Founding GP under fire… for doing her job.

Susan Harris over at Garden Rant has done a terrific write up of all the details, so I’ll be brief here: Linda Chalker-Scott, the founder and fearless leader of The Garden Professors, is facing possible termination from her job at Washington State because she’s doing exactly what it says in her job description — extension, providing gardening information to the public — instead of bringing in big research grants. Universities love grants because they means money, and educating the public doesn’t. And money, more often than not, trumps little details like actual job descriptions and the educational missions of public land-grant universities.

Again, for the all the details, please see the Garden Rant post, including info on how to help stop this from happening.

 

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Linda Chalker-Scott

Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott has a Ph.D. in Horticulture from Oregon State University and is an ISA certified arborist and an ASCA consulting arborist. She is WSU’s Extension Urban Horticulturist and a Professor in the Department of Horticulture, and holds two affiliate associate professor positions at University of Washington. She conducts research in applied plant and soil sciences, publishing the results in scientific articles and university Extension fact sheets. Linda also is the award-winning author of five books: the horticultural myth-busting The Informed Gardener (2008) and The Informed Gardener Blooms Again (2010) from the University of Washington Press and Sustainable Landscapes and Gardens: Good Science – Practical Application (2009) from GFG Publishing, Inc., and How Plants Work: The Science Behind the Amazing Things Plants Do from Timber Press (2015). Her latest effort is an update of Art Kruckeberg’s Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest from UW Press (2019). In 2018 Linda was featured in a video series – The Science of Gardening – produced by The Great Courses. She also is one of the Garden Professors – a group of academic colleagues who educate and entertain through their blog and Facebook pages. Linda’s contribution to gardeners was recognized in 2017 by the Association for Garden Communicators as the first recipient of their Cynthia Westcott Scientific Writing Award. "The Garden Professors" Facebook page - www.facebook.com/TheGardenProfessors "The Garden Professors" Facebook group - www.facebook.com/groups/GardenProfessors Books: http://www.sustainablelandscapesandgardens.com

5 thoughts on “Founding GP under fire… for doing her job.”

  2. We lost extension work from colleges a long time ago for gardeners in the UK
    So sorry your great country is following our example.Linda does great work on your blog

    Reply

  3. I just came across this news from late last year while retrieving some of LCS’s info for an upcoming presentation. How did this turn out? Did WSU actually succeed in ridding itself of one of its finest assets? Have I missed a posting covering the rest of the story?

    Reply

    1. Still up in the air. Review underway, but no decision yet. Linda has been putting updates in our facebook group, and we’ll post here when we get concrete news.

      Reply

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