The legacy of Dr. J. Mickey Cooper’s service to Cameron University has been commemorated with the dedication of the university’s herbarium in the late faculty member’s honor. Cooper, a respected educator who was a member of CU’s faculty for 37 years, established the herbarium in 1964.
“Dr. Cooper didn’t believe that learning was accomplished just in a book or a classroom,” said CU President Jari Askins after welcoming those in attendance. “He made wherever he was a learning experience, including in the field and in the lab. He understood the value of establishing a resource that would extend to generations of students and researchers.”
Cooper’s wife, Donna, and sons Mark and James were joined by numerous friends and family members for the dedication. She expressed her thanks to the university for recognizing her late husband’s contribution to botanical research.
Barney Lipscomb, a 1973 CU alum shared his experiences as one of Cooper’s students. “Dr. Cooper’s love of collecting, pressing, drying and cataloguing plants was contagious,” he said. “He was always right there in the lab helping students identify their plants. He is the reason I chose botany as a profession.”
Lipscomb explained that Cooper’s dedication to starting Cameron’s herbarium was remarkable. “Dr. Cooper wanted Cameron’s collection to be there for future students, faculty, community members and researchers around the world.”
Dr. Abby Moore, assistant professor of plant biology and curator of the Bebb Herbarium at the University of Oklahoma, spoke about the importance of herbaria and what we can learn from the specimens they contain.
Dr. Mike Dunn, CU Professor Emeritus, spoke of Cooper’s understanding that a university’s professor’s responsibility encompassed not only teaching but service and research as well.
“Mickey recognized as a botanist that an herbarium was the perfect vehicle to do all those things,” Dunn said. “He started with his own personal collection, then student collections were added to the herbarium. The collection has always been a component of teaching, not just in botany classes, but in many other courses. Through the years, the CU biology faculty was often called upon by community members who had a need to identify a plant. It might be a tribal member who presented a plant root or clipping, asking for plant identification and how it might be used medicinally. Law enforcement officers also ask for plant identification. The collection has been used in different ways. It isn’t a museum collection – it’s an active, useful project.”
Containing more than 10,000 records and almost 9,200 specimens, the Dr. Mickey Cooper Herbarium is part of the Texas Oklahoma Regional Consortium of Herbaria. Housed in the Sciences Complex, the herbarium continues to be a vital resource utilized by biology faculty and students as well as botany researchers abroad.
Through the years, the herbarium “adopted” herbaria from the Museum of the Great Plains and the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, the latter of which contains specimens that were collected in the early 1900s as part of government surveys of what was then referred to as “Indian land.” A grant from the National Science Foundation enabled Cameron to purchase cabinets, computers and other equipment to turn the collection into a research center that is still used internationally as it has been fully digitized.
Patrick McAnerney, instructor in the Department of Agriculture, Biology and Health Sciences and curator of the herbarium, explained that his goal is to ensure that the collection is accessible to researchers worldwide and to add to the collection.
Throughout his distinguished career, Cooper not only shaped the academic growth of his students through his teachings, but also imparted valuable life lessons that continue to resonate. He served as department chair, and his legacy was honored through the establishment of the Dr. Mickey Cooper Endowed Scholarship, ensuring that his commitment to education will benefit future generations of Cameron University students.
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PR#25-026
