Candidates for State Experiment Station Director to Give Presentations

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Five candidates for the position of associate vice president for agriculture and director of the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station in the University of Arkansas System's statewide Division of Agriculture will give public presentations starting Sept. 8 at the University of Arkansas.

Vice President for Agriculture Mark J. Cochran said, "We have narrowed our list of those who applied in a national search to five highly qualified candidates, and we want each one to have the opportunity to interact with our faculty, staff and stakeholders."

Cochran was the previous Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station director before his appointment as vice president for agriculture in January 2011. The Division of Agriculture's two main components are the Cooperative Extension Service based in Little Rock and the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station based on the U of A campus in Fayetteville.

The Experiment Station is the Division of Agriculture's statewide research component with faculty on five campuses and at five research and extension centers across the state. It also includes seven research stations.

The candidates will give public presentations and will interview with university administrators. A vita for each candidate is on the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: http://aaes.uark.edu/.

All presentations will be at 2 p.m. with dates and locations on the Fayetteville campus listed below:

• Sept. 8: Patrick Colyer, Leland Tollett Auditorium, Poultry Science Center.
• Sept. 14: Allen "Rick" Bennett, Hembree Auditorium, Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences Building.
• Sept. 20: Clarence Watson, Jr., Leland Tollett Auditorium, Poultry Science Center.
• Oct. 4: Reuben Moore, Leland Tollett Auditorium, Poultry Science Center.
• Oct. 11: Steven Loring, Leland Tollett Auditorium, Poultry Science Center.

Allen "Rick" Bennett is professor and head of the department of plant pathology, which is a unit of the Division of Agriculture and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Bennett has held his current position since 2009. He was National Program Leader-Plant Health, USDA-ARS, National Program Staff in Beltsville, Md., from 2001 to 2009.

Patrick D. Colyer is interim associate director of the Louisiana Agricultural Experiment Station. He has been regional director and professor, northwest region, LSU Red River Research Station at Bossier City since 2008. He was an LSU plant pathology faculty member from 1984 to 2008.

Steven J. Loring has been associate director of the Agricultural Experiment Station at New Mexico State University since 2009. He was assistant director from 2005 to 2009 and an administrative analyst from 1995 to 2005.

Reuben B. Moore has been associate director of the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station since 2003. He was head of the animal and dairy science department from 1989-1999 and head of the North Mississippi Research and Extension Center from 1999 to 2003 at Mississippi State.

Clarence E. Watson, Jr., has been associate director and chief operating officer of the Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment Station since 2006. He was associate director of the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station from 2002 to 2006 and head of the experimental statistics unit from 1992 to 2002.