Pennsylvania and Penn State's Agricultural Heritage:
A Chronology
 2000-Present
2000
 February: Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)-Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), "announce the formation of the Pennsylvania Consortium for Interdisciplinary Environmental Policy to take advantage of the expertise available in the Commonwealth's colleges and universities to help develop environmental policy options" (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Environmental Protection).
April: Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection "(DEP) announces that the Growing Greener Program will fund the first 45 Watershed specialists with county conservation districts" (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Environmental Protection).
 April: Penn State is among the first 38 schools indicating a readiness to join the Pennsylvania Consortium for Interdisciplinary Environmental Policy (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Environmental Protection).
September: Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Penn State's Cooperative Extension Service co-sponsor compost workshops in 53 Pennsylvania counties.
October: Pennsylvania's first statewide Watershed Conference is held in State College.
2001
June: Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge "and members of Council of Great Lakes Governors sign the Great Lakes Charter Annex as a guide to long-term water resource management" (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Environmental Protection).
August: 200,000 acres of Pennsylvania farmland are now protected under the state's farmland preservation program.
2002
Pennsylvania's new budget doubles Growing Greener program funding and extends the program through 2012.
February: Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Department of Agriculture co-host the first Pennsylvania Nutrient Management and Sentiment Control Innovative Technology Forum.
June: The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) releases ladybugs "to kill woolly adelgid attacking state hemlock trees" (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Environmental Protection).
2003
January 29: William Merrill, Jr., professor emeritus of Plant Pathology from 1965 until his retirement in 1999, dies.
Summer:
A "new joint degree program between the School of Forest Resources (M. Agr. M.F.R., M.Agr., and Ph.D. in Forest
Resources and Wildlife and Fisheries Science) and the Dickinson School of Law" begins ("School Notes," Forest Resources Magazine 3, no. 2 (Summer 2003)). July 1:
"After a decade of association with the School of Forest Resources and the expanded Penn State Institutes of the Environment (formerly Environmental Resources Research Institute), the Penn State Cooperative Wetlands Center's (CWC) faculty, staff, and students" have moved "to the Department of Geography in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences....Links with the School will be maintained in selected areas of research, teaching, and outreach" ("School Notes," Forest Resources Magazine 3, no. 2 (Summer 2003)).
2006
Dr. James Tammen is named Professor Emeritus of Plant Pathology.
Spring: Dr. Eunice Mutitu, Senior Lecturer in the Crop Protection Department at University of Nairobi, Kenya, visits the Department of Plant Pathology as a Fulbright Senior Scholar. She is hosted by Drs. Gretchen Kuldau and David Geiser.
March 9: The Department of Plant Pathology recognizes Mike Soika for his 20 years of service to Penn State with a special coffee hour. Mike is moving on to North Carolina State University.
March 30: The Department of Plant Pathology holds a special coffee hour to recognize Brian Dombroski for his 5 years of service as a Research Support Technologist with Gretchen Kuldau's program.
April 5: Dr. Alan MacNab receives the Gamma Sigma Delta Extension Award at their annual Awards Reception.
May 1: Julie Golod joins the Department of Plant Pathology as a Project Assistant.
May 5-7: Penn State hosts the Mid-Atlantic State Mycology Conference.
June 1: Dr. Henry Ngugi joins the Department of Plant Pathology faculty. He will be based at the Biglerville Fruit Research & Extension Center.
Mid-August: The University Creamery moves from its location in Borland Laboratory to the Berkey Creamery in the Food Science Building.
August 15-17: Ag Progress Days is held at Rock Springs. September 8: The new $30.5 million Forest Resources Building at the corner of Park Avenue and Bigler Road is dedicated.
November: Dr. Alan MacNab, Professor of Plant Pathology, passes away.
November 3: Dr. Herbert Cole, Jr. (Ph.D. '57) is presented with an Outstanding Alumnus of the College of Agricultural Sciences award.
November 7: Over 75 potato fans attend a traditional SPUD lunch at Buckhout Laboratory. The Department of Plant Pathology provided the potatoes, toppings, and beverages.
December 1: Dr. C. Peter Romaine becomes the first holder of the John B. Swayne Chair in Spawn Science.
December 16: Dr. Fred H. Lewis, Professor Emeritus of Plant Pathology, passes away. Dr. Lewis was the first Scientist-in-Charge of the Fruit Research and Extension Center at Arendtsville, Pennsylvania (now located at Biglerville, Pennsylvania).
2007
January 6-13: The 2007 Pennsylvania Farm Show is held at the State Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. January 26: The Annual Plant Pathology Awards Ceremony is held. Special guest at the ceremony was Dr. Larry Moore (Ph.D. '65), who announced the establishment of the Laurence D. and Mary Ann Moore Faculty and Staff Award in Plant Pathology at Penn State.
January: Dr. Erick DeWolf and Mizuho Nita resign from the Department of Plant Pathology to assume new positions at Kansas State University.
January: Jim Travis is named Scientist-in-Charge of the Fruit Research and Extension Center at Biglerville, Pennsylvania.
Spring: Dr. Lee C. Schisler (Ph.D. '57) is named Outstanding Alumnus of the College of Agricultural Sciences.
Spring: An Agriculture and Environment Science and Policy Center is created in the College of Agricultural Sciences.
Spring: A new potato variety--NY-126 or "Lehigh"--is released for use by commercial growers. The new variety was co-developed by Dr. Barbara Christ of Penn State's Department of Plant Pathology and Walter De Jong, a potato breeder from Cornell University.
March 15: Gnana Viji, a post-doc in Maria del Mar Jimenez Gasco's lab, resigns after many years of service to the department.
March 31: Tom Rhodes, Manager of the Mushroom Test-Demonstration Facility and Mushroom Research Center, retires after 35 years of service to Penn State.
April 16: Dr. Jan Leach, University Distinguished Professor of Plant Pathology in the Department of Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management, Colorado State University, presents the first annual Richard R. Nelson Memorial Lecture, "Approaches to Broad-spectrum, Durable Plant Disease Resistance."
May: State College resident and Penn State alumnus Charles H. "Skip" Smith commits $10 million to the construction of an arboretum at Penn State. The arboretum to be named the H. O. Smith Botanic Gardens is to occupy nearly 400 acres of land extending west and north from Park Avenue to the Mount Nittany Expressway (Ag Sciences 2007, June 2007, p. [1]).
May 7: The Departments of Plant Pathology, Food Science, Horticulture, Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, as well as Animal Sciences co-hosted a visit by Drs. Luis Perez Moreno, Rafael Ramierz Malagon, and J. Eleazar Barboza-Corona, faculty members from the Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico.
May 15: John Pecchia (Ph.D. 2000) is named Manager of the Mushroom Test-Demonstration Facility and Mushroom Research Center.
May 22: Dr. Gretchen Kuldau hosts the Annual Meeting of NC-1025 Mycotoxins Biosecurity and Food Safety at Buckhout Laboratory.
June 1: Peg Blair, a member of the Department of Plant Pathology's office staff until her retirement in 1988 passes away.
June 8-11: The Department of Plant Pathology hosts Aeriobiology 2007: Symposium of the Pan-American Association of Aerobiology.
June 10-12: The 49th Mushroom Industry Conference is held at the Nittany Lion Inn.
June 12-13: The Fusarium Research Center hosts the Pan American Aerobiology Association's Spore Camp.
Summer: Dr. Barbara Christ is elected Vice President of the American Phytopathological Society (APS).
October 5: The Pennsylvania Consortium for Interdisciplinary Environmental Research officially changes its name to the Pennsylvania Environmental Resource Consortium.
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