(energetic guitar music) - Welcome to A Shot of AG.

My name is Rob Sharkey.

I'm your host.

I'm a fifth generation farmer from just outside of Bradford, Illinois.

I started a podcast, which led into an XM radio show, which led into a national television show, which led into me being right here today.

But today, today is not about me.

Today is about Dr. Sherri Morris.

Hi doctor.

- Hi.

How are you?

- Good.

Do most people, do they refer to you as doctor?

- No.

Most people use my first name.

- Really?

- My students usually call me Dr. Morris until they get to know me real well.

- What's your doctorate in?

- It's actually in plant biology.

- Okay.

If I went that far in education, obviously it's a lot of work, obviously you're very smart to become a doctor, I would make sure everybody said it.

I mean, literally, when I go through like Starbucks or something and they're like, well, can I have a name?

It's Dr. Sherri.

And I want it that way, or else I'm not tipping.

You don't do that?

- I don't do that.

(Rob sighs) - Okay.

(both laugh) You are the chair and a professor of biology at Bradley University.

So, okay.

For people that don't know, and when I say that, it means me, right?

For people that don't know, what does it mean to be a chair of biology at Bradley?

- It means that I'm responsible for everything that goes on in the biology department.

So I schedule the classes and take care of the faculty and make sure all the students have the courses they need.

- Okay.

So as far as Bradley's concerned, you are biology.

- Yeah.

(both laugh) - Do you ever just walk around campus going, yeah, I'm biology here.

This is me and I'm biology.

(Sherri laughs) - No.

- No.

Okay.

I would have a lot more fun with your position.

Maybe that's why you have that position, because you take it seriously.

(both laugh) You're originally from California?

- Yes.

- What part?

- Southern California.

- Okay.

So the, well, half the state's in the southern half.

- 10 miles north of Disneyland in Fullerton.

- At Fuller, I thought that was not Full... Where is Disneyland?

- Anaheim.

- Anaheim.

So was Fullerton like a suburb?

- Next door neighbor?

Yeah.

- Okay.

Well it's all kind of one big city, right?

- Well, it's, Orange County is one big suburb of Los Angeles.

- [Rob] Okay.

- Although it has the GDP of like a fourth in the world.

- [Rob] Does it really?

- Yeah.

- What's driving the money there?

- Lots of unique corporations.

- [Rob] Huh.

Is that where Silicon Valley is?

- No, Silicon Valley is north.

- [Rob] Okay.

All right.

We'll cut that out, 'cause I don't wanna look dumb.

(both laugh) All right.

You grew up in California.

How did you get here in Peoria, Illinois?

- Well, I did my PhD at Ohio State and then I did a postdoc at Michigan State.

And while I was there applying for jobs, the one at Bradley came up and it was really interesting to me because of the emphasis on undergraduate research.

- Okay.

Well, let's go back.

How do you get at Ohio?

I mean, I don't know.

It was like biology is a...

The place biology people go is Ohio?

- No.

(both laugh) - Good.

- When I was finishing my master's degree and looking for somewhere to do my PhD.

Usually when you do that level of a degree, you're looking for a faculty member to work with.

So the professor that I really wanted to work with was at Ohio State.

- Okay.

So was there like a specialty or something that you were gravitating towards there?

- The faculty member of Ralph Boerner.

He worked in mycorrhiza fungi.

Really, really cool group of organisms.

And so I got to go work on those with him.

(both laugh) - What is it again?

- Fungi.

And they're mycorrhiza fungi.

So they're fungi that form relationships with trees.

- Okay.

So it's tree fungus?

- Yeah.

Tree fungus.

- Okay.

That's- - It runs the world.

- What do you mean by that?

- In terms of long term evolutionary history that a lot of theories suggest that plants would not have made it out of the oceans without this relationship with the fungus.

- So the, you done lost me already.

How long have we been on this interview?

And I was like, all right, you know, we're gonna interview a chair and professor of biology at Bradley.

Probably at some point she's going to stump me.

I didn't realize it was gonna be in the first five minutes, but here we are.

(both laugh) All right.

So this fungus, not just a tree fungus, but fungus in general, is the reason that plants, hypothetically, I don't know, have gotten out of the ocean?

- Exactly.

- Okay.

- So plants.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- A lot of them.

And this is a large number of plants actually have roots that are invaded by fungi.

And originally there was a professor that was a scientist that was ripping all the fungi off the roots and the plants kept dying.

So he finally figured out that without the fungus, the plant couldn't survive and that's how they discovered the symbiotic relationship.

Now, if you look at all of your Christmas trees, they won't live past like three years without having these fungi on their roots.

And if you rip the plant up, you can actually see the fungus growing on the roots.

- Okay.

I mean, I'm a farmer.

I even know that with, you know, the soybeans and the corn and that, so, all right.

