Glenn W. Salisbury (June 2, 1910 – February 3, 1994): Biographical Memoir by Memoir by Robert H. Foote
Biographical Memoirs, Volume 86. Originally Published by the National Academy Press, Washington, DC. 2005
Extracts:
"Glenn Wade Salisbury was born on June 2, 1910 on his maternal grandfather’s farm in Sheffield Township, Ashtabula County, Ohio. His dad’s ancestors also were farmers. Thus, he was surrounded in his early life with a family that had a zest for life, a great appreciation of the land, of working hard, and of caring for one another – all characteristics of Salisbury in his adult life. His father’s academic career took him to many places and schools during his pre-college days. Summers were spent on his grandfather’s farm, enjoying the Jersey cows, trotting horses and pigs.
Salisbury entered Ohio State University in 1927. He was a leader in student affairs, a member of the Student Senate and several honorary societies. He was an articulate member of the dairy cattle judging team. Upon graduation in 1931 he was selected as the outstanding senior in the College of Agriculture, based on his leadership and academic achievement. Following graduation in June 1931, he visited the famous Mt. Hope Farm in Massachusetts where progressive genetic studies were in progress with cattle and poultry. These experiments stimulated Salisbury’s interest in the genetic potential for improving animal agriculture.
Few jobs were available at the height of the depression so Salisbury accepted a half-time assistantship at Cornell University. This financial support of $700 per year enabled him to take a major step in his life. In August 1932, he married Dorothy Jane Cross, who became his lifelong, supportive companion and devoted mother to children, Laird Wade Salisbury and Susan Lynne Salisbury. Glenn and Dorothy had dated regularly four years earlier, until her family moved. The romance was continued by correspondence. After the wedding it was immediately back to work for Salisbury in the middle of his Ph.D. studies. The honeymoon was a bicycle trip through Europe in 1937"
...
Salisbury developed the program in animal breeding at Cornell University which he administered until he left for the University of Illinois in 1947. This program required graduate students to obtain basic training in biochemistry, physiology, mathematics and genetics. Salisbury also was a lifelong student, hungering after knowledge, which he consumed in great quantities.
...
Salisbury was not shy in emphasizing that the new paths he wanted to explore in reproductive physiology required basic research to underpin applied studies in artificial insemination. He found ways to do it despite the lack of administrative support. One of his friends, I.C. Gunsalus, had laboratories in another department where the bacteriology of bull semen could be studied (Gunsalus, Salisbury and Willett, 1941), as infectious disease transmitted through semen was one of the probable major causes of low fertility in dairy cattle.
...
Simultaneously, Salisbury had teamed up with Professor Stanley Brownell, one of the most able, articulate and forceful extension professors in the United States, to generate support from leading dairymen and key members of the Cornell Board of Trustees to develop a major artificial insemination program in dairy cattle. Governor Dewey had a dairy farm, and he supported the idea. Timing was right to develop this program. Some members of the veterinary profession were opposed to the development of artificial insemination. However, a strong advocate was William A. Hagan, Dean of the New York State Veterinary College. In 1945 the artificial insemination program moved to Ithaca, New York, where Cornell University made land available. Dairymen in the New York Artificial Breeders Cooperative, Inc. and New York State each contributed $25,000 to build facilities close to the Cornell campus. An enormously successful cooperative program of research and application followed. Salisbury now had his laboratories where the biochemistry of bull sperm could be studied without interference.
Salisbury also was a member of several important committees, including the Graduate School. He was a faculty member on the Cornell Board of Trustees. He had made substantial progress in all aspects of his career.
...
In 1947 he was invited to come to the University of Illinois, as a new head was being sought for the Department of Dairy Husbandry.
...
As a new department head he had been given the charge of revitalizing the department. This he did initially by convincing the administration to change the name of the department from Dairy Husbandry to Dairy Science. Then he obtained additional prestige for the professors in the department by receiving permission to appoint them with the specific titles of professors of biochemistry, physiology, genetics, microbiology or nutrition. Salisbury was able to add seven new faculty to his staff during the first four years of administration. He attracted superb individuals trained at several excellent universities with a mixture of special talents. The result was a department ready to lead into the future, facing agriculture changing rapidly after World War II.
He, and others, fought for new facilities, campaigning within the university and by personally contacting influential farm leaders throughout the state. This resulted in a new Animal Sciences building that housed the entire faculty and provided all with excellent laboratory facilities. The extension group was included, as Salisbury recognized the importance of the Land Grant mission.
...
At the University of Illinois, Salisbury served on his share of housekeeping committees, but more importantly, his foresight and insight were shared on many university, national and international committees and commissions. He was elected to the Executive Committee of the Graduate College, the Long-Range Planning Committee, the Council on Program Evaluation, the Faculty Senate, the Committee on Academic Freedom, the Committee to Determine Policy on Classified Research, and many others. These positions and committees and others benefited from his brilliant mind and the wisdom that came from experience.
...
From 1961 to 1963 he served on President Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee. In 1965 Salisbury was a Fulbright Scholar at the Agricultural University, Wageningen, The Netherlands. The same year he was a consultant to the U.S. Agency for International Development, studying and recommending programs for improving agriculture in India, and in 1969 for Indonesia. From 1974 to 1977 he was a consultant to the Office of Technology Assessment of the Congress of the United States. He served on the Board on Agriculture and Renewable Resources of the Commission on Natural Resources of the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences from 1975 to 1978. He participated in writing the report “World Food and Nutrition Study: Enhancement of Food Production for the United States”. From 1977 to 1978 he co-chaired the Joint United States Department of Agriculture/State Agricultural Experiment Station Commission to recommend safety procedures to the USDA.
...
Salisbury was intensely devoted to his job, his staff and his students. The older graduate students at Cornell remember the young professor Salisbury as a brother. All of us graduate students and our families looked forward to the annual Thanksgiving invitation to share the day with Dorothy and Glenn Salisbury. We gave thanks for our wonderful academic family.
At the same time he was a loving personal family man. He was devoted to his wife, Dorothy, and supportive of their children. He took great pride in their achievement. As time passed he joined the ranks of doting grandparents."