Dr. James Zuiches
Washington State University
Biography:
Dr. James Zuiches was appointed Dean, College of Agriculture and Home Economics at Washington State University, on July 1, 1995. He also serves as Director of the Agricultural Research Center and of Cooperative Extension. In the four years as Dean and Director, he has led the College in the development of a new strategic plan and a major request to the State Legislature to enhance funding for Agricultural Research and Cooperative Extension through the $7.5 million Safe Food Initiative. The College of Agriculture and Home Economics has over 400 faculty located at Pullman, three WSU branch campuses, in 39 counties, seven research and extension centers, and eight Learning Centers. The WSU Learning Centers were established in 1996 to provide access to WSU distance education programs, including three college majors in Human Development, General Agriculture, and Applied Biology (under development).
He was born in Wisconsin, moved to Hawaii, and then moved again to Oregon for high school. Throughout high school and college, he was involved in urban agriculture; i.e., landscape architecture and ornamental horticulture. His undergraduate majors at the University of Portland (1967) were philosophy and sociology.
Dr. Zuiches has an M.S. (1969) and Ph.D. in Sociology (1973) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dr. Zuiches' research interests are in population studies, particularly migration models and population change between urban-rural areas, labor force dynamics, and rural development. He has most recently been involved in the administration of research programs in universities, including patent and licensing policy, indirect cost recoveries, and research expenses. Prior to entering administration, his research had been funded by the Michigan State Agricultural Experiment Station, the National Institutes of Health, the Energy Research and Development Administration, and state and local funding sources.
Dr. Zuiches migrated from Portland to Wisconsin to Michigan State University (1971) where he taught for eight years, and then to Washington, D.C. In Washington, D.C., he served as the Sociology Program Director at the National Science Foundation from 1979-1982. Rotating out of the NSF position, he moved to Cornell University, where he served as Associate Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station for New York State (1982-1986).
He and his wife, Carol, achieved both locational preferences for the Pacific Northwest and career preferences when Washington State University offered both of them positions in 1986.
Dr. Zuiches served as Director of the Agricultural Research Center, College of Agriculture and Home Economics, Washington State University, from 1986 to 1994, when he took a 14-month leave to the W. K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek to lead a program in community and rural development. He also worked on Kellogg Foundation's Integrated Farming Systems and Food Systems Professions Education Programs. WSU has major Kellogg grants in each of these areas, including the Partnership 2020 grant, through which we are revising our curricula.
Dr. Zuiches was elected a fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Sciences (1993), and he has served as the President of the Rural Sociological Society (1992-93). He is currently a member of the National Research Council, Board on Agriculture, which oversees studies of agriculture, forestry, veterinary medicine, and community development. He currently serves on the ADEC Executive Committee as Legislative Chair.