Ramaswamy of Purdue will start Aug. 1

The new dean of Oregon State University's College of Agricultural Sciences is Sonny Ramaswamy, an associate dean at Purdue University who grew up poor in India.

OSU announced the decision Friday morning.

"I grew up in a single-parent family, my mother raised us," Ramaswamy said in a telephone interview with the Gazette-Times. "The one thing she raised us with was that you have to be responsible, and you have to be held accountable. Those things are seared in my brain."

The 57-year-old said he wants to help build the College of Agricultural Sciences, and OSU, into a respected institution, not just in the nation, but in the world.

"We want to be a player," he said. "We want to be a go-to place."

He will start work at OSU on Aug. 1 and will lead all of the university's agricultural programs, which amount to an $85 million per year enterprise. That includes the Agricultural Experiment Station, which has 11 branches throughout Oregon. The College of Agricultural Sciences has 1,600 students and 15 departments.

OSU's agriculture department already has a respected reputation in academia, he said, which was part of what made the Corvallis job so attractive to Ramaswamy.

"The folks in fisheries and wildlife are the No. 1 ranked department in the nation. There are people in horticulture. I could go on and on all afternoon."

Ramaswamy succeeds long-serving dean Thayne Dutson, who retired from the position in 2008. William Boggess has been serving as the interim dean.

Ramaswamy will arrive to assume the major challenge of operating a department in a state with a $14.5 billion budget and a potential revenue shortfall of more than $4 billion or more when the next revenue forecast is released.

"Until the 15th of May, when the next forecast comes out, you can only play with different scenarios. I think the greater challenges really, are challenges you and I face as humanity," he said.

He wants the university to focus on health, environmental stability, on feeding people safe, wholesome food and on economic development and prosperity of the state and its communities.

Ramaswamy said it was "mind-boggling" how important agricultural sciences can be for humanity.

Ramaswamy came to the United States to earn his doctorate degree in entomology at Rutgers University. He initially envisioned himself returning to India or doing international work, but he said he got talked into becoming a research assistant at Michigan State University.

Before joining Purdue, Ramaswamy was the chairman of the entomology department at Kansas State University from 1997 to 2004.

Ramaswamy and his wife Gita have a daughter, Megha, who has joined the faculty at the University of Kansas Medical Center.

Kyle Odegard covers Oregon State University. He can be contacted at kyle.odegard@lee.net or 758-9523.