COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES | INSTITUTE OF APPLIED AGRICULTURE | WINTER/SPRING 2025
Cover: INAG123 students helped harvest pumpkins at Terp Farm. Pictured is freshman Environmental Stewardship major, Grace Waller.
From the Director’s Desk
If you ever want to put your life in perspective, pack up your belongings for a move. Moving prompts you to reexamine things you took for granted. Moving forces you to decide what is important and what is unimportant, what to keep, and what you no longer need.
The IAA is no exception; as we prepared for our big move to Symons Hall–about which you can read more in this issue of INAG News!–we have spent months considering questions like these. (Did I really need paper copies of those former students’ final essays? Which video cameras do we actually use? Isn’t it time for a new couch?)
letterhead, new stationery, new business cards, new parking permits, new office keys.
Heather McHale Director
Rebecka Tetter Graphic
Designer
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INAG News is published twice a year by the Institute of Applied Agriculture. You, the reader, are encouraged to share comments, alumni updates, and agriculturerelated news at iaa@umd.edu.
The IAA is sixty years old this year. As we packed up our copies of the program’s review reports, our newsletter archive, and all kinds of other documents that hold our history, I kept encountering names and faces of alumni and friends who have made the world a better place and shaped Maryland agriculture. Looking at the program’s history makes it easy to see the purpose of what we do every day–I consider that perspective to be a gift worth all of the practical hassle involved in moving. As our current students become alumni, I am excited to see what lives and careers they choose.
Now that we’re in our new space, everything is looking new at the IAA: new year, new semester, new home in Symons Hall. We (and by “we,” I mean Ms. Carole, our Program Administrative Specialist) have ordered new
In other words, we’ve experienced a lot of changes in a short time, but underneath, we’re still the IAA. As students came back to campus after the winter break, Symons Hall started to feel more like home. Familiar faces flooded in, ready to start spring courses. The Turf Bowl team came home triumphant from the competition with a secondplace finish, buzzing with excitement and motivation. This week, our lecturer Ken Ingram is coordinating our annual Valentine’s Day plant giveaway–we’ll be in the lobby of Symons Hall instead of the front steps of Jull Hall, but we’re doing the same work of bringing living plants into the lives of students all over campus.
We will miss Jull Hall, but like a gemstone that has been reset in a new piece of jewelry, the IAA will sparkle as brightly as ever–maybe even in a new way!–in our updated setting.
Heather McHale Director
TURF TERPS TAKE HOME
#2 of 76
This achievement highlights their expertise and thorough preparation in turfgrass management, marking a significant accomplishment for the team.
Mock Interviews & Networking
An annual event for current students to hone their professional interviewing and networking skills with IAA alumni and industry professionals.
UMD Arborist Leads Memorial Chapel Garden Tours for New Parents and Their Babies
Originally Posted by the Diamondback at https://go.umd.edu/arborist-walk
Written By: Katherine Schutzman
On an overcast September morning, Meg Smolinski prepared to lead a group of new parents and their babies on a tour of gardens at the University of Maryland.
In her work as outreach and education coordinator for the university’s Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, Smolinski organizes campus volunteer groups and tours of gardens for students and faculty.
“Walk with an Arborist and Your Baby” tours premiered in January 2020 when Smolinski returned to work after her daughter’s birth. Smolinski experienced postpartum depression during her parental leave and wanted to create a space for new parents to decompress.
“I thought about how I could use my position to help alleviate that isolation and loneliness that new parents can often feel during parental leave by providing a very low stakes, easy entry for new parents,” Smolinski said.
She hosted just two tours before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Last fall, Smolinksi reintroduced the program with “new vigor and life,” she said.
Smolinski guided her first tour group this semester on a leisurely stroll through the university’s Garden of Reflection and Remembrance at the Memorial Chapel Friday and identified unique trees and plants along the way.
Smolinski is an extension education master's student and was selected for the Do Good Accelerator Fellowship Program. Through this program, she dedicated time to market and receive feedback on her tours, which are the focus of her thesis.
Lindsay Barranco, the experiential learning coordinator at this university’s Institute of Applied Agriculture, accompanied Smolinski on Friday to the group’s meeting place on the Memorial Chapel’s steps. The two friends met while enrolled in the Institute of Applied Agriculture.
Barranco said she is glad Smolinski revived her initiative to help people struggling with depression after childbirth.
“She wanted people to gather, to come in, to be able to see these spaces, to feel comfortable in them, to feel a sense of peace in them,” Barranco said.
