Brooke Bradford - Digital Portfolio by Brooke Bradford

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Personal Personal Statement Statement

Personal Statement

In the 8th grade, I joined FFA and was introduced to the agriculture industry for the first time. That decision would ultimately make me fall in love with leadership and agriculture. Specifically, my FFA experience resulted in a deep admiration of and respect for agriculturalists. In my junior year of high school, I participated in a program called “Rice Reps” that allowed me to compete for scholarship money by advocating for rice producers in Arkansas. My experience in that program made me realize that there was a job that would allow me to use social media, something I enjoy and am good at, as a means of supporting an industry I love, agriculture. Now as a college student and soon-to-be young career professional, I have the opportunity to use my agricultural communications and agricultural leadership degrees to work on behalf of the farmers, ranchers, and producers of Arkansas and America to address serious food security and sustainability issues around the world.

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Evolution of Genetic Improvement in Sheep and Goats

Over the last five years artificial insemination and embryo transfer has changed the genetic future of sheep and goats.

“Because of the available genetic pool over the last 5 years, sheep and goats have not only improved, but the number of really good animals has increased,” said Brian Kutz, assistant teaching professor of animal science and livestock judging team coach at the University of Arkansas.

Historically when breeding sheep and goats, producers were limited in genetic evolution to the animals they had at home. If a producer wanted a specific quality in their offspring, then they had to purchase a male and a female that had that quality to have a chance of breeding the quality into their herd.

Producers only option for improving genetic quality in their herd was the old fashion process of picking a female sheep or goat from their barn with the best qualities and breeding It with male sheep or goat from their barn with the best qualities. Today that is no longer the case.

“The advantage of AI and embryo transfer is that producers can now utilize genetics from all over and can replicate the mating process with embryo transfer,” said Kutz. “Producers are not limited to just one or two purchased sires any longer.”

The process of artificially inseminating and transferring embryos is different for sheep and goats then for cattle or hogs. Kutz described how the reproductive tract in small ruminants is not conducive to artificial insemination. For sheep and goats, their reproductive tract requires artificial insemination to be done surgically.

According to the Merck Veterinary Manual, embryo transfers in small ruminants are a fraction of those recorded for cattle. Between commercial and market factors limiting the production of embryos and the cost of the surgical process, AI and embryo transfer isn’t accessible to all sheep and goat producers.

While AI and embryo transfer, speeds up the improvement of genetics, it comes at a high cost due to the complexity of the surgical process. The cost of the process can reach as high as $350 per ewe/doe depending on semen costs.

Generation like Graham

“I grew up in a family of seven children, on a dairy farm, and I was the oldest. I always knew I wanted to stay in agriculture,” said Dr. Donna Lucas Graham. Not only would Dr. Graham get her wish of staying in agriculture, but she would go on to become nationally recognized in her chosen field – agriculture and extension education.

Dr. Graham has spent the last 52 years working with the University of Arkansas in both extension roles and as a professor and faculty member. Dr. Graham is a graduate of the University of Arkansas and received the University of Arkansas Distinguished Alumni Award in 2015.

Back in 1965 she chooses to attend the University of Arkansas because her dad “loved football.” She was a first-generation college student who grew up working on her family’s dairy farm in Damascus attending college on scholarship.

As a student, she studied home economics and then began working as an extension agent for the Jefferson County Cooperative Extension Service. In 1979 while working as an area extension agent in Jonesboro, Arkansas she obtained her master’s degree in adult education, also from the University of Arkansas.

After completing her master’s degree, she wasn’t ready to be done as a student and “wanted to assure she could provide in the long term for herself and her son as a single other.” So, she sought to get her Ph.D. and secure an assistantship position. She found that position in the state of Maryland.

“My brothers packed me up in a uHaul and off we went,” said Dr. Graham. In 1980 Dr. Graham describes her younger brothers helping pack up her life and ship her off to Maryland, alone with her young son. Over the next three years, she would work to complete her Ph.D. in agricultural, adult and continuing education from the University of Maryland.

Upon her return to Arkansas in 1983, she was hired by the State Extension office to serve as a State Extension Specialist. During that time, she, and a group of four men traveled around the state of Arkansas training local extension agents how to use computers.

“It was our dog and pony show,” said Graham. “Five of us went around the state introducing computers to local extension offices teaching them how to use computers.”

A few years later in 1985, Dr. Graham was asked by the Dean of the Bumpers College at the University of Arkansas to help build the Agricultural and Extension Education major degree program and curriculum. “Somebody at the University called me up on the phone and came to see me, to see if I was interested in creating an extension education undergraduate degree program,” said, Graham.

It took about two years to develop the program and get everyone to agree on everything. Later she would go on to co-author a textbook “Education through Cooperative Extension.”

When asked if she ever expected as a student to someday return to the University of Arkansas as a faculty member and eventually assistant dean, she said “I had no plans or ideas. I just followed my passion and took opportunities as they came along.”

Dr. Graham said, “sometimes you just have to let the wind take you and take it one opportunity at a time.”

In 1991 an opportunity came for Dr. Graham to switch to teaching full time in a new role as an associate professor of Agricultural and Extension Education. While in this new role she would work to build the Agricultural and Extension Education master’s degree program.

“After 10 years at the college in ’95 I was offered the interim department head of ag and extension education,” said, Graham. “I did that for two or three years. Until the position was filled with someone else.”

She returned to teaching for about two years before being promoted to Associate Dean for Academic Programs for Dale Bumpers College. “I always got along with everybody and tried to solve conflict and resolution through conversation. Perhaps, I don’t always know why people ask you to do things, but they see something in you. So, I worked as the associate dean for 10 years.”

Following her time as associate dean, she moved back to the department and became the graduate coordinator. “I decided to build a graduate program because I’m not going to work on anything just halfway,” said, Graham. “I’m pleased with where it has come. We had about 7 grad students when I started and now, we average over 40. We have built it up, we added the online component because I saw that as the future,” said, Dr. Graham.

Today she serves as the Director of the School of Human and Environmental Sciences within the Dale Bumpers College of Agriculture, Food and Life Sciences. Dr. Graham said, “This opportunity came along, and I would not have pursued it on my own, but the Dean asked me to do it and I said I would see what I could do.”

A 2019 inductee into the Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame, Dr. Graham was awarded the prestigious honor and was named the nation’s outstanding agricultural educator by the American Association for Agricultural Education. Dr. Graham has received 13 awards at both the regional and national levels for her excellence in teaching.

In the state of Arkansas, she became part of the history of agriculture and extension education and continues to assure that for generations to come we will have ag and extension, education professionals.