History of the Department of Plant Biology 2006© - compiled by Dr. James Troyer, Professor Emeritus
The 1900's
The 1920's - 1930's
The 1940's
The 1950's
The 1960's
The 1970's
The 1980's
The 1990's
The 2000's

1881 The experiment station moved to the Agriculture Building in Raleigh. BOtanical work was extended to include identification and study of forage grasses.

1885 The experiment station acquired its first experimental farm land, a tract BOunded by the then state fair grounds and the present HillsBOrough Street, Brooks Avenue, and Clark Avenue. Field studies of various grasses were established.

1888 After passage of the Hatch Act in 1887, which provided federal funds to state experiment stations, BOtanical work was expanded by the employment of Michael Gerald McCarthy as the first BOtanist. McCarthy had previously collected plant specimens for the station.

1889 Established by law in 1887, the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts opened. One of the first five faculty members was Wilbur Fisk Massey, Professor of Horticulture, ArBOriculture, and Plant Biology, and Horticulturist of the experiment station. Courses he offered included morphology, anatomy, physiology, classification, cryptogamic BOtany, histology, plant pathology, and paleoBOtany. Plant Biology, along with all other parts of the college, was housed in one building, now Holladay Hall.

1889 McCarthy published the first of a number of bulletins on the testing of seeds.

1890 McCarthy published the first of several bulletins on grasses.

1890 After passage of the federal Second Morrill Act Massey taught courses to African-American students at Shaw University.

1891 McCarthy published the first of a number of bulletins on plant diseases; his was the first work in plant pathology at the experiment station.

1892 Massey published a BOtanical paper on the Sabal palmetto.

1894 Massey served as chairman of the college committee to oversee graduate (master's degree) work.

1895 McCarthy played a key role in establishing one of the earliest cooperative research arrangements. For the experimental study of fruits and other plants land was obtained at Southern Pines. The North Carolina Horticultural Society managed the operation, the experiment station provided analyses and other services, and a fertilizer company (the German Kali Works) paid the expenses.

1895 Massey published a special bulletin in BOth English and French to assist the Waldensians of Valdese, members of a religious sect who had immigrated to North Carolina from Europe.

1896 Massey's activities in BOtany and horticulture exclusively occupied newly- built Primrose Hall, which included five attached greenhouses.

1897 McCarthy's work was instrumental in the establishment of a national seed testing standard by the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations.

1897 With political upheaval in the state following the election of 1896, McCarthy was summarily dismissed. BOtanical work at the experiment station was placed under the direction of Massey, with a new assistant BOtanist, Charles Walter Hyams. Seed testing was discontinued, as was the cooperative research at Southern Pines.

1898 Hyams published a bulletin on medicinal plants of North Carolina.

1899 After collecting specimens widely, Hyams published a bulletin on the flora of North Carolina.

The 1900's

1900 Hyams published a bulletin on edible mushrooms of North Carolina.

1900 For the first time BOtany courses were listed separately from horticulture in the college catalog. They included morphology, anatomy, physiology, and systematics.

1901 Massey resigned his professorship at the college, but remained as horticulturist of the experiment station. Hyams was dismissed as assistant BOtanist. Dr. Frank Lincoln Stevens, a plant pathologist, was appointed instructor in biology, the first college faculty member to hold the Ph.D. degree.

1902 Stevens became Professor of Biology, later Professor of Plant Biology and Vegetable Pathology, in the college and Biologist of the experiment station. He expanded experimental work in plant pathology and soil microbiology, which continued during his tenure. For the first time courses in plant ecology and economic BOtany were offered.

1900s Assistants or instructors under Stevens during this period, all plant pathologists or bacteriologists, were Charles Wigg Martin, James Clarence Temple, John Galentine Hall, Thomas Dotterer Eason, Percy Leigh Gainey, Bascombe Britt Higgins, Warren Carney Norton, Guy Wilson West, and Thomas Barnes Stancel.

1902 Adeline (Mrs. Frank L.) Stevens served as instructor in biology, the first female faculty member at the college.

1903 Stevens initiated research on a newly discovered plant disease, the Granville wilt of tobacco. This program extended at the experiment station until 1918.

1905 Plant Biology became housed in Agricultural Hall, now Patterson Hall.

1910 Stevens and Hall published an important textBOok of plant pathology, Diseases of Economic Plants.

1912 Stevens resigned. He was succeeded as Professor of Plant Biology and Vegetable Pathology by Harry Rascoe Fulton, a plant pathologist, who continued the major investigations begun by Stevens.

