Alumni Memories

Essays on the College of Agriculture's History

Looking back at nearly 50 years at Iowa State

by Harold Crawford, emeritus professor, agricultural education and studies

Harold Crawford,
emeritus professor,
agricultural education
and studies

Editor’s note: Harold Crawford earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees from Iowa State in agricultural education. He became a professor and was a department head for 12 years. He also served the College as associate dean for academic programs and director of off-campus and international programs. Crawford retired from Iowa State on June 30, 2007.

I was hired as an instructor in the agricultural education and studies department in 1965. Shortly after I was hired, someone moved out and I was named assistant professor and stayed in the department. One of the movements that I was closely involved with was the farm operations curriculum. The curriculum offered multiple programs including a quarter program, a two-year program and a four-year program.
Another program I was closely involved with was the Agriculture 450 farm. The farm was the target area for the farm operations program. I served as a hired man for the 450 farm in 1949 during my time as an undergraduate. At that time, we had about 10 milk cows, a few sows and chickens. It had been enough to support most of the students, but because so many veterans were registering it was decided we were going to need to expand. So we ended up renting a piece of land for a poultry farm over by where the National Animal Disease Center lab is currently located. I want to give Professor Louis Thompson credit for the success of the farm operations program. I think that it was a milestone in this department and the College.
In 1968, there was another milestone for those of us in agricultural education and that was the establishment of the College of Education. We needed to decide whether we wanted to join the college of Education or stay with the College of Agriculture. There was never a question in the minds of the faculty — we stayed in the College of Agriculture. Then we had to decide if we wanted a department head or a department chair. We decided to have a department head. In 1973, I was named head of the department.

International Agriculture Program
After a 12-year stint as department head of agricultural education, I became associate dean for the international agriculture program. When Dean Topel invited me to take the position he said, “Harold, there’s work to be done in the international arena. We have a need to provide our students with those opportunities.” So I had a hunting license … but no bullets. We had enough money to pay a secretary or two, but that was about it.
There were grants were available through the USAID (United States Agency for International Development), but you had to go after them. That’s where I got my start in grantsmanship, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
Before too long we had established our own center in Costa Rica. We called it ISU CSET (Centre de Ciencia Educacion y Teqnologio). We had also established a program in Peru. Then it came time for my supposed retirement.
Brenton Center
Dean Topel announced my retirement at a general faculty meeting in September one year. I came back and told him I wasn’t going to retire and that I wanted to stay on. So, I did. I had been out of the department for a long time. But I came back in and became assistant dean for distance education.
I did, and still do, have a lot of hope for distance education. That’s when we had our network of ICN (Iowa Communications Network) buildings. The network came along quite well — extension was very helpful with that. I went to Dean Topel and told him I thought we would need a facility to support this growing program. He told me to draw up a plan and then we met and decided we would need some money.
So he and I made a trip to Des Moines to see Bob and Buzz Brenton. They seemed to like the idea, but we needed more planning. Associate Dean Detroy Green named a committee and they did the planning for the Brenton Center.
Tribal Colleges
I’ve always had a yearning to do proposal work. I think my international work got me started. I’ve had a large devotion to minorities in our college. I feel that it makes for a great mixture. But when you’re writing proposals you have to go where the money is. So I had to return to Des Moines in 1978.
One of Dean Topel’s former students was there. She was a professor at Ogalala Lakota Tribal College. Dean Topel suggested that he and I have lunch with Leslie. We talked about the possibilities of an 1862 land grant university mixing with Tribal Colleges that were just being established.
Dean Topel came to me and asked if I thought there was something our land grant colleges could be doing for tribal colleges and I said there was. So he suggested we name a task force and that I be the head of it. Once the money started to flow it could be directed into helping tribal colleges with getting technologies and help them with curriculum. Being interested in grants, I started writing and we were awarded a couple.
The USDA announced the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Initiative for the Future Agriculture and Food Systems program, which was an integration of research, extension and teaching. It was perfect for the tribal colleges. They wanted to strengthen their academic programs and do a little bit of research. They weren’t interested in doing much in terms of extension work.
I’ll never forget when Rodney Foyle from the USDA, who used to be the dean at Mississippi State, called and said, “Harold, were going to fund that project for you. And we’re going to give you enough time and money so you can do a good job.”
That started a four-year program dealing with natural resources projects in cooperation with the University of Nebraska, South Dakota State University, North Dakota State University and the Tribal Colleges within the proximity. It was a tremendous project. And we managed to gain the respect and trust of the Tribal Colleges.
American Indians did things according to their culture. They didn’t want a production agriculture program, they wanted a natural resources program. Through a focus group we learned of a concern about woodlands being gone so we decided to plant trees. The newest tree is just outside of Curtiss Hall. That’s Iowa State’s Tribal College tree. We did a lot of work with trees. One of the colleges in North Dakota did work with June berries while others have done work with grasslands, bison and diabetes. Many American Indians have a problem with diabetes. Many worked on gardens to get food back to the people. The natural resources program revolved around the preservation of the American Indian culture. We gained a positive reputation in the Tribal Colleges for that project, which ended in 2006.
Right now we have a sage research project with SDSU and Central Tribal College. Richard Gladen in horticulture is ISU’s representative in that project. They came to us this year and wanted us to be involved with prairie turnip research. With our assistance, the prairie turnip is now known for its value in diabetes control. The whole thing revolves around partnerships — it’s what we believe in. Iowa State gave a lot to the project and the tribal colleges, but we also received a lot. The program should go down as one of the most important movements in the history of Iowa State University.

