A Conversation with................... Nancy E. Jack, Ph.D.

Nancy Jack is director of the University of Arkansas’ Dorothy E. King Equine Program. When she arrived two years ago to initiate the fledgling horse program (which was designed to echo one that Jack had started at Virginia Tech), she was handed a brand-new, first-rate facility— and little else. Since then, she’s been working overtime building the program. Roundup Editor Lisa Broadwater caught up with Jack during the recent Equine Reproduction Seminar, which Jack organized. Trying to keep up with the indefatigable director was no easy task.

HR: Tell me a little about your program here.
NJ: The program consists of five different classes that college students can take. We also offer adult education programs, like the reproduction seminar we're putting on this weekend. We put on a horse farm field day, an educational program that was free, this fall. We have a horse festival in the spring, and we're also bringing in the Lippizan stallions [Feb. 26 and 27], and that's not totally altruistic. We're bringing them in because they're educational and beautiful and wonderful entertainment, but we also get 40 percent of the proceeds from the sale of the tickets.

HR: Is that important?
NJ: Well the thing is, they put me in charge of nothing. There were no horses, there's no funding. But after two years, we've gone from nothing to 22 head of extremely high-quality horses. I don't have just dinks out there; I've been extremely selective about what I've selected as donations. For every five or six phone calls I get of people saying 'I have a horse; I'm looking for a place; would you be interested?' I might take one. I'm culling six to get one.

HR: You have no funding?
NJ: When I took this job, my boss said he would give me $6,000 to start the program with — to buy buckets and feed troughs and whatever I wanted to do with it. Then May Nettleship, who is one of the industry leaders around here, came to my job interview. Afterward, she was so pleased they had hired me, she donated $10,000. So that's what I started with: $16,000, which was to last until I got more money donated.

HR: How are you managing that?
NJ: We have students volunteer here to take care of the animals. I did the same thing at Virginia Tech. We didn't have a budget for staff. I did have a full-time barn manager at Tech. Here I use students to take care of the animals. It's just hard to run a program on zero dollars.

HR: As far as the program itself, did they say they wanted something similar to what you had done at Virginia Tech?
NJ: Very much so. The only difference is that there I started a riding program, an intercollegiate horse-show team, with equitation courses.

HR: You’re not doing that here?
NJ: Not yet.
Four of the five classes really revolve around a breeding herd. So it's the care, management, selection, breeding, raising and training of horses. The only thing we don't do, really, is teach horseback riding lessons. I cannot do that now. Maybe five years; maybe never.
The riding part of a program is so very expensive. It's expensive not only in money but in man resources. At least it is if I run the program. I'm not going to put horses in small dry lots and leave them stand there. A lot of schools do that, but I'm not going to. It makes them crazy. It's just cruel to leave horses, which are supposed to have at least two acres per animal, and put them in a paddock with 10 other horses.
We have about 22 acres designated for the horses…and unless I get more land, we can't have riding lessons. What we are going to do is everything but horseback riding lessons. The riding lessons are available in the area.

HR: You’re from Texas. How did you end up at Virginia Tech?
NJ: I graduated from New Mexico State University with my Ph.D., and they hired me. But I was older than everyone. The normal Ph.D. graduate is about 30; I was 28 when I started. I had spent 10 years in the industry, doing Brangus cattle and Quarter horses. I got married at 18, divorced at 28 and had a high school diploma. I decided I could either go to college and get a degree or flip hamburgers. I decided ‘A’ would be a better idea.