I'm almost afraid to ask another question.

(both laugh) All right.

So you went to Ohio and then what, you said Michigan?

- Mhm.

- Okay.

And then that led you to Bradley?

- Right.

- Yeah.

Was Bradley even on your radar?

Did you know anything about 'em?

- I have to admit, Bradley was not on my radar.

- [Rob] Okay.

- At all.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- But when the job opportunity became available, it really was very attractive because of the emphasis on relationships with students and that small learning environment.

- Okay.

Let's talk about that.

Because one of the things that you are passionate about is teaching people to learn.

Am I correct on that?

- Mhm.

- Okay.

Can you explain that?

- There's so many resources that are available right now.

You can go and Google anything.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- But you really have to have some understanding of the topic to know if the information that you're getting is reasonable or not.

And so I don't want students to just learn information.

I want them to learn what quality information is, how to find information, more importantly, how to use information.

So one of the things that I always tell my students is that any problem they're trying to solve, the answer is not gonna be on page 27 of a textbook.

While I want them to know a lot of information, it's because they have to use that information to be able to solve problems.

It's not one specific piece of information that's gonna help them, it's really being able to put it all together and synthesize an answer.

- Is this gonna be on the test?

(Sherri laughs) - It's always on the test.

- Okay.

Not on page 27.

All right.

What you're saying is very truthful too, because one, I went to school myself, like most everybody, right?

I learned enough so that I could get by.

Right?

I learned how to memorize stuff.

I learned how to memorize my multiplication, my arithmetic, all this stuff.

And then half the stuff, after the test was over, I forgot about it.

So now, when somebody comes to me and they say, hey, we've got to measure a flag pole's shadow so that we know how tall it is in reference to whatever.

I don't know how to do any of that, but I can Google it.

Someday, I won't be able to Google it.

Right?

- Why not?

- Russia?

I don't.

(both laugh) But there's an important, there's points in time where you can't click on your phone and Google, for whatever reason.

And you want your students to be able to use this thing besides as a hat rack.

- Exactly.

- How's that going?

- Yeah.

It depends on the student.

(both laugh) You know, we really do have really good students at Bradley and it's wonderful to be able to work with them and see them grow and see them change.

And sometimes, you know, you really can see them use common sense and logic to solve a problem that they have some content knowledge for, but it's also a unique take and that's really where we wanna get them.

- So out of all the students that you have currently, which one do you like the least?

(Sherri laughs) - The one that doesn't come to class.

- Okay.

What's, I'm assuming it's a him.

What's his name?

(both laugh) I mean, you've been doing this for how many years?

Teaching?

- 22.

- 22.

Have the students, have they changed?

- They've changed in a lot of ways.

- Like what's a glaring way?

- I think they read less.

I think they read a lot less.

- [Rob] Do you think that's technology?

- I think it is technology, because it really is much easier to find answers.

- Yeah.

Part of it is, as much as I don't like that, the young kids growing up today have all the answers at their fingertips, I'm a little bit jealous that we didn't.

Then I could know about the fungus on the plants.

- Yeah.

(both laugh) - Does that change the way that you teach, is the technology?

- It does a little, because you have to be able to show them how to use it and how to use it wisely and allow them to use it without letting them think that's the only way to get an answer.

- Yeah.

Well, like for your, I don't know.

Do you have tests still?

- Yeah.

- Do you?

- We have not phased out tests yet.

- But is it a deal where like, everybody, it's all online, right?

Everybody's gonna, what's gonna be on Dr. Morris's test tomorrow and they know all this stuff.

- The tests aren't online and they don't usually communicate that way.

- You know how they do that.

I went to college, right?

It's the only time I ever talked to the frat guys.

Right?

Is when I wanted to come over to their house and see the files of their old test.

So I knew what to do.

I just figured now everything had gotten sped up and you can just go online.

You probably have a webpage somewhere about your old exams.

- I'm sure I do.

But we, in general, we don't, a lot of the things I teach, I don't give exams back.

They can review them in class and then I keep them just because there's only so many ways you can ask a question.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- About, you know, tree fungus.

And so I don't want them to be in the frat filing cabinets the way that they are, so.

- Yeah.

Those were kind of nice though.

- I know.

- Did you do that in college?

- No.

I didn't.

- Okay.

(Rob laughs) It's the only way I got through college.

I went to Southern Illinois University.

Yeah.

I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't hear about it.

I don't know if it's an accredited university yet or not, but I had fun.

Yeah.

Tell me about STEM.

- So I'm also the co-director of the center for STEM education.

And we've been working to make sure that we are emphasizing the STEM field, science, technology, engineering and math, especially for making sure that women are exposed to STEM earlier.

So I work with University of Illinois extension on the 4G STEM camp, which is for sixth, seventh, and eighth grade girls, so that they can work with local professionals in STEM areas.

