College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics

Professor Emeritus Michael T. Weber has undertaken the task of building the AFRE Emeritus/Former Faculty section of this Departmental website as part of a project to also build an AFRE International Historical Digital Archive.  The Emertitus/Former section includes most faculty who have worked in the Department for significant periods of time.  The effort recongnizes faculty, including those who helped start and develop the Department, first as a part of the Economics Department, and since 1949 joining selected Economics faculty with those from the College of Agriculture's  Farm Management Department to create a standalone Agricultural Economics Department in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at MSU. 

Beyond personal interviews, this work has been made possible by information contributions from many sources, including many systematic online searches made possible by the power and richness of resources available throughout today's world wide web. Professors Robison and Loveridge have made many suggestions and improvements in drafts.  Other important contributions to this effort are listed below.

• First and foremost, I have had the great pleasure of knowing most of the AEC/AFRE emetiti and former faculty since 1969, and sitting in the homes and offices with many  listening to stories of their experiences and receiving selected publications from their personal libraries of strategic outputs documenting their contributions.
• Michigan State University Librarians assigned over the years to assist the AEC/AFRE Department have been instrumental  in helping to curiate a collection of documents, data, and websites for faculty and students, and in systematically submitting Departmental research and outreach documents to the MSU library and to other important US archiving efforts. (Thanks to Hui Hua Chua, Pauline Sondag, and Judith Dow.)
• History of Agricultural Economics at Michigan State College – 1910 – 1945. By Wilbur O. Hedrick.
  • Hedrick PDF version for downloading   and  
  • Hedrick. Flipbook version for viewing online
• In the early 1970’s Professor Emeritus Elton B. Hill in AEC/AFRE documented various dimensions of the early history of the Department.  Hill’s work has been invaluable to this project.
  • Click here to see Hill's work in more detail.
• Nancy E. Horn, an MSU alumnus from the Anthropology Department, published in 1985 A Project History of Michigan State University's Participation in International Development for the period 1951 – 1985.  This too has been very helpful in identifying international project work of AFRE faculty.
  
• I have also received outstanding collaboration of the MSU Archive , and  The Digital and Multimedia Center of the MSU Library. (Thanks to Cynthia A. Ghering and Edward Busch.) and special assistance for scanning and online posting to the MSU Library card catalog of a large number of documents to Shawn Nicholson, John Shaw, Lucas Mak, Rick Phiffer and  and Grace Morris.  Thanks also to other MSU Library assistance from  Hui Hua Chua, Joe Lauer, Peter Limb and Mary Jo Zeter.)
  
• The ANR/Technology Group is also involved directly in implementing the new AFRE website, and in assisting in designing improvements to this website to accommodate the international historical materials, and in implementing a new tabs format for posting and displaying information for both emeritus and current faculty. (Thanks to Dennis Bond and others on the ANR/Tec team.)