Colleagues and co-workers, friends and family, and students new and old gathered Friday to pay tribute to Horticulture professor Chris Wien as he prepares for retirement this fall.
Wien, who ‘wrote the book’ on The Physiology of Vegetable Crops, came to Cornell in the ’60s after completing his BS at at The University of Toronto in Guelph, Ontario. He received his PhD in Vegetable Crops from Cornell in 1971, and returned as assistant professor in 1979 after working abroad as a research scientist studying grain legume physiology in Nigeria. He served as department chair from 1996 through 2002.
In additon to his vegetable physiology work, Wien has researched cut flower production, led outreach projects encouraging the use of high tunnels among both growers and in school gardens, and continued his international work in Africa, working with smallholder horticulturists in Zimbabwe.
One highlight of the tribute came when Dean Kathryn Boor revealed that Wien is the anonymous donor whose generosity established the Cornell Assistantship for Horticulture in Africa (CAHA), which provides doctoral assistantships in the Graduate Field of Horticulture to students from Sub-Saharan Africa. Charles Wasonga (PhD ’10) was the first CAHA student to earn a doctorate. The second, Semagn Kolech, is finishing his doctorate this fall, and a third CAHA recipient will begin studies at Cornell in 2016.
Congratulations, Chris. You’ve set a high bar for professionalism, caring and generosity. We will strive to live up to your example and wish you well in retirement.