Publication Type: Oral Presentation
Abstract: On September 19, 1933, 75 years before this meeting of theSoil and Water Conservation Society, Hugh Hammond Bennett entered duty as the director of the Soil Erosion Service (SES). The SES was one of many New Deal programs funded by the National Industrial Recovery Act Less than two years later, April 27, 1935, the work of the SES had proved popular that Congress made soil conservation a permanent part of public policy with passage of the act creating the Soil Conservation Service.

The establishment of the Soil Erosion Service was a critical stage in the development of the modern soil and water conservation movement. Its creation was contingent upon several factors. The economic emergency of the great depression provided opportunities for reformers to implement new ideas for conservation that had been gestating for a decade or more. In the area of soil conservation, no one was more prepared than Bennett. He joined the Bureau of Soils in 1903 and his field work in the soil survey convinced him of the need for soil conservation. His personal energy, passion, writing ability and public speaking skills prepared him for the opportunity presented by the emergency of the Great Depression.

Bennett's view that soil conservation was an interdisciplinary pursuit provided the philosophy that allowed the movement to survive beyond the New Deal and become permanent public policy. Bennett succeeded where others failed to elevate soil erosion in the public consciousness

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In the Spring of 2005, the Pi Sigma Alpha chapter at East Central University mounted a service-learning project in the historically Black area of our town, known as Hammond Heights. Over 100 mainly white students were involved in completing about 20 clean-up projects in this mainly Black neighborhood. Our objectives were to provide help to an area of town that is underserved by our local government and to raise awareness of the benefits of community action in our students. The week-long project had bright spots and low spots, and it is debatable whether this area of town and race-relations in our town were actually improved by our efforts. This paper and presentation uses the “portraiture” technique (Pickeral, Haill, and Duckenfield 2003) to detail and discuss our "Week of Work." I draw on our experiences and the service learning and race scholarship to make four suggestions for professors who mount projects in racially charged settings.