Julie A. Avery,Curator, Rural Life and Culture and Museum Educator, Michigan State University Museum.

Julie Avery's work utilizes agricultural heritage to educate and inform the public about past and contemporary American agriculture and rural life issues. Avery has curated museum and traveling exhibitions, developed public programs, and produced a public television documentary and two books focusing on agriculture, and rural life and cultural issues. Dr. Avery is project coordinator and editor of this web-site resource destination.

Barbara Carlisle (1938-2007), Professor Emeriti, Theatre Arts and Women's Studies, Virginia Tech.

A writer, producer, and director, Dr Carlisle worked for 40 years building connections between the arts, education and communities. She has many years experience teaching and training writers for stage and screen. Her long established work in community and regional theatre and her later work in video utilizes community voices speaking for themselves.

As a writer and director she has created pieces which bring a variety of voices and experience to the stage. Carlisle is nationally recognized for her leadership in education, theatre, and women's studies. "What Will Be in the Fields Tomorrow?" was created and edited with original material by Barbara Carlisle.

More on Barbara's work

Obituary

Cynthia Vagnetti, Independent scholar, artist and doctoral student in Rhetoric and Writing, Michigan State University.

For the past fifteen years Cynthia Vagnetti has collaborated with community-based organizations to produce public humanities programs about farmers and ranchers advancing sustainable agriculture. This has created primary source materials through documentary media in film, print, videotape and audiotape. She has authored the ExhibitsUSA traveling exhibition, Voices of American Farm Women and co-authored People Sustaining the Land. Cynthia's collection, Voices From the Field is the foundation for numerous educational documentaries, some of which have aired on public television.

Currently her scholarship and civic engagement concentrate on farm women and families, immigration, and citizenship as a lens for facilitating public discourse on food, farming and community issues. Vagnetti is the recipient of the MSU 2006-07 Varg-Sullivan Award in Arts and Letters.

Creative Change Educational Solutions,Ypsilanti, MI

Creative Change Educational Solutions was selected after a national search to develop a curriculum aimed at adults interested in but not familiar with food systems and sustainable agriculture. "We believe integrated sustainability education is vital to community revitalization," says Creative Change's Executive Director, Susan Santone. The nonprofit organization provides curricula and educational programs on community revitalization, food systems, green design, ecological economics, and other aspects of sustainability. Ms. Santone led the curriculum development team of Lisa Jane Voelker and Elissa Trumbull in the research, development and testing of materials for the six sessions. Pictured L to R: Lisa Jane Voeker and Susan Santone.

Curriculum Development
Special thanks to our outside readers who provided critical review and recommendations resulting in changes and refinements in the curriculum sessions.

Laura DeLind, Ph.D. MSU Anthropology and Residential College for Arts & Humanities.

Laura B. Delind is an anthropologist at Michigan State University. She teaches and writes about the contemporary agrifood system and its alternatives. She is an advocate of more place-based living and more equitable and democratized systems of food production, distribution, consumption and waste management.

Kaymar Enshayan, Ph.D, Professor, Center for Energy and Environmental Education, University of Northern Iowa

Kamyar Enshayan is an agricultural engineer and works with the Northern Iowa Food & Farm Partnership to strengthen the local food economy in Northeast Iowa. He is a member of Cedar Falls City Council.

Marilyn Thelen, MSU Clinton County Extension Educator

Nicole Cillette, Public Relations and Marketing Intern, Michigan State University Museum

Nicole Cillette is an undergraduate student majoring in Professional Writing and Arts & Humanities, specializing in Editing & Publishing and Creativity & Technology. Nicole is developing an effective national marketing campaign to further awareness of the Food, Farming and Community project and raise awareness of the resources available. She is particularly interested in how the creative arts can be a powerful tool in education and in the future of sustainable agriculture.