1910s Assistants or instructors under Fulton during this period, all plant pathologists or bacteriologists, were Warren Carney Norton, Duane B. Rosenkrans, J. R. Winston, Everett Hanson Cooper, Harry Curtis Young, and Richard Oliver Cromwell. Stephen Cole Bruner, a special agent of the Bureau of Plant Industry, was also assigned for cooperative work in plant pathology.

1916 Fulton resigned. He was succeeded as Professor of Plant Biology and Plant Pathology by Dr. Frederick Adolphus Wolf, a mycologist and plant pathologist. During his tenure investigations were carried out on Granville wilt, wildfire of tobacco, trembles of livestock, clover stem rust, soybean diseases, seed treatments, dewberry anthracnose, leafscorch of strawberry, and bacterial plant pathogens. Courses in mycology, bacteriology, and plant physiology were emphasized.

1910s Assistants or instructors under Wolf, all plant pathologists or bacteriologists, were Everett Hanson Cooper, Richard Oliver Cromwell, Samuel George Lehman, and Donald Folsom.

1917 The name of the institution was changed to North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering.

1917 The first honorary doctoral degree given by the college was conferred on Massey.

1919 Wolf gave up all college teaching but remained with the experiment station. Dr. Bertram Whittier Wells, a specialist on insect galls of plants, became Professor of Plant Biology and head of the Department of Plant Biology and Plant Pathology. He was joined on the faculty by Ivan Vaughan Detweiler Shunk. Courses taught by Wells and Shunk included general BOtany, plant physiology, agricultural bacteriology, systematic BOtany, and poisonous plants.

1920 Wells encountered the Big Savannah, a vegetational entity near Burgaw, and was stimulated by it to change his research interest to plant community ecology.

1921 Alexander CamBOell Martin joined the faculty as instructor, later assistant professor. He resigned in 1926 and later became an authority on identification of seeds in the stomachs of wild animals.

1922 Wells and zoologist Zeno Payne Metcalf engaged in a widely publicized public debate on evolution with William Riley, an anti-evolutionist.

1923 Schools were established within the college. Plant Biology became part of BOth the School of Agriculture and the School of General Science, later the School of Science and Business. In the latter school the departments of BOtany and zoology jointly offered the first undergraduate curriculum in biology.

1924 The first MS. degree in BOtany other than plant pathology or bacteriology was awarded to Alexander CamBOell Martin for a study of a plant gall.

1924 Wells published a survey of the major plant communities of North Carolina. He subsequently pursued numerous investigations of coastal-plain, old-field, mountain-bald, and salt-spray communities. Shunk collaBOrated in a number of these studies as well as conducting his own microbiological researches.

1924 Dr. Louis Jerome Pessin, a plant physiologist, was added to the faculty. He was dismissed and replaced in 1925 by Dr. Donald Benton Anderson, who later conducted research and published numerous papers on plant cell wall structure, water relations, and chemical sucker control in tobacco.

1925 Wells was one of the leaders in the fight against anti-evolution legislation in the general assembly. The controversy continued for another two years.

1925 The first undergraduate degree in biology earned by a BOtanist was awarded to Larry Alston Whitford.

1926 Whitford joined the department faculty. A phycologist, he pursued research on fresh-water algae, publishing numerous papers and becoming known world-wide.

1932 Upon consolidation of the University of North Carolina system, the institution became North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering of the University of North Carolina.

1932 Wells published his unique BOok, The Natural Gardens of North Carolina. It was reprinted in 1967 and a revised edition prepared in 2002.

1933 Wells served as president of the North Carolina Academy of Science.

1934 Wells chaired an important college committee on revision of the institutional curriculum following university system consolidation.

1935 Dr. Murray Fife Buell joined the department faculty. Leaving for Rutgers University in 1946, he had an eminent career as a plant ecologist.

1936 The first Ph.D. degree in BOtany was awarded, technically through the graduate school in Chapel Hill, to Andrew George Lang, a student of Anderson.

1936 Anderson became director of the Cotton Fiber Research LaBOratory, a cooperative program of the college and the United States Department of Agriculture.

1939 With Bernard S. Meyer Anderson published Plant Physiology, A TextBOok For Colleges, which became a classic. A second edition was produced in 1952.

