AMagazine for Alumni and Friends of the College of Natural Resources, BREAKTHROUGHS University of California, Berkeley College of Natural Resources Spring 2004 VOLUME 10, NUMBER 1 The College of Natural Resources Reaches30 Years SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY ISSUE Spring 2004 BREAKTHROUGHS ® in this issue cover story 2 CELEBRATING OUR PAST AND OUR FUTURE: THE COLLEGE OF NATURAL RESOURCES REACHES 30 YEARS 8 HIGHLIGHTS OF EXCELLENCE An Integrated Approach to Forestry Interdisciplinary, Ecology-Based Rangeland Science Eugene Hilgard Courtesy of the Bancroft Library Agricultural Economics: Cost, Value, and Sustainability Society and Environment: Starting Rural, Going Global From Forests to Fields: Entomology and Pest Management The Journey from Home Economics to Nutrition and Toxicology Plant and Microbial Biology: A Century of New Frontiers From the Ground Up: Revealing the Science of Soil departments 22 FACULTY AND SPECIALISTS NewFaculty: Max Auffhammer, Eileen Hebets, Max Moritz, and Kathleen Ryan Awards: Inez Fung, Rosemary Gillespie, Garrison Sposito, Patricia Zambryski, and The Encyclopedia of Insects 25 COLLEGE SUPPORT Hilgard Society Donors Profile: Diane Yu Tribute to Daniel Arnon: 50th Anniversary of Key Photosynthesis Discoveries Gump Station Celebrates 20 Years in Moorea Visit our website! See the inside back cover 28 ALUMNI NEWS for new Class of 1974: The First Graduates of the College of Natural Resources online features. Historical Reflections Distinguished Alumni from the College of Natural Resources Cover photographs: Hilgard Hall, research crop growing area, and forestry Class Notes laboratory, circa 1917,courtesy of the Biosciences Library. College of Natural Resources 2003 commencement by Peg Skorpinski. EDITOR DESIGN, EDITING, Volume 10 • Number 1 Please direct all Telephone: Kathryn Stelljes PRODUCTION correspondence to: (510) 643-8860 © 2004. The Regents of the UC Berkeley Extension DEAN University of California. All rights Breakthroughs E-mail: breakthroughs@nature. Communication and Marketing reserved. Breakthroughs is a College of Natural Resources berkeley.edu Paul Ludden Services registered trademark and is pub- University of California, Berkeley PRINTING lished for alumni and friends of 101 Giannini Hall, #3100 website: UC Printing Services the College of Natural Resources. Berkeley, CA 94720-3100 http://nature.berkeley.edu BREAKTHROUGHS IS PRINTED ON RECYCLED-CONTENT PAPER A Note from the Dean THE COLLEGE OF NATURAL RESOURCES: AN ONGOING, SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT Shortly after 9:00 a.m. on July 1, 1974, the first Many of the production aspects of agricul- meeting of the faculty of the College of ture had been transferred to the Davis cam- Natural Resources was called to order in pus, but Berkeley continued at that time and Birge Hall by Chairman Rudy F. Grah. Among continues today to play a vital role in the announcements were the selection of Loy resource issues related to agricultural lands Noah Berger L. Sammet as Acting Dean of the new college and the entire resource base of the state. and the reading of a directive by Chancellor Without the foresight of Zivnuska, Linsley, Bowker establishing the College of Natural Boles, Grah, and many other College and Resources, and designating Giannini Hall as University leaders, it is unlikely that a its administrative home. Chancellor department such as Environmental Science, Bowker’s directive was the culmination of at Policy, and Management could have been embrace whatever changes occurred. They least three years of work by the College of imagined or formed in the reorganization of could not have anticipated the controversies Natural Resources Organizing Committee, CNR that took place a dozen years ago. over GMOs, the role of corporate funding in chaired by professors J. N. Boles and Grah. Similarly, our departments of Plant and research, or forest and fire management prac- The merger of the College of Agricultural Microbial Biology, Agricultural and Resource tices, but they recognized that Berkeley is a Sciences with the School of Forestry and Economics, and Nutritional Sciences and place where all sides are heard, issues are Conservation to create CNR had its roots in Toxicology are recognized leaders in their debated, and ideas are molded. They could not the Berkeley campus’s Revised Academic Plan fields and at Berkeley. have imagined the cycles of budget difficulties of 1969-1975, which called for their “integra- Today, our college remains an experiment. that have left the College with far fewer tion into a comprehensive educational New majors in Molecular Toxicology, financial resources, but they infused a culture program dedicated to the exploration of land Microbial Biology, Environmental Sciences, of excellence