2017 ASHS Annual Conference

On the campus of Iowa State University, and even on college campuses elsewhere, Dr. William R. Graves, Professor, Department of Horticulture is recognized as a faculty member deeply committed to graduate education. His track record for training and mentoring graduate students and forwarding the cause of graduate education is nothing short of astounding.

First and foremost, graduate educators must be accomplished scholars themselves and Dr. Graves easily passes that test. With an impressive and voluminous list of refereed publications, significant awards and important presentations at national and international scientific meetings, and two U.S. patents, Bill can speak to graduate students and about graduate education from the position of an experienced and respected academician. And as it turns out, these accolades and accomplishments made him a natural and fitting choice for Associate Dean of the ISU Graduate College.

His success as a graduate educator begins with characteristic precision or perhaps his formulaic way of going about the business of training graduate students. And Bill begins, where all would like to begin, with outstanding students. Dr. Graves has mastered the art and science of identifying and recruiting excellent students. Then, once on campus, he provides his students everything they need to succeed, including plenty of his time. You also should know Dr. Graves’ students receive a unique, rich, and thoroughly comprehensive education while studying under his watchful eye. By the time they graduate, his students have been transformed into competent horticulturists/plant scientists, but probably have also slogged through swampland or traversed upland slopes studying plants in their native haunts. If you work in Dr. Graves “lab”, you’d better come prepared with sunscreen and insect repellant.

Graduate educators are expected to be innovators and risk takers and Dr. Graves satisfies that criterion and then some. Undoubtedly, his most important contribution in this arena would be a course (Publishing in Biological Science Journals) he developed with several colleagues. Students enrolled in this course are guided through every facet of the manuscript writing and publishing process. Taking an actual research problem and accompanying data set, students are guided along the path of producing a publishable manuscript. The course realistically simulates the give-and-take between author and reviewer, and in the end, students have a much clearer understanding of the arduous but rewarding publishing process. The course began as a College of Agriculture and Life Sciences offering, but now is offered campus-wide to students from a myriad of disciplines. In my opinion, all graduate students should have access to a course such as this, and it is our good fortune that Dr. Graves brought the idea to ISU first.