So they'll go to Caterpillar or the USDA facility, Methodist College, some of those areas to really work with women in some of the STEM fields and get exposure, so that when they get to high school, they can think about, do I wanna take this engineering class?

It's hard to know you wanna take an engineering class if you have no idea what that looks like or what that can be used for.

- Okay.

I did not grow up a girl.

So I promise.

Did not.

(both laugh) I don't know what it's like, because like, when I was in grade school, high school, all this stuff, you know, I was big into ag or whatever.

You went to all these things, it was always available.

You could always go to a farm and see how it works.

You could go to the welders and see how it works.

I mean, was it different as a girl?

Because with this focusing on girls, I just, I don't know.

- Right.

And this is just one program that we do.

It's a little bit different in that there are instances where the focus really is on making sure that boys are exposed to those kinds of activities.

And it is not as easy for girls to step up to the front row and be exposed to these.

A lot of times they are not aggressive enough to be able to engage in some of these activities.

Exactly.

So it is just to make sure that they see that these opportunities are available.

Some of our other programming really is bringing high school students, juniors and seniors, to Bradley's campus, and they work in research labs during the summer.

We work with K12 educators in our local community to make sure that they have activities that they can do in the classroom.

And we do professional development activities during the summers also.

- So what's that mean to you as you're doing this?

Because I imagine when you're going, when the girls are going through this, there's going to be, you can point out some girls that this means the world to them, that they've got this opportunity where they don't have to fight and claw their way through all the boys yelling and screaming.

I mean, what's it mean to you when you see that happening?

- I think it's really exciting because you really can see the way that they change and embrace some of these activities and start to think about what they could do as careers once they walk out of those camps.

- Yeah.

You know, I farm and growing up, I've got five older sisters.

So growing up, it was, I was gonna take over the farm because that's the way it was, right?

If girls aren't looked at, as they can come back to farming, I would say now, you know, we do an XM radio show every single day.

Lot of the young people coming back to the farm, I'm gonna say half of 'em are women.

Is that just in ag, do you think?

Or are you seeing that everywhere?

- We're seeing it everywhere.

I mean, there are increases and it's really good to see because we really should encourage diversity of all kinds in all fields, because it allows us to see different opinions and different approaches.

- Yeah.

There's a lot of women out here.

So like almost half.

(both laugh) I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

This STEM program.

What does STEM stand for?

- Science, technology, engineering and math.

- Yeah.

Is it going to continue or are you hoping it's gonna continue?

- The programming we do continues.

We do different things every year.

We've had a storefront down at the mall and it's on Saturdays.

- New mall or old mall?

- The old mall.

- You gotta identify, right?

- Sorry.

Where we do activities with people that are in the mall that day for a few hours, trying to engage them in different kinds of, I took an entire tub of soil down there and talked to them about soil and the different components of soil and let them meet the earthworms.

- Yeah.

All right.

Tell me about your love of the soil.

- So, part of what I, my research area for the last, almost 30 years, has been in soil.

So I look at soil nutrients and soil nutrient turnover.

A lot of the work that I've done looks at the impacts of restoration on marginal agricultural fields.

So what happens when you put trees back on them.

- [Rob] Yeah.

What does happen?

- Usually the nutrients increase, but it depends- - If you put the trees back on the cruddy farm ground?

- Mhm.

- Really?

Why is that?

You think they would suck 'em right up.

- Because you get tissues that go back into decomposition.

And you also can attract the mycorrhizal fungi and they can get into the mineral pools and pull phosphorus.

- Okay.

It's interesting.

We've got a farm that is very marginal and I put it in the program to put, we planted something like 14,000 trees or something like that.

And yeah, I don't know how many it was.

It was way too many, but I just thought it was kind of filler.

I didn't even actually think about that.

Actually giving back to the dirt.

Do you think a lot of people know that?

- I don't know.

Right now it's playing a role because people are interested in it because it's a large carbon pool and with concerns over global climate change, they want places like Department of Energy wanna know where those carbon pools are.

- Yeah.

In one of your papers, you said farmers should try to kill as many earthworms as possible.

- I did not.

- Is that a misprint?

(both laugh) - This is a big thing in agriculture, right?

Especially with the anhydrous ammonia that's put on.

And you know, how many worms you kill with that.

The worms are important to the, what's your take on the, our buddy the earthworm?

- Well, I should be able to say more about it.

Right?

So many of them are introduced, they aren't native to the area.

- [Rob] Really?

- Yeah.

- [Rob] Oh, I didn't know that.

- So the fact that they do have so many impacts on soils, in terms of turnover and nutrient cycling, that I think that we're probably just fine without the earthworm.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

I guess that kind of surprised me.

You can always use 'em for fishing too.

