K-State Researchers Win Prestigious Publication Award in Horticultural Education

Kimberly Williams and Joshua Craver received the American Society for Horticultural Science Outstanding Education Publication Award for 2014.


MANHATTAN, Kan. – Kimberly Williams, Kansas State University professor of greenhouse management, and former master’s student Joshua Craver have been named the American Society for Horticultural Science Outstanding Education Publication Award winners. They will accept the award Aug. 4, 2015, at the ASHS Annual Conference in New Orleans.

The Outstanding Education Publication Award is selected each year by a committee of peers, who evaluate all education-related papers in the three journals published by the ASHS, Williams said. Those journals include HortTechnology, HortScience and the Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science.

The Outstanding Education Publication Award highlights Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) work specifically in horticulture. The committee of peers scores all of the papers published during the year, and the paper with the highest score receives the award.

The winning publication by Williams and Craver is titled, “Assessing Student Learning from an Experimental Module in a Greenhouse Management Course using Hydroponics and Recirculating Solution Culture.”

“It is a tremendous honor to have our work about an aspect of teaching greenhouse management recognized as valuable in the field of horticultural education,” Williams said. “The award helps establish the value of the scholarship that we conduct with regard to teaching and learning in horticulture. Because of the work of many colleagues in horticulture, K-State is a national powerhouse in this regard.”

Williams added it was nice to be awarded with Craver, as he enjoys teaching. As a teaching assistant for the greenhouse management undergraduate course, he was inquisitive about the design of the hydroponics module in course labs.

“We designed an experiment to evaluate student learning during this module and received a grant from the College of Agriculture's Innovations in Teaching and Learning Program to support the effort,” Williams said. “This college-wide program exists thanks to the efforts of associate dean Don Boggs and is unique at K-State. This SoTL project was in addition to Josh's disciplinary research that he did for his master’s degree, which helped delineate the cause of a physiological disorder of horticultural crops called intumescences.”

A complete list of recipients can be found at the link, http://db.ashs.org/awards/winners2/. For more information on the American Society for Horticultural Science, please visit its website,www.ashs.org. For more information about the K-State Department of Horticulture, Forestry and Recreation Resources, visit www.hfrr.ksu.edu.

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K-State Research and Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the well-being of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county Extension offices, experiment fields, area Extension offices and regional research centers statewide. Its headquarters is on the K-State campus, Manhattan.