Ferrum, VA, April 22, 2022 — On Friday, April 22, 2022 – Earth Day – Ferrum College announced the endowment of the Carolyn L. Thomas Memorial Fund, which will provide critical support to the College’s natural science programs. Established in memory of Faculty Emerita of Environmental Science Carolyn Lee Thomas, who passed away in January 2020, the fund will primarily support experiential learning projects for students in environmental science, agriculture, and biology.
A beloved member of the Ferrum College community, Thomas taught environmental science at the College for more than 41 years. In addition to her work on campus, Thomas loved the learning that occurred outside the classroom. She and her husband, Faculty Emeritus of Biology and Agriculture Bob Pohlad, traveled to all 50 states as well as to numerous locations around the world. In 2003, they traveled with three Ferrum College students to Malawi, Africa, to set up water quality equipment and train Malawian scientists how to operate it. More recently, the couple toured the Galapagos Islands in 2017, and took groups of Ferrum College students for Experiential-term adventures to the Virgin Islands and Ireland.
Ferrum College Professor of Environmental Science Delia Heck said Earth Day 2022 was a fitting day to announce the newly endowed fund. “The theme for this year’s Earth Day is ‘Invest in Our Planet.’ That is exactly what Carolyn did with her entire career and with her very life. It is what scholarships from this fund will do – invest in our planet through the lives of Ferrum College recipients,” said Heck, who taught alongside Thomas and was a long-time friend. “Carolyn’s former students, friends, colleagues and family members are providing opportunities for students to engage in experiential learning that will have benefits for years to come. Carolyn would be so excited to see how we have committed ourselves to passing on the torch of scientific education.”
Wilson Paine, vice president for Institutional Advancement & External Relations, noted that the endowment of the Carolyn L. Thomas Memorial Fund was cause for celebration on many fronts. “Not only were we able to raise over $25,000 to create this endowment, but we did so with the support of roughly 150 donors. The vast number of individuals who supported this effort signifies the impact Carolyn had on so many during her time at Ferrum College,” he said. “My sincere gratitude goes out to Bob and Carolyn’s family, who were instrumental in this momentous achievement that will honor Carolyn’s life and commitment to our students and the environment.”
“Our family is deeply appreciative and overwhelmed by the generosity of everyone’s gifts to honor my soulmate Carolyn’s memory with this endowed fund. Generated funds used for student experiential learning are exactly what she would want,” said Pohlad. “Carolyn was dedicated to helping her family, students, colleagues, friends, and the broader scientific community know how to make the environment better. She worked tirelessly over the years through her water quality studies and teaching not only to educate us on what should and could be done, but also exemplified that behavior in her daily life. Her legacy will live on through the use of this fund.”
Additional gifts to the Carolyn L. Thomas Memorial Fund may be made by visiting https://www.ferrum.edu/giving/give-to-ferrum-college/ and selecting the Carolyn Thomas Memorial Fund designation.
Ferrum, VA, January 15, 2020 — On Tuesday, January 14, 2020, after a 20-month battle with ovarian cancer, Ferrum College’s beloved retired Professor of Environmental Science Carolyn Lee Thomas passed away. She was four days shy of her seventy-second birthday, and had just enjoyed a long weekend with her family.
“We are heartbroken over the death of Carolyn Thomas, who was for so many of us a model of fierce intellect, creative imagination, and personal courage. She had a way of exciting curiosity in her students and of inviting us all to be better people. Her fingerprints are on all of our lives—thousands of us—and we will miss her dearly,” said President David L. Johns.
Born on January 18, 1948 in Orlando, Florida, Thomas knew from an early age that she was happiest in nature. She received her Bachelor of Science in biology from Florida Southern College and went on to earn a Master of Science in zoology from the University of Georgia. After moving to Virginia, Thomas earned her Ph.D. in environmental engineering from Virginia Tech.