1940 The department moved from Patterson Hall to Winston Hall.

1943 Because of World War II, faculty in BOtany, zoology, entomology, and economics were organized into a Department of Geography. They taught a comprehensive course in that subject to military students.

1943 Wells served as president of the Southern Appalachian BOtanical Club.

1945 Over the years the plant pathologists on the faculty had become more numerous than the other BOtanists, so a Plant Pathology Section was established within the department under the leadership of James Herbert Jensen.

1946 With the BOom in post-World-War-II student enrollment the department faculty was enlarged by the addition of Ernest Aubry Ball (anatomy), William Basil Fox (taxonomy), and Herbert Temple Scofield (physiology). The following year Robert Kenneth Godfrey (taxonomy) replaced Buell,

1940s The introductory BOtany course, which for years had been taught in a traditional separate lecture and laBOratory format, was changed. Small classes were now taught by almost all faculty members in a combined lecture-laBOratory arrangement using the Socratic method.

1946 Whitford was one of the eleven founding members of the Phycological Society of America.

1947 Anderson was named assistant dean of the graduate school.

1948 Anderson served as president of the American Society of Plant Physiologists.

1949 Wells relinquished his duties as department head but continued as an active faculty member until 1954. Anderson was appointed as his successor.

1950 The Division of Biological Sciences was established with Anderson as head. It included four, later five, faculties, one of which was Plant Biology with Scofield as head.

1950 Anderson was named head of the graduate school as associate dean and, in 1957, dean.

1950 The first Ph.D. degrees in BOtany given through the graduate school in Raleigh were awarded to Willie Mack Dugger and Albert BOyd Pack (physiologists).

1950s A number of faculty changes occurred. Harold J. Evans (biochemistry, 1950) was added and later replaced by Joseph Stephen Kahn (biochemistry, 1961). Shunk died (1951); he was replaced by Alfred Francis BOrg (bacteriology, 1953) and later by Gerald Hugh Elkan (bacteriology, 1958). Fox was accidentally killed (1952); he was replaced by Robert Lynch Wilbur (taxonomy, 1953) and later by James Walker Hardin (taxonomy, 1957). Added in 1954 were Ernest Oscar Beal (taxonomy) and William Alexander Brun (physiology); the latter was replaced in 1957 by James Richard Troyer (physiology). Wells retired and was replaced by Phillippe Francois BOurdeau (ecology, 1954) and later by Arthur Wells Cooper (ecology, 1958)

1951 Anderson received the O. Max Gardner Award of the University of North Carolina system, the first given to a faculty member at North Carolina State College.

1952 The department moved to the newly constructed Gardner Hall.

1953 The first female student to earn a MS. degree in BOtany was Eloise Johansen. The second was Elizabeth Jean Chappell in 1966.

1953 Anderson served as president of the North Carolina Academy of Science.

1956 Heinz Seltmann of the USDA (tobacco physiology) became affiliated with the department. This arrangement was later expanded by the addition of other USDA personnel: Harold Edward Pattee (peanut physiology, 1963), Ralph E. Williamson (water relations, 1963), and Donald W. DeJong (tobacco physiology, 1968).

1956 Anderson served in Washington as an administrator in the National Science Foundation.

1957 Whitford served as president of the Phycological Society of America.

1958 Anderson left the college when he was named provost, later vice president, of the University of North Carolina system in Chapel Hill. The Division of Biological Sciences was aBOlished and its faculties became departments. The department was named the Department of Plant Biology and Bacteriology with Scofield as head. The bacteriology faculty group was subsequently increased by the addition of James B. Evans (1960), Walter Jerome Dobrogosz (1962), Frank Bradley Armstrong (1962), and Jerome John Perry (1964).

1960 An academic tenure system and procedures were established for faculty ranks at the college.

1961 An introductory course in general biology was introduced, as a consequence of which the elementary BOtany course was reduced from two semesters to one and reverted a traditional lecture and separate laBOratory format. Later an undergraduate curriculum in biological science was established and from time to time faculty members were added in BOtany with primary responsibility in this activity.

1962 The Institute of Biological Sciences, which included Plant Biology and Bacteriology along with four other departments, was established to coordinate research and curricula.

1963 Scofield resigned the headship in order to work in the cooperative university-AID project in Peru. He was succeeded as head by Glenn Ray Noggle in 1964.

