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291 During the summers while she was growing up in Detroit, Anu Rangarajan took care of her family’s yard and garden and gave her mother a rose every day. In this two-part profile, she tells us how she has integrated her love for plants and people—especially the people who grow our food—in developing her life work as an educator. What we see in her stories and experiences is an academic professional with a remarkable commitment to building respectful, collaborative relationships between university experts, farmers, and community members. The main practice story she tells about her work of organizing the Cornell Organic Advisory Council, which grew into the Northeast Organic Network (NEON), gives us an instructive glimpse into the roles and contributions of a public scholar and educational organizer who seeks to have, as she puts it, “a sense of communion where you can be at Cornell but still be in partnership with growers.” Her profile leaves us with the impression that she is achieving what she is seeking. But we also learn that as an engaged faculty member who works from a position of humility about her knowledge and expertise—and who prioritizes public relationships over academic publishing—her experience in the research university context has sometimes been painful and difficult. Part One Interview conducted by Scott Peters, February 2, 2002 I’m a faculty member in the Department of Horticulture with a 60 percent Extension, 40 percent research split. I work on fresh market vegetables. My official title is Statewide Specialist for Fresh Market Vegetable Production. I started here in 1996, with a focus on cultural practices and sustainability of vegetable systems in New York State. I focus on ways of establishing plants in the field, including fertility requirements, the selection of varieties, C H A P T E R 1 5 A Sense of Communion A Profile of Anu Rangarajan Senior Extension Associate, Department of Horticulture, Cornell University C H A P T E R F I F T E E N 292 and the design of the fields for insect and pest management. I don’t focus on insects and pests directly, but on the quality and productivity of the crop. That’s my window for looking at the system. All my work is related to actually growing crops in the field. My position has had a long history. One of my predecessors, Phil Mingus, was in it over twenty years and had a very strong connection to the commercial vegetable industry. Since then, three people have held the position for relatively brief periods. This has led to challenges because, after Phil left, there’s not been long-term continuity in the job. The identity of the position in the field has been lost a bit. What I’m passionate about are relationships. I’m passionate about change and growth and personal development. Agriculture is a means to achieve that end for me. I interact with farmers. The person who tills the soil has an appeal to me. That’s why I do what I do. I also like to work with people who are perceived as being disconnected from the city, even though I grew up in Detroit. My parents emigrated to the U.S. from India when I was one month old. My father was brought to this country by Detroit General Hospital as an emergency room physician. Because the hospital’s generosity allowed him and my mother to come here, he never left the city and always worked with Medicare and Medicaid recipients.We grew up with an ethic of working with the poor and the underprivileged. My siblings and I all feel cursed with a strong sense of social responsibility. We joke about it because all of us now have careers in public service. Growing up in Detroit was great. It’s got secrets that people don’t see from the outside. I enjoyed the tension and diversity between the African American, white, Greek, and Hispanic populations that all lived there. For me, it was great to be an immigrant. We lived within the city limits until I was about eight, and then moved to the suburbs. I worked in my father’s office downtown until I was probably sixteen or seventeen. I was programmed to follow in his footsteps, to move into his practice in the city and continue his work. I didn’t do it. The whole time I was growing up, I had a vegetable garden...

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