In 1974, she met her soulmate Bob Pohlad when she enrolled at the University of Central Florida to begin work on her master’s degree. Pohlad was working as the teaching assistant in Thomas’s cytogenetics class while completing graduate work at the University. He helped Thomas with her microscope projects and labs. “We just hit it off,” Pohlad explained. “She was someone who loved to travel as I did, was a little bit hippie in her sandals and long hair, and was a free spirit that I loved talking to. We spent hours talking about everything including our common upbringing.” The pair found many similarities in their lives, including losing their fathers as young teenagers, loving sports, and filling leadership roles–Thomas as president of her ZTA sorority and Pohlad as president of his youth group and biology club.
Thomas and Pohlad were forced to begin a long-distance relationship after Pohlad was accepted into the University of Georgia’s doctorate program. The couple wrote to each other daily and traveled back and forth from Florida to Georgia as often as possible. They couldn’t stand being apart any longer and held a surprise wedding in March 1975 at Thomas’s homeplace on Lake Howell in Maitland, Florida (in photo at their wedding). Many of the guests were unaware they were coming to a wedding ceremony until the minister arrived. “We were married outside under the trees on the lake,” recalled Pohlad. “After the wedding ceremony, we played flag football and they threw us in the lake. I remember we left town that evening to head to the beach for our honeymoon one-night stay and couldn’t find a place, and ended up at a motel back in town.”
In 1978, the Pohlad-Thomas couple found themselves at Ferrum College when Pohlad was hired as a professor of biology and horticulture. Thomas taught middle school science for a year but quickly accepted a position teaching environmental science at Ferrum College in 1979, where she and Pohlad remained as professors for the next 41 years. They both retired in May 2019 (after the 2019 commencement shown in the photo). Once asked in a 2018 interview how she and Pohlad were able to work for so long at not only the same college but in the same department with offices next door to each other, she answered, “It works because we communicate. We have to understand each other staying up late, working with students. We have to keep talking, although we don’t always agree. The advantage is that we both have these responsibilities together, so we understand them.”
In addition to their budding careers at Ferrum College and Thomas’s continued pursuit of graduate work, the couple became parents when their son Chris was born in November 1979. In December 1984, their second son Tim was born. Thomas’s legacy now lives on in her two sons, their wives, and her four grandchildren.
At Ferrum College, Thomas served as Science Camp director for many years. She was also a founding member of the Smith Mountain Lake Water Quality Project, which she directed for 32 years, leading a team of Ferrum College faculty and students in conjunction with the Smith Mountain Lake Association to analyze the lake’s water quality during the summer months.
“She was as passionate about water quality, environmental science, the natural world, and women in science on the day she retired as her first day 41 years ago when she began teaching,” wrote Ferrum College’s Associate Professor of Environmental Science Delia Heck. Heck taught alongside Thomas and worked with her on the Water Quality Project.
Thomas was diagnosed with ovarian cancer stage IV in May 2018. During treatment, she remained positive and active, continuing as often as possible with her 50-year habit of walking multiple miles a day. “I just pushed through the pain,” Thomas said in the same 2018 interview. “I derive my spirit from friends and family. I heal better through them. But I’m also a scientist, so I believe in medication and treatment.”
Thomas’s work will not be soon forgotten. In addition to the thousands of lives she touched, Thomas and Pohlad jointly received the Ecological Society of America’s Eugene P. Odum Award for Excellence in Ecological Education in 2016. Thomas also received the Melvin Johnston Award from the Smith Mountain Lake Association for her work on the Water Quality Project.
Thomas and Pohlad were married for nearly 45 years. They spent their lives teaching and traveling, visiting all 50 states and touring the Galapagos Islands in 2017. In 2003, the professors traveled with three Ferrum College students to Malawi, Africa to set up water quality equipment and teach Malawian scientists how to use it. Recent adventures led Thomas, Pohlad, and Ferrum College E-Term (Experiential Term) students to distant locations such as the Virgin Islands and Ireland. This past summer, the couple road-tripped out west in an RV and dubbed the trip “Bob and Carolyn’s Excellent Adventure.”
