
the SAES’s Department of Natural Resources
and Environmental Design, Pritchett, 31,
returns to Florida this summer for another
internship with USDA’s Natural Resources
Conservation Service. She will attend gradu-ate
school at N.C. State in the fall.
Before amassing academic momentum,
Pritchett had a traditional trajectory that
included attending college directly after high
school. The Georgia native pursued envi-ronmental
studies for two years at Warren
Wilson College before conceding that she
wasn’t focused.
“It just wasn’t time for me to be in col-lege,
but that doesn’t mean that college
wasn’t for me,” Pritchett says.
She worked in garden centers and
stayed abreast of environmental and land-use
issues by taking community college classes.
Noting her talent, one of her instructors at
Alamance Community College recommended
A&T. Pritchett was further inspired after Dr.
Antoine J. Alston, the SAES associate dean
for academic studies, came to speak at the
community college.
At A&T, Pritchett credits Dr. Charles
Raczkowski with helping her chart a success-ful
career path. After graduate school, she’d
like to continue working in soil-sciences disci-plines,
as a conservationist and ultimately as
a district or area conservationist.
“I have an affinity for nature and the
environment that was instilled in me at a
young age from my parents,” says Pritchett,
whose parting advice to other students is to
help manage the environment. “We need to
understand how important natural resource
conservation is. People don’t usually think of
soil as a natural resource but it’s where our
food comes from.”
Preparing. Finding. Implementing solutions.
Dr. Elizabeth Newcomb-Hopfer (left) and one of her fashion
merchandising and design students, Ayleena Daniels.
on the move
________________
___N_o_n_p_r_o_fi_t _O_r_g_. __
__U_S_ _P_o_s_ta_g_e_ _P_a_id__
___P_e_rm__it_ N__o_. _2_02_ __
__G_r_e_e_n_s_b_o_r_o_, N__C__
on the move
North Carolina A&T State University School of
Agriculture and Environmental Sciences Newsletter —
Produced by Agricultural Communications
Dr. Harold L. Martin Sr., Chancellor
Dr. Bill Randle, Dean, School of Agriculture
 and Environmental Sciences; Administrator,
The Cooperative Extension Program; Director,
Agricultural Research
Dr. Antoine J. Alston, Associate Dean, Academic Studies
Dr. Fletcher Barber Jr., Associate Administrator,
The Cooperative Extension Program
Willie T. Ellis Jr., Associate Dean, Administration
Dr. Shirley Hymon-Parker, Associate Dean,
Agricultural Research
North Carolina A&T State University is a land-grant
doctoral/research institution and AA/EEO employer.
Send change of address and correspondence to:
on the move Newsletter Editor
Agricultural Research Program
CH Moore Agricultural Research Station
Greensboro, NC 27411
or online:
bit.ly/saesesub
7,000 copies of this public document
were printed on recycled paper at
a cost of $1,459.60 or $0.21 per copy.
Distributed in furtherance of the acts of Congress of May 8
and June 30, 1914. Employment and program opportunities
are open to all people regardless of race, color, national
origin, sex, age or disability. North Carolina A&T State
University, North Carolina State University, US Department
of Agriculture and local governments cooperating.
www.ag.ncat.edu
Mark Your Calendars
Institute for Future
Agricultural Leaders (IFAL):
June 21 – 26
Research AprenticeShip
Program (RAP)
for high school students:
June 21 – July 17
1890s on the Hil
and Convocation in the Library
of Congress in Washington:
July 15 – 16
National Day of Prayer
to commemorate signing of
Second Morrill Act in 1890:
Aug. 30
on the move/flip side
More than 270 participants turned out on campus for the 1890
system-wide Wellness Walk/Run celebrating the Second Morrill
Act of 1890, that created land-grant institutions such as N.C. A&T.