1960s A number of faculty changes occurred. Royall T. Moore (mycology) joined the department in 1964 and established a facility which became the Electron Microscope Center. Roger Carl Fites (physiology) was added in 1965 and Charles Eugene Anderson (anatomy) in 1966. Whitford retired in 1968 and was replaced by Harold E. Schlichting (phycology). Also in 1968 Ball and Beal resigned; the latter was replaced by Stephen D. Koch (taxonomy). Additions in 1969 were Udo Blum (ecology), Ernest Davis Seneca (ecology), and Cecil Gerald Van Dyke (mycology).

1963 The college awarded Wells the honorary degree Doctor of Science.

1964 The School of Agriculture became the School, later the College, of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

1964 Whitford served as president of the North Carolina Academy of Science.

1965 The institution became North Carolina State University at Raleigh.

1965 Department faculty moved to two new departments: Microbiology (Evans, Elkan, Dobrogosz, and Perry) and Biochemistry (Armstrong and Kahn). The department became the Department of Plant Biology.

1965 The Southeastern Plant Environment LaBOratory (Phytotron) was initiated with Robert Jack Downs as Director and Professor of Plant Biology.

1966 D. B. Anderson relinquished administrative duties but continued teaching on three campuses of the university system until retiring in 1972.

1967 The introductory BOtany course was reorganized to use the audio-tutorial format and a suitable laBOratory was outfitted. In 1978 formal lectures were reintroduced, with laBOratory sessions remaining audio-tutorial. In 1982 the course again became wholly audio-tutorial with almost all faculty members serving as tutors. The course reverted to a traditional lecture-laBOratory format in 1986.

1967 The first female student to earn a Ph.D. degree in BOtany was Yoon Kim (phycology).

1967 What later became the Mrtha Sue Sebastian Memorial Award for teaching by graduate students was
initiated by the department.

1968 The undergraduate curriculum in BOtany was revised. Courses required of majors were plant life, introduction to ecology, plant diversity, systematic BOtany, and plant physiology, as well as courses in related disciplines.

1968 The first female student to earn an undergraduate degree in BOtany was Jane Green McNeary.

1968 With special support from the state legislature a cooperative program of research on coastal ecology was initiated by the Departments of Plant Biology and Soil Science. BOtanists involved were Cooper and Seneca.

1969 Supported jointly by the EPA and USDA, a research program on the effects of air pollution on plants was established at the university with Walter Webb Heck as Director and Professor of Plant Biology. The EPA- supported research later moved elsewhere, but the USDA component remained.

1969 The first African-American student to earn a MS. degree in BOtany was Augustus McIver Witherspoon. He was also the first to receive the Ph.D. degree in 1971.

1969 Whitford, with George J. Schumaker, published the first edition of what became A Manual of Fresh-Water Algae, a work which became widely used as a textBOok and reference.

1971 The Institute of Biological Sciences was aBOlished.

1971 The first African-American faculty member in BOtany was Augustus McIver Witherspoon (phycology). In 1973 the second was Tommy Elmer Wynn (physiology).

1970s A number of other faculty changes occurred. Scofield retired in 1972. Schlichting and Koch resigned in 1973; the latter was replaced in 1974 by Jon Marshall Stucky (taxonomy). In 1974 James Fredric Reynolds (ecology) was added, as was Robert Lee Beckmann (taxonomy). While he was chancellor of the university, Joab L. Thomas (1976-81) was also Professor of Plant Biology.

1972 The first African-American student to earn an undergraduate degree in BOtany was Carl Ray Barnes.

1972 The Cell and Tissue Culture LaBOratory was established in the department and Ralph Lionel Mott became its director. The laBOratory won research grants from government agencies and industrial companies and supported a number of graduate students and postdoctoral associates.

1972 Cooper became Assistant Director for Program Development in the North Carolina Department of Natural and Economic Resource Development, serving on leave there until 1976 when he returned to the university in the School of Forest Resources with a joint appointment in Plant Biology. During his absence the teaching of courses in ecology and plant geography was done by visiting professors: John Nemeth, Anthony Dvorak, Harriet Barclay, and Charles Racine. The ecology position vacated by Cooper was permanently filled in 1976 by Thomas Ralph Wentworth.

1973 Supported by a sizable grant from the Carolina Power and Light Company, a research program to study the influence of the Brunswick nuclear power plant on the ecology of salt marshes in the area. Faculty members involved in this effort, which continued until 1980, were Noggle, Seneca, and Blum, along with a number of students and research associates.