“She was most happy in the lab, in the field or forest, or in the water, helping students discover and learn about the amazing planet Earth,” wrote Heck. “It was an honor and privilege to work with her, be mentored and taught by her, and to serve by her side in pursuit of truth, knowledge, and inspiration.”
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The celebration of life for Dr. Carolyn Thomas, a member of St. Peters In the Mountains Episcopal Church, Callaway, VA, was held on Sunday, January 26, 2020, in Ferrum College’s Vaughn Chapel, and drew hundreds in attendance. Please see this Spotify slide show, set to some of her favorite songs, honoring her memory.
In lieu of flowers, the Thomas and Pohlad families request that individuals make a gift to the Carolyn Thomas Memorial Fund at Ferrum College, at https://www.ferrum.edu/ferrum-giving. Donations will support students in the College’s Division of Natural Sciences.
The annual livestock show and plant sale event occurs this year on Saturday, April 13. Spring plants will be for sale at the Titmus Agricultural Center, 
Senior Oliver Flood, a financial management major, assists a VITA client.
Twenty-seven Ferrum College accounting students have received training to assist with STEP’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, which will be available on campus through April 11. Tax Day is April 15.
VITA, an IRS-sponsored program, provides free tax preparation assistance to those whose annual income is $55,000 or less. Sessions will be available on the Ferrum College campus in Beckham Hall, rooms 201 and 204, on Wednesdays from 4 to 9 p.m. and Thursdays from 4 to 6 p.m., with the exception of March 6 and 7 when the students are away for spring break. To schedule an appointment, call STEP at 540-483-5142.
“Our students have put in a tremendous amount of effort to learn the new tax laws and regulations to properly prepare tax returns for our clients,” explained Sadie Wallace, assistant professor of accounting and VITA program director at Ferrum College. “As a whole, the group has prepared around 200 tax returns this tax season so far, with that number to increase substantially by the time April 15th arrives. This program would not be successful without the countless hours of commitment and dedication the students put in to help serve the Ferrum College community and the surrounding areas.”
Those taking advantage of this volunteer program should bring all tax-related documents, including W-2’s, photo identification, last year’s tax return, and social security cards for themselves and dependents.
Check out this Franklin News-Post article to learn more about the VITA program offered in Franklin County. Read more about STEP here.
Quick has served as co-program director of the TSU-NERVE program, a NINDS BP-ENDURE (NIH) funded initiative that seeks to increase the number of students that earn PhDs in neuroscience. Prior to his appointment at Tennessee State University, Quick was the E.E. Just Endowed Professor of Biology at Grambling State University and served as a faculty member in the Department of Natural Sciences at Southern University at New Orleans. His academic appointments were preceded by postdoctoral studies at UMass Medical School, where he studied the role of p53 family members, p63 and p73, in brain tumor development. Additionally, he conducted postdoctoral studies as a Massey Cancer Center postdoctoral fellow at the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, where he investigated radiation induced-senescence arrest and radiation-sensitization of brain tumors, as well as at the University of Toronto (Sunnybrooke Hospital), where he studied the effects of radiation on the central nervous system. Quick has mentored more than 90 students through his participation as a faculty member and/or coordinator for NIH and NSF developmental training grant programs (RISE, MARC, NIMH-COR, HBCU-UP, the Meharry Vanderbilt TSU Cancer Partnership Alliance U54 program).
While at Ferrum College, Quick was a three-year member of the men’s basketball team, starting at point guard all three seasons. Ferrum won Dixie Conference regular season titles in 1992 and 1993. The Panthers also won the 1992 Dixie Conference Tournament and made Ferrum’s first, and still only, appearance in the NCAA Division III Tournament, where they advanced to the second round.
The Ferrum College Natural Sciences and Mathematics Seminar Series takes place on Fridays at 1:25 p.m. through the semester. Held in Garber Hall, room 106, the seminar series features alums, outside speakers from a variety of professions, representatives from graduate programs and current Ferrum faculty and students. For more information, contact Professor of Biology and Horticulture Bob Pohlad at bpohlad@ferrum.edu or (540) 365-4367.
