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Some 136 grads to be honored at 22nd annual Hooding Ceremony
April 28, 2009
Wes Jackson
Nationally recognized environmental writer and agriculturist Wes Jackson will deliver the keynote address at the Arnold School’s 22nd annual Hooding Ceremony on Thursday, May 7 at the Koger Center.
The speech to the school’s some 136 graduates is the high point of Jackson’s two-day visit to USC where on May 6 he will deliver the Delta Omega lecture at the Arnold School’s Public Health Research Center on May 6.
Hundreds of graduates, family, friends and well-wishers are expected for the Hooding Ceremony which also will recognize selected faculty and students for scholarship and public service.
A highlight of the program will be the presentation of the Norman J. and Gerry Sue Arnold awards. The school is named in honor of Norman Arnold, a longtime supporter and its largest benefactor.
Immediately after the ceremony, graduating students, their families and guests are invited to join the Arnold School Deans, faculty and staff for a reception in the Koger Center lobby.
Interim Dean Dr. Tom Chandler says he expects audiences at Hooding and the Delta Omega lecture to be delighted by Jackson, who avoids references to his earned doctorate.
“Wes is a superb speaker, author of multiple books, and skilled at engaging his audiences,” Chandler said.
Jackson’s Delta Omega address will begin at noon in the PHRC auditorium. His address is titled "From Soil Health to Human Health."
The lecture is sponsored by the Mu Chapter of Delta Omega, the honorary society for graduate students in public health.
At 5 p.m. on May 6, the chapter will hold its annual meeting, starting with a reception for all members at 5:00 pm in the atrium on the second floor of the PHRC with dinner at 6:00 pm in the lobby.
Dinner will be followed by the initiation of new inductees, remarks by guest speakers, including Jackson, and a business meeting.
Jackson is founder and current president of The Land Institute, a non-profit research and education organization which has worked for more than 30 years to develop an agricultural system with the ecological stability of the prairie and a grain yield comparable to that from annual crops.
Jackson was born and grew up on a farm near Topeka, Kan. After earning a bachelor’s degree in biology from Kansas Wesleyan University, a master’s degree in botany from the University of Kansas, and a doctorate in genetics from N.C. State University, he established and served as chair of the on the nation’s first environmental studies programs at Cal State – Sacramento.
Jackson then chose to leave academia, returning to his native Kansas, to found The Land Institute.
He was a 1990 Pew Conservation Scholar, in 1992 became a MacArthur Fellow, and in 2000 received the Right Livelihood Award (called the "alternative Nobel prize"). He was also named as one of Smithsonian Magazine's "35 Who made a Difference" in 2007.
