A letter to alumni, friends from our chair

Jan. 30, 2025

Greetings friends and alumni!

As I write this note we are firmly in winter’s cold and the recent start of a new semester is a sure reminder that the seasons definitely pass, and the years indeed roll. It has been some time since we’ve been able to produce a regular newsletter for you and I am excited to be able to connect with you again.

I am proud to have the opportunity to steward this department and work with the talented team of students, staff, and faculty who are the life and breath of ACEL. Because it has been a while since our last update, I thought it would be helpful to provide some current data about the department. Our current undergraduate enrollment across all campuses is 168 majors and 76 students pursuing a minor in the department this semester. While this is down from our peak in 2017, we are making steady progress on growing our enrollment as numbers rebound from the pandemic. 

We are blessed with strong enrollments in our graduate program, with 76 enrolled this Autumn – roughly half of whom are engaged in our online master’s degree program. We currently have 15 graduate associates/fellows who are pursuing graduate studies on a fulltime basis and the remaining ¼ of our graduate students are fulltime, working professionals who are enrolled as parttime students. Our graduate associates hail from India, Kenya, Nigeria, Nepal, California, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Our fourteen faculty members continue the strong tradition of excellence in the classroom, in scholarship, and in outreach and includes two assistant professors – Drs. Kellie Claflin and Cara Lawson, seven associate professors – Drs. Amanda Bowling, Caryn Filson, Jeff King, Jera Niewoehner-Green, Mary Rodriguez, Joy Rumble, and Annie Specht, four professors – Drs. Emily Buck, Greg Davis, Scott Scheer, and Susie Whittington, and one fulltime lecturer – Mr. Tom Stewart. I am tremendously proud of each member of this team and the work they do. 

The newest addition to our faculty group is Dr. Greg Davis who joins ACEL after a couple of administrative roles in Ohio State Extension. Greg currently holds the George and Genevieve Gist Endowed Chair in Ohio State University Extension which our department rotates with Horticulture and Crop Sciences. We currently have two members on Faculty Professional Leave with Mary Rodriguez on a Fullbright award and Susie Whittington. So many of our faculty consistently receive prestigious awards that it isn’t possible to mention all of them in this newsletter, but the most recent are the recognitions of Amanda Bowling as the USDA Early Career Teaching award winner, and Jera Niewoehner-Green the recipient of the Northouse Outstanding Teaching Award presented by the Association of Leadership Educators. Amanda and Jera are also in their first semester at the rank of Associate Professor after earning their promotions in July.

Our seven member staff team does a wonderful job of keeping faculty, students, and programs on track and they are a crucial part of our ACEL culture. They include Trina Beebe – Administrative Office Manager, Jenny Cox – AgOne Leadership Program Director, Beth Flynn – OSU Leadership Center Coordinator, Mark Marbaugh – Fiscal Officer, Derek Peterson – Graduate Program Manager, Jen Pettibone – Office Associate, and Emily Wickham – Communication and Undergraduate Program Manager. This is a tremendous group of hard-working dedicated staff who enable us to maintain a rich culture of excellence in our department.

We are excited to move forward under new University President Ted Carter’s direction and we’re just beginning conversations about how we can leverage our department’s many strengths with President Carter’s recently released strategic plan titled Education for Citizenship 2035. Two initiatives we already had underway in ACEL will align nicely with the new strategic plan for the institution – first, we are underway with a significant overhaul of our online master’s degree program. This program which launched in 2012, was Ohio State University’s first fully online master’s degree. The curriculum has remained largely unchanged since that time even though many changes have taken place in online education. We look forward to rolling out our newly revised program in Autumn 2026. 

The second major initiative we have underway is an effort to expand our teaching resources in the department to not only accommodate changes in the online master’s program, but also to create additional time for tenure-track faculty to engage more fully in research production. The expertise we have available in ACEL is crucial for interdisciplinary research that will address the most pressing challenges facing the global food system. For our long-term success as a department and college, ACEL scholars need to have the time to engage in this important research. We are being careful to prevent any lowering of our standards of excellence in the classroom while we work to adjust priorities for faculty time in the rapidly changing higher education landscape. We know we need to expand our teaching capacity to remain a leader among our peer departments in scholarship.

As we build upon our 156-year tradition of excellence, we strive each day to make our alumni proud of the work we build on the foundation they’ve established as we simultaneously strive to position the department to best serve the needs of future generations. We appreciate your firm friendship and support as we prepare for this exciting future.

I encourage you to explore the additional articles linked below, which highlight some of the wonderful achievements within our department. You'll find stories about our outstanding undergraduate student scholarship recipients, a heartfelt thank-you to our generous donors, faculty awards, and alumni making headlines. These articles showcase the incredible contributions of our community and the lasting impact of our collective efforts.

Wishing you the best in 2025,

Dr. Shannon Washburn
professor and chair
Department of Agricultural Communication, Education, and Leadership