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Featured Students

Rachael McCall Elected as National FFA Officer

Rachael McCall, a second year agricultural economics major from Rochelle, Georgia, was elected as the 2004-2005 National FFA Southern Region Vice President. The national selection process includes a rigorous assessment of each candidate's academic and extracurricular accomplishments. As a national FFA officer, Rachael will travel more than 100,000 miles meeting with FFA members, agriculture teachers and FFA supporters, including top business, government and education leaders in approximately 40 states. Her priorities will include helping students discover their potential and sharing the importance of agriculture with people across the country. She will also participate in an international experience tour to Japan.

Previously, Rachael received a national proficiency silver emblem in dairy production entrepreneurship, second place in the state extemporaneous public speaking career development event (CDE) and second place in the national job interview CDE. Her supervised agricultural experience (SAE) involved beef and dairy production entrepreneurship. Rachael is a member of the Agricultural and Environmental Economics Club, Collegiate FFA and the Wesley Foundation.

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Featured Faculty

John Bergstrom Named First Russell Professor

John Bergstrom has been named the first Richard B. Russell Distinguished Professor of Public Policy. This appointment is effective January 1, 2005. An outstanding faculty member in Agricultural and Applied Economics, Dr. Bergstrom's research and teaching program over the past 17 years has focused on concepts and techniques for assessing natural resource and agricultural values, and applying these values to resource and agricultural policy and management. His research record includes over 100 refereed publications and $2.5 million in research contracts and grants.

Dr. Bergstrom teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in natural resource and agricultural economics and management. He coordinates the Environmental Economics and Management Internship program, and is an active undergraduate and graduate student academic advisor. At UGA, Dr. Bergstrom also was a leader in the development of a new undergraduate major in Environmental Economics and Management and a new undergraduate Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science (BSES) degree program. He serves as department coordinator and academic advisor for the Environmental Economics and Management program and degree which includes recruiting, curriculum development, and coursework and career advising activities. He has developed several new courses in natural resource and agricultural economics at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Previous recognition includes the Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching and Graduate Faculty awards in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, the Gamma Sigma Delta Junior and Senior Faculty Awards, and Certificates of Merit from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for applied research and service to the agency.

Josef Broder Named University Professor

Josef Broder, an outstanding teacher and advisor in Agricultural and Applied Economics for 21 years, has been named University Professor. Many alumni consider Dr. Broder to be their best teacher. He was also a dedicated and knowledgeable advisor, serving as undergraduate coordinator and club advisor for several years. He is presently the CAES Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.

The awarding of the professorship in April 2004 recognizes Dr. Broder's significant influence on students, as well as his leadership for enhancing instructional programs. He has chaired the Teaching Academy's executive committee since it was founded in 1999. The Teaching Academy, which is a forum of faculty who are engaged in advocacy, service, and advising on teaching matters, has made a significant impact on the university's pursuit of teaching excellence. Dr. Broder led an initiative to extend the university's academic programs beyond the Athens campus. As a result, UGA now offers upper-division undergraduate courses and bachelor's degrees, as well as graduate courses and degrees and continuing education, at the Gwinnett University Center and degrees with majors in agriscience and environmental systems and agricultural education at the Tifton campus. He developed a program for high school students to work with research faculty in the college which evolved into the Young Scholars Program, bringing more than 50 diverse high school students to the Athens campus each summer for a six-week internship experience. Under Dr. Broder's leadership, the Congressional Agricultural Internship Program has successfully grown to six internships.

Teaching Excellence

From left, Michael Stimpert, senior vice president of Gold Kist Inc., Jeffrey Dorfman with his wife Melody and Gale Buchanan, dean and director of the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Jeff Dorfman was presented the 2004 D.W. Brooks Award for Excellence in Teaching by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. An outstanding teacher, Dr. Dorfman has been recognized with numerous teaching awards, including the department's graduate teaching award in 1991 and 1992. He was presented the undergraduate's teaching award in 1998, 2001, and 2003. In 2004, Dr. Dorfman was presented the Southern Agricultural Economics Association Distinguished Teaching of a Course Award in recognition of his teaching AAEC 4760 – The Economics of Agricultural Processing and Marketing. This course helps prepare students to work in a wide array of food industry jobs, including the processes applied to food after it leaves the farm until it is consumed.

Dr. Dorfman teaches the department's graduate level classes in applied econometrics and dynamic optimization. He has also taught graduate microeconomic theory and graduate Bayesian econometrics. At the undergraduate level, he currently teaches a senior-level agricultural marketing course and microeconomic theory at the intermediate level and the introductory level. Dr. Dorfman's teaching ability is held in such high regard that he was entrusted with teaching microeconomic principles to introduce students to the field of agricultural and applied economics and recruit new majors. Though demanding in terms of the depth and breadth of material that students are responsible for assimilating, Dr. Dorfman exhibits concern for how well students are learning.

Jack Houston Wins Award in International Agriculture

Jack Houston was presented the 2004 D.W. Brooks Faculty Award for Excellence in International Agriculture by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. He has been a leader in internationalizing the CAES and UGA curriculum. In addition, he helped develop and implement the CAES Certificate in International Agriculture, the university's Global Studies Certificate, and the CAES student exchange program agreement with the University of Newcastle, U.K. Through a grant from the Office of International Affairs, Dr. Houston initiated a joint effort with the Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil to develop a student exchange agreement and further instruction, research and internship opportunities for students and faculty. As chair of the African Studies Program Outreach and Planning Committee, he led the transformation of the program into a university-wide African Studies Institute (ASI). He also co-developed the department's first study-abroad program, International Agribusiness Marketing and Management, at the Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico and has taken students to Mexico annually since 2000.

Before joining the UGA faculty, Dr. Houston served as a Peace Corp volunteer in Malawi at the Colby College of Agriculture. For nine years, he was contracted by the Malawi Ministry of Agriculture to train over 2000 agricultural extension service personnel. He worked in planning and curriculum development of a new national college of agriculture, forestry, home economics, fisheries, veterinary science, hydrology, and wildlife management. The Malawi Natural Resources College has been hailed by the Canadian government as a model of institution building and training. This international experience helped shape Dr. Houston's professional career. His experiences abroad enables him to grasp the challenges his students face in returning to home countries and equips him to offer effective, useful counsel.

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Smart Growth

Jeff Dorfman is working with the Alliance for Quality Growth to help people deal with Georgia's rapid growth. The alliance is a collaborative effort with members from the university's public service and outreach units and academic departments, as well as the private sector and state government. This affiliation provides an extensive range of expertise and a high level of cooperation.

Smart Growth University, a training initiative of the alliance, is a UGA-based unbrella organization working to increase understanding about the wide variety of planning and growth management tools available to promote sustainable land use and natural resource development. Land conservation issues, economic forces directing patterns of growth, and existing natural and historic resources are considered for growth planning. Through these workshops, professionals are able to share some of their expertise in growth management, and the network of everyone committed to managing growth is strengthened. (For more information, go on line to http://aqg.ecology.uga.edu/.)

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