2021 Conference Speakers
Tuesday General Session Speaker
Dr. Scott Angle
Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources
University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS)
Dr. J. Scott Angle is a national leader in developing the science that supports food production and management of natural resources. As chief executive of the agriculture and environmental sciences arm of a leading land-grant university, he champions public science as a path to improve lives and reduce human suffering.
His accomplished career in government, non-profit international development, and academia informs an approach to leadership based on service, partnership, and drive for impact. An innovator who holds seven patents, Angle has successfully guided multiple organizations through budget shortfalls and other challenges .
Dr. Angle leads nearly 2,300 employees who work in all 67 Florida counties. UF/IFAS encompasses the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the Florida Cooperative Extension Service, and the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station.
Angle took the helm at UF/IFAS in July 2020, fresh from his position at the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). As director of NIFA, he led federal support for the science underpinning the success of American agriculture, frequently partnering with land-grant universities.
Prior to his national service, he led the non-profit International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC), where he oversaw a staff of more than 800 and coordinated development projects worldwide.
From 2005 to 2015, he served as dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of Georgia. During his tenure, the college’s enrollment grew 30 percent. He consolidated the college’s farms and land holdings to create more cohesive research facilities. He also fostered greater diversity and inclusion, creating an assistant dean of diversity position and appointing the first and second female associate deans in the college’s history and the first female academic department head.
Angle worked as professor of soil science at the University of Maryland and later as director of the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station and Maryland Cooperative Extension. He is widely cited for his scholarship on phytoremediation, the use of plants for extraction of heavy metals from soil.
Angle received his B.S. in agronomy and M.S. in soil science at the University of Maryland. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri with an emphasis on soil microbiology.
Wednesday General Session Speaker |
Dr. Dave Schramm Known as “Dr. Dave” on campus and across the country, Dave Schramm is an associate professor and family life extension specialist at Utah State University in the department of Human Development and Family Studies. After graduating with his Ph.D. from Auburn University, he worked as a professor at the University of Missouri for nine years. Shortly after arriving at USU in 2016, he was been appointed by Governor Herbert to serve on Utah’s Commission on Marriage, he appears on television monthly on Fox 13’s “The Place” and he shares tips and videos on social media to help individuals, parents, and couples thrive in their life journeys. From British Columbia to Beijing, China, and from St. Louis to San Diego, Dr. Dave has given over 500 presentations, classes, and workshops to a variety of audiences, including the United Nations and a TEDx talk in Florida. He married his high school sweetheart Jamie, they have four children, he loves peanut M&Ms , and the Schramm fam lives in North Logan, Utah. |
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Wednesday Ruby Lecture
Epsilon Sigma Phi’s most prestigious level of recognition, the Distinguished Service Ruby award, is designed to recognize outstanding leadership, innovative thinking and sustained exceptional performance across a lifetime service in Extension. It is a great honor to recognize Dr. Edwin Jones - Virginia Alpha Gamma Chapter, as the 2021 Epsilon Sigma Phi Distinguished Service Ruby award recipient.Dr. Jones is the director of Virginia Cooperative Extension and associate dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He has served in that role since April 2011.
Prior to that he served as associate director and state program leader for Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Community and Rural Development; associate state program leader for Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Community and Rural Development; assistant department head and department extension leader in forestry; and as extension wildlife specialist and professor of forestry at NC State University. He has also served as extension wildlife specialist at Mississippi State University.
Dr. Jones has a bachelor’s degree in zoology from the University of Washington, and master of science and a doctoral degree from Virginia Tech in fisheries and wildlife science. He has held leadership positions in the Extension Disaster Education Network, the National Association of Community Development Extension Professionals, and the Southern Region Program Leader Network.
Dr. Jones has been a member of ESP since his induction into the North Carolina Xi Chapter in 1992. From his earliest days as a Wildlife Specialist for Mississippi State University, Dr. Jones has been providing well-respected knowledge and leadership to Extension's constituents for nearly 40 years.
Thursday General Session Speaker |
Dr. Lorilee Sandmann
University of Georgia
Lorilee R. Sandmann, Ph.D., is professor emerita in Lifelong Education, Administration, and Policy, the College of Education at The University of Georgia. After starting out as an assistant 4-H agent in Nobles County, Minnesota 50 years ago, she has since held extension/outreach, faculty, and administrative positions at the University of Minnesota, Michigan State University, Cleveland State University, as well as The University of Georgia. She is also the former editor of the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement.
Dr. Sandmann’s research, teaching, evaluating, writing, advising, and consulting focuses on leadership and organizational change in higher education with special emphasis on the institutionalization of community engagement, as well as faculty roles and rewards related to community-engaged scholarship. She is recipient of the Distinguished Researcher Award by the International Association for Research on Service Learning and Community Engagement and the UGA’s Outstanding Faculty Scholarship of Engagement Award. She has been inducted into the Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship and the International Adult Continuing Education Hall of Fame. She has been the director of the National Review Board for the Scholarship of Engagement, director of the Engagement Academy for University Leaders, and she serves as a core reviewer and on the National Advisory Panel for the Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement.
She holds an Epsilon Sigma Phi-Pi chapter membership card from 1980. She can be reached at sandmann@uga.edu.