Your Incredible Neighbors: Retired professor works to protect the environment

Bill Cowen cares very much about our nation’s natural resources.

This Green Valley retiree and his wife Mary Lynne not only want to preserve the desert they call home during the winter, they have worked tirelessly to protect the green environment of Ohio, a passion they both have passed on to their grandchildren.

Cowen, 82, joined the faculty of Ohio State University as an assistant professor in 1959 and served with distinction for 26 years until his retirement as professor in 1985.

During his tenure at Ohio State, his academic appointment was 25 percent resident instruction and 75 percent extension, with the title of state extension specialist in forestry.

According to Jerry M. Bigham, professor and director of Natural Sciences at Ohio State, Cowen was “truly a gifted teacher, both in the classroom and with extension clientele.”

Several awards testify to this fact, including the Ohio State University Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching, recognition as one of America’s outstanding educators with a listing in the National Awards Volume of Outstanding Educators in America, and the Ohio Forestry Association’s Outstanding Conservation Educator of the Year.

With the creation of the School of Natural Resources in 1968, his dendrology (study of woody plants) and silviculture (simply put, the art and science of sustainably growing trees to meet needs) courses became requirements for all forestry and wildlife majors.

“Literally, thousands of students passed through Bill’s classes, benefiting not only from his enthusiastic teaching style and love for his profession, but also from his theoretically well-founded approach to the science and practice of forestry,” Bigham said.

Throughout his tenure at Ohio State, Cowen was the only forest resource management extension professional in the state.

“He developed strong educational programs, addressing the needs of a wide variety of clientele including Christmas tree growers, maple syrup producers, private non-industrial forest landowners, professional forest land managers, and urban forest managers,” Bigham explained.

“In addition, he demonstrated a unique understanding and willingness to work with youth conservation education through 4-H and teacher education programs.”

Once again, his colleague said, several awards testify to Cowen’s impact. These include induction into the Ohio Christmas Tree Association’s Hall of Fame, a certificate of commendation from the Ohio House of Representatives, an honor award from the Soil Conservation Society of America, and the professional excellence award for outstanding contributions in conservation and natural resource development from the All-Ohio Chapter of the Soil Conservation Society of America.

Perhaps the best measure of Cowen’s impact on forestry and the foresters in Ohio, many of whom were his students, is the fact that in 2000 the Ohio Society of American Foresters honored him as Ohio’s Forester of the Millennium.

So grateful and impressed was one of Cowen’s former students, Richard Porterfield, former dean of the College of Forestry at the University of Georgia, he established a very generous endowment at Ohio State in the names of Cowen and Bob Touse, the two professors that he said helped him obtain a scholarship that allowed him to continue his college education.

The Robert D. Touse and William F. Cowen Jr. Scholarship Fund provides need-based scholarships to full-time junior or senior students majoring in forestry in the School of Environment and Natural Resources.

To add to the professor’s impact on the university, a room in Kottman Hall at the School of Natural Resources on the Ohio State campus has been appointed with photographs of Cowen and Touse and outfitted with products of the forests industry in Ohio.

The room is paneled in all native Ohio hardwoods and the conference table is made of wormy chestnut, much to the delight of Cowen, who said “the room is the honor that he is most proud of.”

Naming the facility in their honor as the Touse/Cowen Conference Room completed the recognition of their contributions to academic programs and students of The Ohio State University.

“Mary Lynne has a great deal to do with what I accomplished,” Cowen says of his wife of 30 years. “We contributed a significant amount of funding to establish the Cowen-Embree Student Scholarship Fund sponsored by the Ohio Society of American Foresters.”

Mary Lynne, a retired professor of environmental education at Ohio State, met her husband there and they continue to work side-by-side in tackling the growing problem of biological invasions of harmful exotic species of plants and animals to the Sonoran Desert.

Today the Cowens are very involved with the Arizona- Sonora Desert Museum where they are ambassadors to Green Valley for the museum’s Invaders of the Sonoran Desert Program.

“I do believe in global warming and I’m very concerned about Arizona’s policy on natural resource management, especially in Green Valley where water is concerned” Cowen said. “Natural resource budgets in the United States are being cut to the bone and our national parks, which I consider are natural treasures, are suffering for it.”

The Cowens are serving as volunteer “citizen scientists” for the Desert Museum and are trained using a specifically developed invasive species early detection and reporting kit.

With this kit, the Cowens help detect invader’s arrival and dispersal in the Green Valley and surrounding areas.

Just recently they have been noting the buffelgrass “taking over” parts of Green Valley.

This shrubby grass which is native to Africa, the Middle East, Indonesia and tropical Asia was introduced to the U.S. in the 1930s as livestock forage.

The Cowens report that buffelgrass grows densely and crowds native plants of similar size. Competition for water can weaken and kill larger native desert plants.

“The more we monitor it, the better our chances of lessening the impact on native species,” the Cowens said.

“We want to educate others like our friends and family so they, too, can look out for buffelgrass and other biological pollutants.”

rford@gvnews.com | 547-9740\