While the tour was slated to begin at 10 a.m., Smolinski waited to begin until the majority of those who registered for the tour arrived. She emphasized to Friday’s attendees her compassion for late arrivals, nursing or crying, and her wish to make the walks a judgment-free environment.
Although Friday’s group was comprised entirely of mothers and babies, the tours are open to any parental figure of a new child. Families have attended with two parents and grandparents have come with their grandchildren on tours, Smolinski said.
Mary Rose Conroy, one of six mothers on Friday’s tour, attended one of the earliest sessions with her son when she was on maternity leave more than two years ago.
Now, after the birth of her daughter, she continues to enjoy the peacefulness of the campus gardens.
“I thought the campus was really beautiful, and Meg was just so relatable,” Conroy said. “I liked how she was bringing a subject I knew nothing about kind of down to earth and making it easy to understand and appreciate.”
Jeralynn Miller and her daughter, Martie, attended the tour after Conroy recommended it through their mutual group for new parents.
Spending her morning with a group of other new parents can provide comfort and help her ward off the isolation that often accompanies early parenthood, Miller said. Talking to new mothers reminds her that others share her experience, she added.
“To talk a little bit about that, or just get outside into nature, I kind of find that to be a grounding experience,” Miller said. “It’s nice to remember that we’re not alone.”
Smolinski continued to host walks for new parents and their babies throughout the fall on Fridays at 10 a.m.
Meg Smolinski, Outreach Coordinator at this university’s arboretum, leads a tour to parents and their babies on Sept. 13, 2024. (Sam Cohen/The Diamondback)
IAA Student Life
FALL 2024 SNAPSHOT
1. Students enjoy meeting each other and comparing schedules at "Pizza & Plants" to kick off the Fall 2024 semester.
2. Faculty member Tom Mazzone assists students as they select their free dorm room plant at the annual plant giveaway.
3. Mazzone's INAG250, Fundamentals of Agricultural Mechanics, covers a broad range of topics including electricity, plumbing, welding processes, and wood and metal working applications. Bella Chon, freshman Ornamental Horticulture major, is beveling a piece of metal to prepare a joint for arc welding.
4. The Community Learning Garden welcomes a special UMD Homecoming Week visit from our mascot, Testudo! They prepared and planted garlic ahead of the cooler weather.
5. Our turfgrass students visit the Washington Commanders Stadium for a tour of grounds led by the Commanders Grounds Director, Pete Benevento.
6. Sophomore Sustainable Agriculture major Bridget Duffy and freshman Ag Business Management major Aubrey Hunsinger enjoy AGNR's Annual Pick and Treat event in the ANSC courtyard!
Written By: Lori Sefton
When you next come to the UMD campus, where will you go to visit the Institute of Applied Agriculture’s faculty and staff? Well, the answer to that question has recently changed. After living in Jull Hall for 35 years, the IAA now has a new home in Symons Hall, an academic building located on the McKeldin Mall and home to the UMD College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. This move has been a long time coming.
The first suggestion that the IAA needed to move out of Jull Hall (named after Poultry Scientist, Dr. Morley Jull) came when Dr. Tom Hartsock was IAA Director. After one year of renovations, funded by then-Dean Tom Fretz, an unexpected event in Jull Hall changed things. “On the Saturday of the Martin Luther King Birthday weekend, a fire started from a faulty HVAC fan,” remembers Hartsock. Later, during the cleaning and refurbishing of the IAA offices, “they pulled the damaged carpet up and the old tiles were found to contain asbestos,” says Hartsock. The restoration process was delayed by the asbestos remediation.
The IAA Moves to...
Hartsock managed to secure funds to renovate and acquire additional space, but there was considerable pushback to putting any money into renovating Jull Hall, which at that time “was soon to be demolished.” In spite of this anticipated plan, Hartsock acquired and refurbished a classroom, lab, and two storage areas on the first floor of Jull Hall. As the years went by, the IAA continued to claim more of the building, filling the display cases with IAA trophies, hanging IAA banners, and beginning to host Open Houses and recruiting events in the building. When Hartsock retired in 2007, the IAA was still housed in Jull, despite consistent talk of impending demolition.