- Right.

But what happens is when people get outta their boats and then they just dump 'em on the shore, they introduce earthworms in the areas that probably shouldn't have earthworms.

- It's the fisherman that are messing everything up.

Can we quote you on that?

- No.

You can't.

(Rob laughs) Probably couldn't go home.

- So a professor at Bradley University.

How many classes do you teach?

- I teach quite a few.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- So normally I teach our organismal biology class and during the summers, I teach ecology or ecosystems.

- Okay.

So people that are taking your classes, generally just for a biology major?

- One of the courses that I teach is also for non-majors.

- Okay.

So it's just for people that want to learn.

- They kind of have to for their general education experience.

- That's nice when you got like people that are forced to pay attention to you.

I really wish I had that with this show.

(Sherri laughs) Really wish.

(Rob laughs) What do you want people to know about being a professor?

Right?

Because we all have our ideas and, you know, movies have tried to portray a professor.

What do you want people to know about being a professor?

- It's rewarding because you really do get to see students change.

I have all of the students as freshmen, I have them all as sophomores.

I have most of them, at least once when they're seniors.

So I get to see them over those four years.

And it's really valuable to see the change that happens over that time.

And then they go off into some fabulous careers and that's also really nice to see, but you know, there's also a lot of work in terms of prepping lectures and making sure that the content that you have is current and important and valuable with regards to the career that they want.

And there's also the other half of, you know, things like independent study and doing research in the lab, you get to know your students really well.

- I always liked the labs.

Labs are cool.

You get to blow stuff up and cut stuff up and all that.

- Okay.

We try not to blow things up.

We're biology, not chemistry.

- Stuff happens.

(both laugh) But the labs are fun, right?

I mean, it's just, there's something more about learning hands on.

When you're learning, just like out of the book or whatever, it can get at kind of dull in that.

Do you enjoy the labs too?

- I do.

- Yeah.

Is it a deal or you have the labs early in the morning just to force the kids to get up, the college kids?

- No.

I usually teach statistics early in the morning, just to make sure they're awake.

- Come on.

Do you know there was a class I had, it was 8:00 AM on Friday.

I don't think I ever made it to.

I passed it with a C. (Rob laughs) Does it bother you when kids don't care?

- It does.

And that's because it's, you know, going to college, it's an expensive thing not to care about.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And the really interesting thing is, is that you never really know when you're gonna need the content that you learned.

And right now, so many people change jobs so many times over their lifetime, that you just don't know what's gonna become important 10 years from now, 15 years from now, that you're gonna say, I wish I had paid more attention to that.

- That's a really good point.

I mean, I think things have definitely changed to where, you know, someone was used to being in a job for 40 50 years or retire, whatever.

That's kind of rare anymore.

And I mean, you could, I mean, you could be a farmer then end up like doing a media business.

You just never know what's gonna happen and how you need to be prepared for it.

Do you, with this, going back to how you teach someone to learn, how do you do that?

- It's really challenging.

One of the problems, and one of the reasons that sometimes students don't wanna buy into the program is that I can't tell them everything.

There are so many students that come in and sit down in the classroom and expect me to lecture to them.

If you think back to the origin of the lecture, it's because there was one book and that's why somebody would orate with somebody with lecture.

- [Rob] Yeah.

I didn't thought about that.

- But now I feel bad when I have to, you know, lecture for 20 minutes over something they could read in five.

But if I don't lecture on it, they feel like I didn't tell them what they needed to know.

- Ah, it's kind of a, yeah.

I could, that's put very well.

I've never really thought about it that way.

Are you allowed to hit the students at all?

- No.

You're not allowed to hit the students.

- Ever?

- Ever.

- Huh.

- Otherwise you get reported to the chair and then we have to go to the Dean's office.

Then we have to go deal with the provost.

Yeah.

It's not fun.

- Yeah.

Maybe they didn't hit 'em hard enough.

(both laugh) Has there been a change in like behaviors over the last 20 years?

- I think there has been a little.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- I tend to think that 20 years ago, students were a little more serious in the classroom and I think it has to do with how we treat an 18 year old.

I think 18 year olds were a little more adult 20 years ago than they are now.

And some of the laws we've enacted with, you know, smoking ages and things like that, suggest that society also feels that change in maturity.

- If people want to get in touch with you or ask you questions, where do they go?

- I usually get emails or they're welcome to stop by on campus.

- Okay.

Do you know your email address?

- Sure.

It's sjmorris@bradley.edu.

- Morris has two Rs in it?

- It does.

- Okay.

Well, I've really enjoyed talking to you because I mean, I'm a farmer and I don't know your world.

So whenever I can learn about someone's else world, I just, I'm really enjoying it.

So Dr. Sherri Morris, thank you very much.

Everybody else, we'll catch you next week.