and scholarship that survives resource questions.” and Molecular Environmental Biology have those challenges. John Zivnuska and E. G. Linsley, the last been added to provide students with training The experiment continues, and CNR, with deans of Forestry and Agricultural Sciences for an ever-changing world. Our Environ- its roots as the first college of the UC Berkeley respectively, forged a remarkable collabora- mental Economics and Policy major has been campus, continues to reshape itself to serve tion to bring forth a college that would opened up to students from the College of the students and the citizens of California. respond to the environmental and resource Letters and Sciences. CNR has just hired the Zivnuska imagined a college that would issues of the state. Suggested names for the first professor of bioethics at the Berkeley “embrace the environment in which man new college included “The College of campus. These changes will ensure that the lives and the biological, technical, and social Renewable Resource Management” and “The College continues to attract the finest students. processes that man uses to produce the food, College of BioResources.”In hindsight, nei- While College leaders at the time of the fiber, and other materials that he requires.” ther of these seems as appropriate as the one formation of CNR could not have anticipated Were he looking today, he would note that selected. The College of Natural Resources the advances in genetics, remote sensing, eco- more than half of our students are not “he,” has grown into its name and its role—on the nomic theory, and nutrition that have but “she,”and that the College serves all of Berkeley campus, within the UC system, and occurred, they did recognize that change is a humankind. And he would be proud. nationally. constant, and they designed a college to College of Natural Resources http://nature.berkeley.edu | 1 Left: College of Agriculture 1920 graduation. Right: Eugene W. Hilgard set forth a vision of excellence for the College of Agriculture that continues today within the College of Natural Resources. Courtesy Library of the Biosciences Courtesy of the Bancroft Library CELEBRATING OUR PAST AND OUR FUTURE: The College of Natural Resources Reaches30 Years eg Skorpinski P Above: College of Natural Resources 2003 commencement. Center: Modern-day photograph of buildings known as the Agriculture Group: Hilgard Hall (left),Wellman Hall (center), and Giannini Hall (right, behind trees). 2 | BREAKTHROUGHS SPRING 2004 Since its creation, the College has brought the intellectual power of academia to the practical problems of society. This year, we celebrate our 30th anniversary as the College of Natural Resources. While two-thirds of our living alumni graduated from the College under this appellation, CNR is only one milestone in a long tradition. Students on the steps of Hilgard Hall. Eugene Hilgard and the College of Agriculture in Bavaria and trained in Germany, Hilgard was a respected sci- The College dates back to the original charter of the University of entist and passionate educator. He realized that agriculture suf- California in 1868. fered a poor reputation among scholars as a scientific endeavor, while farmers simultaneously had little interest in academia. The California Constitution of 1849 mentioned creation of a state university. But no action was taken until the passage of the His meticulous research categorizing the nature of alkaline 1862 Morrill Land Grant College Act, which offered federal land soils in California and revealing their importance to agricultural grants to states that established agricultural colleges. The state production, along with his detailed studies of the impacts of the legislature officially created the Agricultural, Mining, and fungal pathogen phylloxera on grapevines, convinced both the Mechanical Arts College in 1866 and began looking for a location scholarly and agricultural communities of the value of the to site the college. College of Agriculture (see Entomology and Pest Management, and Soil Science). Meanwhile, former Congregational minister Henry Durant founded the College of California in Oakland, with a curriculum Hilgard brought the true inquisitiveness of science to his modeled after Yale and Harvard. By 1867, the college was finan- mission as dean. He recognized California as a unique and cially troubled, and trustees of both educational institutions diverse environment, and set about performing fieldwork to agreed to combine their resources to form a “complete” universi- determine the specific needs for agriculture in the state, rather ty. In 1867, the College of California donated its land and dis- than assuming that information and practices valid in Europe, solved the institution to merge with the newly formed agricul- or in