Professor Glenn Stone

Professor Stone took this 1984 award-winning photograph of an African girl among her schoolmates.

Tucked away on the third floor of McMillan Hall, Glenn Stone’s office is quiet, with every footstep in the hallway audible. Hundreds of books become the wallpaper of his room, but this campus haven is no ivory tower.

For the past six years, Stone has been studying the effects of genetically modified crops on rural farmers in India’s Warangal District of Andhra Pradesh. He was drawn to the area after more than 100 rural farmers committed suicide, mostly by drinking pesticides. This epidemic of suicides devastated the village; it also fueled the heated debate on genetic modification (GM), a clash between opposing nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and a supporting biotech industry, with each side interpreting the suicides as substantiating its position.

“Neither the NGOs nor the biotech industry actually studies how these crops impact farmers. It’s an anthropological question,” says this professor of anthropology. “GM is a lot more involved than just producing more food or killing bugs better. It’s one of the battle lines of globalization. It raises huge questions regarding intellectual property: Who owns nature? Who owns genes? It raises big issues in ethics, economics, and international relations.”

Stone also brings the topic back home to campus, where, in 2001, he developed the cross-disciplinary course titled Brave New Crops: Ecology and Politics of Genetic Modification. Featuring Stone’s insights from his research in India, the class also provides biological explanations of GM, as well as different viewpoints from experts in the biotech industry and environmental studies.

“We bring in a lot of leading people in the GM world who not only talk with the students, they break bread with them, Every time we bring in speakers, students can sit around and talk and argue with these experts over Chinese takeout.”

Relaxed and conversational debate weaves throughout the course. Even though the class reaches nearly 100 students, Stone makes sure to leave time for discussion. He also manages a web site where students can express their opinions and ask questions. This level of openness, he finds, attracts keynote speakers, who are pleased with the idea of shining light on different aspects of the technology.

“I’m very critical of the idea that people should be pro- or anti-GM,” Stone says. “The technology itself is not good or bad. It just depends on what is done with it. I would be happy to have graduates work for Monsanto as long as they can intelligently discuss the green criticism of the crops, and I’d be happy to have graduates work for Greenpeace as long as they can discuss the potential of the crops.”

Stone also encourages his students to travel and engage in hands-on work. One student lived in Andhra Pradesh the summer of 2006, teaching rural schoolchildren and organizing production of the play Peter Pan. The professor now is in the early stages of setting up a larger study-abroad program for more students to similarly go to Andhra Pradesh.
He has also taken his daughter, Abby, a student at Columbia University, to India, where she instructed children on using cameras and developing photo blogs. The children continue to post photos online, where several pictures have been viewed thousands of times by people throughout the world.

Photography is an artistic force in Stone’s life as well, and he has a talent for capturing people’s feelings. A photo he took in 1984 of an African girl among fellow schoolmates, for instance, won an award.

“Before I even got out of the car, I thought, ‘I want to photograph these kids just the way they are.’ I just liked the way they looked. They were all interested and a little bit concerned at this strange guy, even though they knew that I was safe,” Stone laughs.

Years later, Stone was able to view the photos on his computer more closely after a student assistant digitized them. “As I blew the photo up more, I saw myself leaning out of the car in a little reflection in her pupil. It was just so cool.”
It’s the rush that Stone feels from interacting with and coming to understand people of different cultures that continues to push him to new levels of research, teaching, and photography. It also spurs his interest in finding new adventures outside his quiet office.