In the fall of 2007, then Acting IAA Director, Glori D. Hyman (who later became the IAA Director for
14 years), remembers being told that “the University would not invest any money in Jull Hall because it was to be torn down soon.” As Hyman continued to grow the program and add five additional faculty members and more certificate programs, additional office space was granted to the IAA. However, when the building’s air conditioning unit broke in 2017 and the cost to repair the antiquated equipment was quoted as “tens of thousands of dollars,” the UMD Facilities Office said Jull Hall must go. The IAA would have to relocate.
The next potential move came that year as plans were
...Symons Hall
made to move the unit to the Atlantic Building next door. This idea was acceptable and Hyman was ready to move her team to the Atlantic. “The next thing I knew,” remembers Hyman, “Atmospheric and Oceanic Science faculty moved out of Jull Hall into the space I was told would soon be the IAA’s new home.” Jull Hall would continue to be home to the growing IAA program.
For 30 years, said Hyman, “I was told the IAA’s stay in Jull Hall was temporary, but we made it home and Jull Hall became synonymous with IAA.” Many faculty, staff, and students have great shared memories of their time
in the IAA building. At her retirement in 2022, Hyman left knowing Jull Hall had outlasted her time at the IAA.
In late 2022, then Interim IAA Director, Heather McHale, got word about another impending move for the unit. After many discussions and some renovation-related delays to reconfigure Symons for the needs of the IAA, the move finally happened two and half years later, in December 2024. Now Director of the IAA, McHale is excited about the new location. “We’ll be near the heart of campus on McKeldin Mall, and we'll be closer neighbors and colleagues with many of the other units in our college.” Space on campus is at such a premium that McHale is pleased to have been placed in a central location where the IAA can be an integral part of the life of AGNR.
“No new space will be exactly like Jull Hall,” admits McHale. “The halls of Jull contain decades of IAA history, and we will all miss it. At the same time, this move is a fantastic opportunity for us, and I look forward to sharing a building with many other AGNR folks!” Now a unit with 125 students, nine different certificate tracks, 13 faculty members, and 3.75 full-time staff, the IAA will thrive on the third floor of this well-known campus icon.
What will happen to Jull Hall?
The UMD Facilities Plan shows the “development of Jull Hall and Q1 parking lot site (the parking lot immediately behind Jull Hall) as a key academic site that supports the expansion of science and technology programming.” No more specific information is currently available and no construction start date has been posted.
So when you come to campus next time, be sure to stop by our new digs and check out the office space, classrooms, laboratory, and conference room in the new home of the IAA. The move has been a long time coming, but the newly renovated space in Symons Hall has been worth the wait!
INTERNSHIP PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
NATALIE RILLEY Ag Business Management
This summer she had the opportunity to intern at Local Homestead Products LLC, where she gained hands-on experience working at an on-farm market. This photo is one of her favorites, featuring Natalie and Wilton the donkey rocking sunglasses on a beautiful day!
Seeking Nominations for Alumni Awards
The Institute of Applied Agriculture is seeking nominations for our two 2025 awards: Distinguished Alumni and Early Career Alumni. Our 2024 winners were David Cammarota and Joe Shaffer.
The IAA Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes alumni who, over their careers, have accomplished significant achievements of enduring value to their professions and society. Nominees should have attained notable achievements or made enduring contributions through their professional, philanthropic, or voluntary endeavors.
The Early Career Award honors IAA graduates who have earned a certificate in within the past 7 years and have made significant progress in their career and/or have shown outstanding service to their industries and/or the IAA.
The Institute of Applied Agriculture’s alumni are extraordinary individuals who contribute to their professions, the IAA, and society. Let’s recognize and celebrate your accomplishments.
Nominations are due by March 31, 2025. For the criteria and to nominate, please visit go.umd.edu/alumni-awards. Self-nominations are encouraged and welcomed.
Class Notes
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Ryan Kraushofer (TURF ‘05) was elected to the GCSAA Board of Directors.
Joe Shaffer (AG BUS ‘15) and his wife welcomed home their firstborn in September 2024.
Meg Smolinski (HORT ‘16) received her Master Arborist Certification.
Rebecka Tetter (AG BUS ‘18) earned her Master of Information Management from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Shana Burke (AG BUS ‘20) earned her Master of Business Administration from the University of Maryland Global Campus.
Brooke Knauss (AG COMM ‘20) began as a Nutrient Management Coordinator at Anne Arundel County Extension.
Claudia Torrieri (SUS AG ‘20) works at Farm Alliance of Baltimore and launched her own herbal skin care product business, Claudia Rose Esthetics.
Hailey Poole (AG BUS ‘23) just got married to her college sweetheart, Antonio.
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