Mika Smith graduated from Ferrum College in 2016 with a B.S. in Chemistry and minors in both Forensic Science and Criminal Justice. A Dean’s List student, she was also a member of the softball team and of Alpha Chi, the National Honor Society.
Regarding Mika, Professor of Chemistry & Physics Jason Powell shared that, “It was a great pleasure for me to be able to work with her as she made the decision to transition from being a criminal justice major to a chemistry major with criminal justice and forensic science minors to better position herself for graduate work in forensic science. I also got to see her skills firsthand while she was working on a project funded by NASA where we developed formulas to make steel more resistant to corrosion. I am proud of what she has already accomplished since she graduated from Ferrum and look forward to seeing where life takes her.”
Mika is currently a candidate for a M.S. in Forensic Science degree in the class of 2018 at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her thesis work entails the analysis of commercially available vaping products through the use of Direct Analysis Real Time Mass Spectrometry (DART-MS) and Gas Chromatography / Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS).
Earlier this month Mika presented her research to a gathering of students, faculty, and staff for the Natural Sciences and Mathematics Friday Seminar. After her lecture entitled “Forecast for Life after Ferrum: Cloudy with a Chance of Vaping”, we caught up with her for a brief interview.
Do you have a favorite Ferrum College memory?
My favorite Ferrum memory really isn’t one single memory but more of a collection of them over the course of my senior year at Ferrum. The memories ranging from completing my senior seminar presentation to spending time with friends during “grad week” to the start of my current relationship and of course the feeling of graduating with a Bachelor’s degree. Ferrum is a place that will forever hold a place in my heart because of the many memories and accomplishments it holds.
Did you have a favorite professor at Ferrum College?
Ferrum has so many great faculty members but I would have to say Dr. Jason Powell because he mentored me throughout my years at Ferrum and still continues to be a point of reference. He is always willing to help his students succeed and challenges students to be their absolute best.
Do you have any advice for current Panthers?
Always take advantage of every opportunity that you have. Every activity on campus is there to make you a better student and a better person.
What’s your next step?
I want to take all my education and experience and work in a laboratory as a forensic scientist specializing in toxicology and controlled substances.
“We are delighted that one of our Agricultural Science faculty has been chosen as a Science Policy Fellow. Dr. Durham exemplifies the commitment of Ferrum faculty to placing their academic studies in a relevant social context. The experience he gains through this opportunity will expand his expertise, enrich his teaching, and provide extended connections and opportunities for him and his students,” said Dr. Jinnie Garrett, dean of the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at Ferrum College.
Founded in 2014, the ESA Science Policy Fellows program supports and develops scientists as visible and effective advocates for entomology and entomological research. Fellows engage in a variety of virtual and in-person educational events to learn about how science policy and science funding decisions are made at the federal level and to provide them an opportunity to engage with lawmakers, legislative staff, and federal agency leaders in Washington, DC.
In addition to Durham, the 2017 class of ESA Science Policy Fellows includes Dr. Meaghan Pimsler, a postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alabama; Dr. Cheri Abraham, an operations manager and entomologist for US Citrus, LLC; Ms. Ashley Kennedy, a Ph.D. student at the University of Delaware; and Dr. Jeffrey Scott, a professor in the department of entomology at Cornell University.
Durham and the other new Science Policy Fellows will be formally introduced at Entomology 2017, November 5-8, in Denver, CO. They will then participate in visits to Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, in the spring and fall of 2018 and 2019, as well as periodic activities throughout the year in home political districts and online.
“The ESA Science Policy Fellows Program gives teachers and researchers a platform to serve as trusted content experts. I’m honored to join a diverse corps of scientists that can leverage their expertise to advocate for sound science on the Hill. I hope to relay these experiences to my students – the next generation of change agents – in the classroom,” said Durham of his appointment.
