- Alice Newth ’82, left, and Carrie Chickering –Sears ’84, pet the handsome sheep in a grazing field at the UMass Amherst Hadley Farm. Their work, they say, is a labor of love. Photo by John Solem.
Twenty young people enter the livestock barn during a 4-H camp one June morning. Each steps on a floor
mat drenched in a disinfectant.
Cleaning the bottom of sneakers, sandals, and flip-flops worn by the teens is a biosecurity measure, one of their first lessons learned on a visit to UMass Amherst’s Hadley Farm.
The tour is lead by the tag team of Alice Newth ‘82, livestock barn manager, and Carrie Chickering-Sears ‘84, a UMass extension educator, camp director, and a member of the Veterinary and Animal Sciences department.
Both women are animal sciences majors, two of 1,335 alumni—a full 25 percent of campus employees—who found careers at their alma mater. Kindred spirits, they often banter like sisters. One example: Newth, the lead tour guide, uses technical words such as dermatitis, a condition that necessitates some sheep to be separated briefly from the flock.
On cue, Chickering-Sears pipes in, “Hey kids, what is dermatitis?” keeping her protégés engaged. The
4-H campers are from across the state, wearing, as does Chickering-Sears, a t-shirt emblazoned with Science, Engineering, and Technology Camp. Chickering-Sears recruits the next generation of veterinarians and workers for the animal husbandry industry to attend UMass. Once they arrive as college students, Newth takes over, teaching them hands-on barn skills from learning the daily care of animals to fixing broken wheelbarrows.
Both women think they have the best jobs—and workplace— on campus. Hadley Farm, the 131-acre parcel just minutes from the high rises of Southwest Residential Area, was acquired in 1990 and replaced barns that were razed when the Mullins Center was built. The two 50-something women have views of campus and gently rolling hills. The farm is modeled on horse farms in Florida, its barns built in the shape of a cross with cupolas in the middle and skylights bringing in natural light. The stalls were designed for horses, so the space is palatial for the goats, sheep, and pigs. At its peak, the barn houses 200 animals, serving as the heart of livestock teaching and research. Equine studies and research also take place at the farm.
Newth’s office is a small space in the livestock barn, mostly used for eating quick lunches and checking email. She grew up as Alice Strong in Harvard, Massachusetts, and came to UMass after transferring from Westfield State College. Not long after she graduated, she returned to campus as an employee. Twenty-seven years later, she says, “this department is a good department. You know what the objective is and what has to get done. No one really has the time to micromanage you.”
Besides overseeing the students and managing the livestock herds, Newth, who lives in nearby Montague, teaches students to administer medications, take samples, trim hooves, vaccinate, and fix fences. The students are punctual, smile as they complete chores, and banter with the barn manager they adore.
“She is definitely the barn mother. She is always saying, ‘Make sure you have your goggles on or watch out that’s electric, don’t get that wet,” says student Cassandra Benjamin ’11. Each semester Newth trains and supervises about 140 students enrolled in introduction to animal science as well as 17 part-time student employees. “She is somehow able to make getting up early in the morning and coming to the barn to clean stalls fun for the students. That’s a huge accomplishment,” says Mark T. Huyler, professor of livestock nutrition and management.
Not in her job description are multiple chores she happily takes on: including five piglets who needed intensive 24-hour care. “If they need attention overnight, I take care of them,” she says matter-of-factly. Always trying to increase her budget, she organizes fundraisers such as selling wool blankets made from the farm’s fleece, selling beef and lamb meat, and bringing to market animals for slaughter or breeding. Sometimes she loads a few animals in a trailer for shows at local fairs, proudly representing UMass Amherst. Her boss, Professor Huyler, says, “Every year we have the same discussion—I tell her, ‘Alice, I don’t want you to feel like you have to do these shows.’ She always says the same thing, ‘It’s how I relax.’”
Though her work is different, Chickering-Sears also has a 24/7 schedule. “She has a very good way with students and other volunteers. If they didn’t like her she wouldn’t be so busy,” says Huyler. Her list of duties: organizing various camps for young people, co-teaching a college seminar, fielding questions for farmers (is there an organic treatment for a horse with worms?) or finding an expert who knows the answer. Edlin Diaz, a 14-year-old Springfield resident who attended two camps this summer, says she likes the way Chickering-Sears explains farm and animal matters. “She has a lot of experience and seems to know everything. She makes it exciting and you feel like going into animal science,” observes Diaz. Those closest to Chickering-Sears say her greatest asset is the vast network of contacts she has accumulated in the agricultural communities of New England and across the country, a network she uses to find internships or jobs for students and to recruit bright young people to study here.
Chickering-Sears grew up in South a dairy farm; she still lives in South Deerfield with her husband, a dairy farmer, and daughter. She attended UMass Amherst because of the reputation of its animal science program, and so she could live at home and oversee her cattle herd.
She worked for an agricultural association for a few years then joined the staff at a local bank, climbing the ranks to officer. However, she yearned to be working with young people and animals. “I was at a point in my life where I wanted to do something I enjoyed. Banking is regulation day in and day out. It was a great paying job but not my cup of tea,” she explains. Eight years ago she took a pay cut and set up shop at the Hadley Farm with a second office at Tillson Farm, in the north part of campus. Her Hadley farm office, located in what is known as the manor house, has a 180-degree view of the campus and the riding and grazing fields for horses—a bucolic cup of tea.
