Three final candidates have been selected for the position of dean of the College of Natural Resources at Virginia Tech, and on-campus interviews, including an open forum, have been scheduled for each candidate.

The position will become vacant at the end of June with the retirement of Gregory N. Brown, the only dean the college has had since it was established by the General Assembly in 1993.

The candidates are Robert H. Jones, professor and head of the Department of Biology at Virginia Tech; J. Michael Kelly, chair of the Natural Resource Ecology and Management Department at Iowa State University; and Thomas G. Coon, associate dean in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and professor of fisheries and wildlife at Michigan State University.

Each candidate will address the topic “The Role of the College of Natural Resources in a Major Land-Grant Research University in the 21st Century” during the open forums. The forums, which are open to the university community, will be held from 2 to 3 p.m. in the Fralin Biotechnology Auditorium (room 102).

Jones will be interviewed March 21-23 with his open forum scheduled March 22. Kelly’s interviews will be held March 30-April 1 with his open forum on March 31. Coon will visit campus for his interviews April 4-6 with his open forum on April 5.

Robert H. Jones

Jones joined the Virginia Tech faculty in 1995 and became department head in 2002. In that capacity, he has led his department through a strategic planning process, restructured the department, and spearheaded new interdepartmental initiatives in behavioral biology, plant science, and structural biology. Among his other initiatives and achievements are: expanded alumni activities and events, various campus-wide programs in ecology and molecular biology, a continued upward trend in multicultural representation among faculty and graduate students, and securing funds to initiate an endowed biology excellence fund.

As a professor of biology, Jones has taught graduate and undergraduate courses and developed a summer study abroad course focused on forests and cultures of China. He also has advised graduate students and conducted funded research in belowground ecology and forest regeneration. He and his collaborators have supported their research via grants totaling $1.49 million, and he has 51 peer-reviewed publications.

Jones has served on National Science Foundation review panels and sits on the editorial boards for the journal Wetlands and for the Journal of Forestry Research. He has received three teaching awards from Virginia Tech.

Before joining the Tech faculty, he served on the faculty in Auburn University’s School of Forestry where he developed extension programs in urban forestry and hardwood regeneration and taught dendrology and community ecology. He received two teaching awards from Auburn and was named the Alabama Urban forestry Educator of the Year in 1993.

Jones received his B.S. in forest management and M.S. in forestry from Clemson University and a Ph.D. at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. He was a post-doctoral student at the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory.

J. Michael Kelly

Kelly, a Fellow of the Soil Science Society of America, joined the Iowa State University Department of Forestry as professor and department chair in 1995, a position he held until 2002. In 2001, he also served as interim chair of the Department of Horticulture. In 2002, he was selected to chair a merged Department of Forestry and Department of Animal Ecology, the position he now holds.

While he was forestry department head, research grew significantly with external annual support increasing by a factor of five, and his initiatives led the department to prominence in restoration ecology, bio-based materials research, and the pedagogy of undergraduate natural resource education. He also helped grow the department’s endowments by $2.2 million.

Earlier, he spent 20 years with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), where he conceived, developed, and directed the Cooperative Forest Studies Program, a joint effort between TVA and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He also helped develop and conduct several programs for the Electric Power Research Institute.

The seminal work of Kelly and his colleagues in theoretical and experimental evaluations of acidic deposition impacts on forest soils and in surface waters was a key component of the National Acidic Precipitation Assessment Program and contributed to the knowledge base on ozone impacts used in recent amendments to the Clean Air Act.

Kelly helped develop and served as chair of the National Acidic Deposition Program/National Trends Network, sits on the National Association of Professional Forestry Schools and Colleges Executive Committee, and has been a member of the board of directors of Trees Forever. Both TVA and the Electric Power Research Institute presented him with special awards for bridging the gaps between research and policy applications.

Kelly holds a B.S. in biology from East Tennessee State University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in plant ecology and forest soils from the University of Tennessee. He also did post-doctoral work in forestry and soil science at Purdue University.

Thomas G. Coon

Among his responsibilities as associate dean and fisheries and wildlife professor, Coon provides leadership and administrative oversight of international programs, which include 25 different study abroad programs serving more than 300 students annually; more than 30 graduate programs that serve 700 graduate students; and research programs in international agriculture and natural resources development that generate $20 million annually in contracts and grants and affect the development of Africa, South and Central America, and Asia. From 1999-2002, he was acting department chair.

Coon has served as co-leader of a statewide review of Michigan State University (MSU) Extension, led a statewide review of deer and elk farming operations in Michigan, initiated a series of grant-writing workshops for faculty, initiated an outreach program to help connect families with outdoor recreational and stewardship opportunities; and mentored faculty. He was responsible for the university’s role in the Partnership for Ecosystem Research and Management, a joint venture of MSU, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Great Lakes Fisheries Commission, and the USGS Biological Resources Division.

Coon has more than 25 years experience in teaching courses on aquatic ecology, fish biology, and natural resource management and has advised hundreds of undergraduate fisheries and wildlife students. His funded research focuses on fish population responses to environmental change.

Before joining the MSU faculty in 1989, Coon taught at the University of Missouri and Luther College.

Coon has received Distinguished Faculty Awards from the University of Missouri School of Forestry, Fisheries, and Wildlife, and the MSU College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. He has served on the governing board of the American Fisheries Society and received the Distinguished Service Award from the society in 1998.

He earned a B.A. in biology from Luther College and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in ecology from the University of California-Davis.

Additional information about the candidates is available online by clicking “Searches in Progress” at http://www.provost.vt.edu.

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