Revamped landscape becomes teaching lab
By Patti Drapala
MSU Ag Communications
MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Brian Trader has no problem with students asking to have class outside because he is one step ahead of them.
Trader, an assistant horticulture professor in Mississippi State University's Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, conducts his plant materials classes in the Dorman Hall landscape he and others revamped this summer into a teaching laboratory.
Dorman Hall has been a part of the MSU campus since the 1970s, but the landscaping around the building had not changed in the years since. Trader's teaching style is to expose students to different types of plants.
“Students should be able to touch, smell and use other senses to experience plants firsthand,” Trader said. “They also need diversity in plant materials so they can laminate actual specimens to build a self-made field guide for future study and use.”
Trader's challenge was to find a source of plant diversity on campus to introduce to his students. Assessing the landscape around Dorman Hall, he noted only eight plant species.
“My job is to teach plant materials and it is difficult if there is no diversity of materials from which to teach,” Trader said. “The plant science buildings at many universities are designed to stand out by reflecting the subject matter. I felt the landscape at Dorman Hall needed help.”
Trader approached Mike Collins, then-head of the MSU Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, with an idea to involve faculty, students and support staff in creating a teaching laboratory around the building by adding new plants and seating areas for study, interaction and enjoyment. Collins had heard other people express similar thoughts.
“Dorman Hall hosts meetings of the various Master Gardener groups each year, and on multiple occasions I would be standing on the back steps of the building with a visitor who would point out how the area could be improved,” said Collins, who now is director of the Division of Plant Sciences at the University of Missouri. “Dr. Trader also talked about the difficulties presented when students had to drive to a location such as the plant arboretum on the edge of the MSU South Farm.”
Trader developed a proposal that included funding, plant materials, labor and maintenance for the project. Collins gave a $10,000 allotment from the department budget to initiate the project. He submitted a proposal to the Schillig Special Teaching Grant Program offered through the MSU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences dean's office. The review committee recognized his effort by awarding a $3,000 grant.
“I'm a person who wants to get things done, and I was grateful that Dr. Collins supported my vision in providing the best educational experience possible for students,” Trader said.
Trader consulted with visiting horticulture scholar Daranee Danwandee of Maejo University at Chiang Mai, Thailand, on a new design for the landscape. He also took note of landscaping at other buildings on the MSU campus.
Danwandee proposed several options in her design, which included new plantings as well as patio stones and seating. Trader incorporated her suggestions and approached the landscape contracting faculty in the MSU Department of Landscape Architecture about one of them. He proposed that landscape contracting students participate in a class project to construct a seating area under Dorman Hall's crape myrtles.
The project began to take shape in April when crews from the MSU Department of Facilities Management and the MSU North Farm removed some of the plants. Members of the MSU Horticulture Club volunteered to propagate some of the plants Trader selected and to prepare other plant donations he secured from nurseries all over the country.
Students in horticulture and agronomy spent their spare time installing irrigation, applying fertilizer, digging and weeding. Some of them fashioned identification placards and drove in the stakes. Many of these volunteers are still finding time to help in some way.
The landscape around Dorman Hall, which now features more than 250 different species of plants, is a showpiece.
“Just walking by or going into the building for class is a learning experience,” said senior horticulture major Will Kouns of Ocean Springs. “You cannot help looking and wanting to know more because many of the plants around the building are not typical of what you would see in a Mississippi landscape.”
The landscape is not completely finished, nor does Trader intend it to be. Like any laboratory, it remains a work in progress.
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Released: Nov. 6, 2008
Contact: Dr. Brian Trader, (662) 325-7287
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