Spring 2008

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Hort Prof honored nationally for nurturing students

Award winning teacher Gail Nonnecke shares plant information with horticulture students (left to right) Shane Mairet, Karli Christensen and Lisa Wasko in the Iowa State University greenhouses.

Horticulture professor Gail Nonnecke’s love of agriculture can be traced back to many hours sitting on a tractor with her father as a young girl on the family’s farm in southeast Pennsylvania.

Her love of teaching didn’t surface until she was well into her college years. Her interest came as an intern at The Pennsylvania State University where she earned a bachelor’s in general agriculture in 1975 and a master’s in horticulture two years later.

“I was asked to lead an extension workshop on grapevine propagation before a group of novice grape growers. The four-hour session went over well and the group was so enthusiastic,” she says. “After that, I was hooked on teaching and student learning.”

As a graduate student on a research assistantship, Nonnecke became an informal teaching assistant by asking to help teach whenever she could. Her research specialty at Penn State, and later as she earned her doctorate at The Ohio State University, was small fruits and berries, which she still studies at Iowa State.

Since she joined the ISU faculty 24 years ago, her love of teaching and agriculture have combined to win “every prestigious teaching award there is,” according to Jeff Iles, Iowa State’s chair of the Department of Horticulture

She was selected last December as the Iowa Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. The previous year she received the national USDA Excellence in Teaching Award.

Nonnecke seems a bit overwhelmed by the awards. She especially appreciates a tribute that Iowa Rep. Tom Latham presented before the House of Representatives in honor of her Professor of the Year award.

Iles praises Nonnecke as a scientist and an educator. He says her research background gives her credibility in the classroom. She also stays current with the science of teaching, giving her students the benefit of the latest techniques.

“And I know it sounds trite, but she cares about students,” Iles says. “She’s the nicest person in the world, but she’s also tough. She expects her students to work hard.”

Add to those qualities her excellent communication skills and an international perspective and Iles says it’s no wonder she acts as a mentor to professors in the college and the university.

“Rarely do I encounter an individual who is so engaged and committed to such a variety of roles related to serving students,” says Corly Brooke, director of Iowa State’s Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, who nominated Nonnecke for the U.S. Professor of the Year award.

Brooke noted Nonnecke’s work with the horticulture learning community, which groups students with similar interests to help acclimate them to the university; mentoring professors; and her study abroad experiences. The last two summers, Nonnecke led a team of students that helped develop a school garden for teaching agriculture in rural Uganda (see story page 28).

“Undergraduate education is paramount for training our future professionals, to help not only our nation, but global communities,” she says. “Faculty and student collaboration is highly valued at Iowa State University. I have tried to embrace that value in my courses.”