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Jackson, Prof. Vincent William, B.A., Head, Department of Botany, 309 Horticulture and Biology Building.
Originally from Grimsby, Ontario, where he still had a farm, Prof. V. W. Jackson attended Queen’s University, graduating with honours in Science and scholarship in Botany. After acquiring the status of Science Specialist at the College of Pedagogy, he taught science at Hamilton Collegiate and Parkdale Collegiate in Toronto. Following the Macdonald course at Guelph, he became Lecturer in Botany at the Ontario Agricultural College. During his three years at the O.A.C., Prof. Jackson performed so well that he was recommended to the New Zealand Government to organise agricultural education in its schools. In the four years he was there, he managed to get agriculture introduced to more than half of the schools in the country and wrote an illustrated textbook on elementary agriculture that was adopted in both New Zealand and Australia. There were great expectations of him, when he joined the staff of M.A.C. in the fall of 1913. A specialist in weeds, he had gathered many different varieties, so that they could be grown in the campus green house for lessons on plant physiology during the winter. Others had expectations, too. Since he was a man possessing “artistic ability of no small degree, as shown by the sketches illustrating his text book on botany,” and had promised to use his ability to enhance the appearance of the Gazette, its staff looked forward to working with him as well.