College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

Renovation of a 1913 mule barn on the University of Georgia Griffin campus is complete, with a ceremonial ribbon cutting Oct. 4 signifying its new purpose as the Dundee Cafe.

Made possible by a $1 million gift from the Dundee Community Association, the cafe will serve students, employees and visitors as well as keep the memory of Dundee Mills and the historic mule barn alive through historical photos and exhibits.

“The University of Georgia is tremendously grateful to the Dundee Mills Community Association for this generous gift, which has allowed us to create a vibrant hub on the Griffin campus and further strengthen the connections between UGA-Griffin and the surrounding community,” said UGA President Jere W. Morehead.

The mule barn was constructed in 1913 after the previous structure burned to the ground following a lightning strike. The replacement barn was constructed using the slip form concrete method to demonstrate what was then a new construction technique.

During the same time period, across the street from the campus, Dundee Mills produced towels and other textiles. It was the area’s largest employer for nearly a century, when Griffin was known as a textile town.

The 2018 Agro-Forestry & Wildlife Field Day was held Thursday, Sept. 20 at University of Georgia Griffin Campus Westbrook Research Farm on Ellis Road.

The event, which began in 1987 and is currently held every three years, is an opportunity for property owners and students to learn from and ask questions of experts in a variety of topics related to forestry and wildlife.

George Granade, Research Station Superintendent at UGA-Griffin, helped organize the event.

Pipette, check. Lab coat, check. A sense of scientific curiosity, double check.

It’s not your typical gear list for summer camp, but it covers just what Georgia high school students needed while they participated in this summer’s University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) Young Scholars Program.

For almost three decades, the CAES Young Scholars Program has paired the college’s researchers with high school students to foster students’ love of science and introduce them to the breadth of study that forms the foundation of agriculture, Georgia’s largest industry.

During the Young Scholars Program, students are paid to work as research assistants in laboratories across the college to complete real research projects alongside their faculty mentors.

This year’s 59 Young Scholars represent more than 35 high schools from across the state.

“Each year, we are pleased with the level of research students are able to accomplish in six weeks,” said Victoria David, director of the CAES Office of Diversity Affairs. “Many Young Scholars alumni who got their initial exposure to science in this program currently work in labs across this campus and in industry.”

The 2018 Young Scholars Program kicked off on Monday, June 4^th at the University of Georgia Griffin Campus with 20 students participating in the six-week internship program. High school students from the region were selected from a pool of 86 applicants to participate in YSP where they will spend the summer working alongside world-renowned research scientists at UGA Griffin.

This year we have eight returning young scholars: Austin Duncan, Tamara English, Mary Grace Johnson, Maddox Jordan, Sheilendria Rawls, Jolie Ryff, Martha Sikora and Sarah Smyly. Joining YSP for the first time are: William Anong, Samuel Cross, Joshua Duffey, Taaseen Khan, Yuheon Lee, Lauren Moyer, Meghan Rogers, Emily Shi, Melanie Wagner, Robert “Lee” Wall, Dean Watson and Caroline Zhang. The students will spend Monday through Thursday working with their mentors and on Fridays they will have exploratory site visits to various areas on campus and work-shops from insightful presenters about college/life skills.

University of Georgia horticulturists Rachel Itle and Dario Chavez recently traveled to Australia to collect seeds from wild raspberries and peaches to bring back to the UGA Griffin campus. As scientists in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Itle and Chavez research Georgia-grown fruit.

More than 40 years ago, a young man from Arkansas decided to become an agriculture major because "it was the beginning of the Green Revolution, and agriculture had a bright future." Today that man, University of Georgia professor Paul Raymer, has served Georgia agriculture as a variety tester, a soybean specialist, a canola breeder and a turfgrass breeder.  Read the full article here.

The UGA FoodPIC team (Dr. Kirk Kealey, Dr. Dick Phillips, Lauren Hatcher, Bobby Goss, and Gana Otgonbayar) were heavily involved in the 2018 Flavor of Georgia Contest in Atlanta on March 20. This UGA sponsored contest solicits product submissions from food entrepreneurs and companies across Georgia. This year's event had 125 submissions.

Former UGA Griffin Campus Young Scholar, Natalie Morean, was recently recognized by the UGA Office of Institutional Diversity for her work in advancing issues of human rights and race relations. She was presented the President’s Fulfilling the Dream Award at the Freedom Breakfast sponsored by UGA, the Athens-Clarke Unified Government and the Clarke County School District (see article here).

Morean worked locally with Dr. Paul Raymer during the summers of 2013 and 2014 as a part of the Young Scholars Program, and again in 2015 as a research intern. She currently serves as the president of the National Council of Negro Women, a member of the Black Affairs Council and a fellow in the Leaders Engaged in Affirming Diversity program at UGA. One of her greatest passions is serving the less fortunate and she works diligently to organize ways to provide food and blankets to the homeless in Athens-Clarke County.

The University of Georgia Griffin Campus held the Fall Graduation Celebration and Brick Ceremony for the class of 2017 on Thursday, December 14, 2017 in the Stuckey Auditorium. In total, 24 students received their degrees and became alumni of the oldest state-supported university in the nation. This was the 22^nd graduation ceremony held on the Griffin Campus.  

Dr. Lew Hunnicutt, Assistant Provost and Campus Director, welcomed students, along with their families and friends, before introducing Keynote Speaker Dr. Russell Mumper, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs for UGA.

Dr. Mumper challenged the graduates to never become stagnant. Instead to keep challenging themselves, building upon their skills and accomplishments as well as being open to the possibility of change.

Daniel Mwalwayo has spent most of his professional career working to ensure a safe food supply in his home country of Malawi.

This spring, he’s spending three months focused on that goal while training at the University of Georgia through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Norman E. Borlaug International Agricultural Science and Technology Fellowship Program. The program, which is administered at UGA by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Office of Global Programs, promotes food security and economic growth by providing training and collaborative research opportunities to researchers and policymakers from developing or middle-income countries.

After nearly a decade working for the national food inspection program in Malawi, Mwalwayo wanted to study how to minimize aflatoxin in processed peanuts, a problem he sees firsthand at home. The Borlaug program matched him with Koushik Adhikari, a UGA food science professor who is an expert in sensory analysis and is working with Mwalwayo on how to survey consumers on peanut consumption and aflatoxin-related issues. Mwalwayo also spent time in the lab of Jia-Sheng Wang, the head of the Environmental Health Science Department at UGA, to learn more about aflatoxin testing techniques.