William Brown, dean of Texas Tech University's College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, has been elected to the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities Board on Agriculture Assembly's (BAA) Policy Board of Directors. The BAA is a unit of the APLU Commission on Food, Environment, and Renewable Resources.

Brown is taking over the position that was held by CASNR's Associate Dean for Academic and Student Programs, Cindy Akers, who recently vacated the post to take the position of president of the Non-land-grant Agriculture and Renewable Resources Universities. Brown will be representing APLU Non-Land-Grant Universities.

The purpose of the BAA is promotion of agriculture in all of its phases – food, environment, agriculture, natural resources and international – in state universities and land-grant colleges, along with the District of Columbia, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, territories of the Pacific, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The BAA is comprised of five sections: academic programs, administrative heads, cooperative extension, experiment station, and international agriculture.

Brown, a nationally-recognized administrator and animal science researcher, took the helm of Tech's College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources last year. Prior to joining Texas Tech, Brown served as the dean for research and director of the Agricultural Experiment Station at the Institute of Agriculture at the University of Tennessee since 2008.

In that time he was active in national leadership roles with the Experiment Station Committee on Organization and Policy, serving as chairman of the budget and legislative committee. Brown earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Florida, his master's degree from the University of Tennessee and his doctorate from the University of Nebraska. His research concentration is in ruminant nutrition.

CONTACT: William Brown, Dean, College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Texas Tech University at (806) 742-2808 or william.f.brown@ttu.edu

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