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William H. Hatch Memorial Lecture

President Barry Dunn was selected to deliver the 2019 William H. Hatch Memorial Lecture at the annual meeting of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.

The lecture is one of three rotating lectures presented by NIFA and APLU, which honor three historic land-grant university figures: Justin Smith Morrill, William Henry Hatch and Seamen A. Knapp. Nominations for this prestigious award are submitted by the LGU system, stakeholders, foundations, public interest groups and international organizations.

The lecture commemorates the foresight of William Henry Hatch in leading the movement to establish national support for agricultural science at LGU’s. William Henry Hatch (Sept. 11, 1833 - Dec. 23, 1896) was a U.S. Representative from Missouri. He was the namesake of the Hatch Act of 1887, which established state agricultural experiment stations for the land-grant colleges. Not only was this the first significant program of federal support for science, it also established the role of American public universities as centers of discovery.

Dunn’s lecture focuses on his Wokini Initiative. He launched this program to increase programming and support to enrolled members of the state’s nine tribal nations, while enhancing research and outreach collaborations and programs with tribes, tribal colleges and other tribal organizations in the state. The lecture provides a forum to challenge thinking about university research programs, especially in agriculture and proposes opportunities and challenges for the future.

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