Miscellany from days past:

I came to Iowa State in 1948. It was the beginning of the GI bill and the veterans’ movement. After serving in WWII, I and other veterans had an allocation from the college for books and slide rules. The GI bill also provided a monthly stipend of $100 for us as well, which would lead to dramatically increased class size. Enrollment went from 3,000 to 7,000 almost overnight and then it jumped from 7,000 to 10,000. Because of the increase in enrollment housing became an issue. Trailers became popular for student housing and a lot of temporary buildings were brought here from Ankeny that were once used for military purposes.

When I was a student you would see people walking around with their slide rules in their pockets – it wasn’t just engineers, everyone had a slide rule or a “slip stick”, which was the precursor to the TI-59 calculator.

The first place my wife and I lived was in a trailer over by WOI. The thing about that is the trailers didn’t have bathrooms so we had to have a community bathroom. Many times you could go to the bathroom at 11pm and there would be someone that was in one of your classes standing there that you speak to about class, an assignment, this professor, etc.

The striking contrast from my days as a student to now is class registration. We registered for two to three days. We went from station to station in Beyer Hall so we could get our schedule set up.

In the ’60s, we switched from a quarter system to a semester system. Some people thought this was a great idea, I thought it was a bad idea. Students no longer got the variety that a quarter system offered. They may have gotten more depth from the semester system but they missed out on the variety.

When I joined the faculty in ’65 my first committee appointment was on the traffic and parking committee. It was a beast. There was just three or four of us on the committee. We didn’t have a bus system, but we still had parking problems like we do now. It was one of those committees that drew a lot of fire because people had to pay parking fees, etc. Parking has always been a problem here.

During my time as department head of agricultural education, other departments were moving out of Curtiss Hall. Forestry left the second floor to move into Bessey Hall. Agronomy Hall was the newest building at that time and when the agronomy department moved out, it left space for those of us still located in Curtiss, which allowed for renovations. Young people take the stairs on the ends of the building for granted. They were placed there because of safety reasons. I have to admit I was adamantly against taking up classroom space for stairs but now I will be the first to say how important they are to the safety of this building.

During the construction of the Brenton Center, technology was evolving and providing a better medium for communication fiber optics. You could see the person on the other end. But since then we’ve relied more on the computer for things, like WebCT, and the ICN has faded into obscurity. That change led us to begin updating the Brenton Center.