1976 Noggle, along with George John Fritz, authored a widely used textBOok, Introductory Plant Physiology, a second edition of which was produced in 1983.

1977 Noggle resigned his administrative duties and was replaced as department head by Jerome Philip Miksche. Noggle served as Business Executive of the American Society of Plant Physiologists, retiring from that position and from the university in 1979.

1977 The first African-American female to earn a Ph.D. degree in BOtany was Carol Janerette.

1977 The department staged a special commemorative dinner and ceremonies to honor five living men who had served as its head.

1979 Newly constructed BOstian Hall included teaching facilities for the department.

1979 The first female professorial faculty members in BOtany were Wendy Farmer BOss (physiology) and Judith Fey Thomas (anatomy), who also became assistant director of the phytotron.

1979 Witherspoon was named Assistant Dean of the graduate school. He later became Associate Dean (1982) and Associate Provost of the university (1989).

1981 An auditorium in BOstian Hall was named in honor of Wells.

1983 The Gourman Report, a rating of graduate programs in American universities, ranked the department twenty-fourth among 41 institution with graduate programs in BOtany.

1984 The first African-American female to earn a MS. degree in BOtany was Deogratias Artis.

1985 Miksche resigned. He was succeeded as department head by Seneca.

1988 The holiday Snowflake Contest was begun.

1991 The department established the Larry A. Whitford Undergraduate Scholarship/Graduate Fellowship.

1991 The holiday publication, The Snowflake, was initiated. It later became The Hat and Tie, and still later The Leaf Litter.

1993 Downs retired as director of the phytotron and was succeeded by Thomas.

1993 The Gourman Report ranked the department twelfth among 40 institutions with graduate programs in BOtany.

1994 Seneca retired. Eric Davies (physiology) replaced him as department head in 1995.

1990s A number of faculty changes occurred. Retiring were Mott (1993), Witherspoon (1994), Troyer (1995), C. E. Anderson (1995), Heck (1995), and Hardin (1996). Added were Dominique Robertson (molecular BOtany, 1992), Nina Stromgren Allen (cell biology, 1995), and Leigh A. Johnson (taxonomy, 1997). Johnson resigned in 1999 and was replaced by Qiu Yun Xiang (taxonomy) in 2000. Hiring of Robertson initiated formal connection of Plant Biology with the NCSU Biotechnology teaching program.

1996 Mickle served as president of the North Carolina Academy of Science.

1998 Beckmann received the BOard of Governors Award for excellence in teaching, the highest teaching award given by the UNC system. He also received the USDA South Region Award for excellence in teaching.

1999 Davies resigned his administrative duties but remained as professor. He was succeeded by Margaret E. Daub (plant pathology), the first female department head of BOtany.

The 2000's

2000 The Cellular and Molecular Imaging Facility was opened with Allen as director.

2000 The department received one of the first two Departmental Awards for Teaching and Learning Excellence given by the university.

2000 An extension position was established in the department with the hiring of Alexander Krings as herbarium curator with responsibilities for extension plant identification.

2000s A number of faculty changes occurred. Retiring were Fites (2000), Blum (2002), and Chilton (2004). Added were Candace H. Haigler (2003), Richard L. Blanton (2003), William A. Hoffman (ecology, 2004), Heike Winter-Sederoff (2005), and Deyu Xie (natural products, 2005).

2001 BOss was named a William Neal Reynolds Professor.

2002 The Center for Applied Ecology was established with Burkholder as director.

2002 Vulpia, Contributions from the N. C. State University Herbarium (ISSN 1540-3599) was started as an online peer-reviewed publication of BOtanical keys, detailed nomenclatural notes, discussions, and floristic notes. In 2005 it was added, by invitation, to the Directory of Open Access Journals maintained by Lund University in Sweden.

2004 Christopher S. Brown, Research Professor of Plant Biology and Director of Space Programs at NCSU, served as president of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology.

2005 BOston was named a William Neal Reynolds Professor.

2005 Allen became Chair of the NCSU faculty senate.

2005 BOss, BOston, Daub, Robertson, and Thompson moved from Gardner Hall to facilities on the Centennial Campus of the university.

2006 Van Dyke received the BOard of Governors Award for excellence in teaching.

2006 The department became the Department of Plant Biology.