HR: But you were always into horses?
NJ: Oh my gosh. I said ‘Mommy,’ ‘Daddy’and ‘Horsey’ was the third thing out of my mouth. And I haven't shut up yet. My father says it's just a phase; he thinks I'm going to grow out of it any time now. I'm 46.
I look back now, and if I could have gone to college where there was a program like we offer here, I probably would have gotten my degree and gone on. As it was, I was in the industry but in an uneducated way. I bought and sold and traded and trained and raised horses; I barrel raced. I did everything I could.
When I decided to go back to college, I had to find one with a horse program. I got my undergraduate degree in monogastric nutrition at Tarleton State University in Stephenville Texas; they have a horse program. I wanted to go to Texas A&M for my graduate degree, which has one of the best horse programs in the county. But I wound up at New Mexico State, and it couldn't have been better. The first semester I walked in and my professor had been there along time and he was tired. I was older than any of the other students and had a strong practical background. He just handed me the notebook and his textbook and said, 'I'm going to be gone for a month to the state fair. I want you to teach class for me.' I ending up teaching the whole time I was going to school.
It worked out beautifully because when it came time to get a job at Virginia Tech, they looked at my resume and instead of saying I graded some papers in some class or other, it said 'She taught this and this...' It also helped that I had a beef cattle background, so I wasn't just a horse person. That was an asset here too…
But Virginia Tech nearly killed me.

HR: Why?
NJ: I was coaching the judging team, training in the summer, teaching all the classes, fund-raising, building the facilities. I brought in 120 head of horses in five years, started a riding program — an intercollegiate riding team that's winning at the national level. The first year we competed, they won nationally.
I brought in $1.3 million of donations and built a covered riding arena, an L-shaped equitation barn, started a horse sale. Last year (where they sold the last of my foal crops) they sold a 2-year-old gelding for $17,500. I did nothing but think about that program and work at that program, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Because I loved it.
I stepped into a position where if I'd done anything it was going to be better than what they'd had. And the fact that I get along with people well and am able to talk to people, they just started giving and it just started snowballing. From 1992 until 1997, the department enrollment went from 282 students to over 500.

HR: So how good is what you have here?
NJ: It's first or second in the nation.

HR: What makes this such a good facility?
NJ: The fact that it has a rock retaining wall on the side of the building. It's not just functional, it's also aesthetically appealing. We have about a $30,000 sound system, seating for 750 people. And that tongue-and-groove ceiling on the arena is fantastic. It's not just utilitarian; it's beautiful.
But you notice we don't have a bunch of barns for horses. We're not set up for horse shows. We have a 10-stall barn. If it was a horse show facility, they'd have shed-rows like they do at the Kentucky Horse Park and Lexington Horse Center, and they'd have 200 or 300 or 1,000 stalls.

HR: What does this complex consist of?
NJ: The coliseum has three large classrooms, a concession stand, conference room, main office, the arena floor. We have a 10-stall barn, beef cow pavilion, wash racks, 24 stalls for cattle.
What this part of the state needs more than anything is a horse show facility. I'm consulting with the city of Bentonville, which is trying to put in what they call a multiplex. It would include a golf course, horse show facility, beef cow showing facility — a multimillion-dollar project. It looks like it's going to go through; I hope it does. We need it so bad.

HR: How plugged in are to the horse community here?
NJ: I'm plugged in.

HR: So, what's going on?
NJ: What people want almost more than anything is a facility to have horse shows in. They see this facility as being that, and it's not. This is an educational facility. We do have some outside groups that come here, but they built this so that we could have a horse program and I could teach classes and they could have beef cow labs and classes in that arena and on the weekend, they could have educational program.

HR: What kind of horses are here?
NJ: It's predominantly Quarter horse, stock horse; what you would expect to find in this area. What I've found is the money and the interest is in jumping, hunt-seat equitation, foxhunting, dressage.

HR: How do you explain that?
NJ: It's growing everywhere. The fact that it's growing here is that we have people coming from other places to Fayetteville now.
If you can say one thing, I would appreciate it if you could mention that I am a Quarter horse person. I was raised barrel racing and cutting and reining; that's my thing. Because everybody seems to have the impression that I'm hunt-seat, dressage, some English thing. That's not true.

HR: What's your primary concern for the program right now?
NJ: Getting enough money to maintain what we've started. We have a heck of a program going right now. We offer five classes, including equine law, which is taught by an attorney, and several huge events we put on each year — both educational and entertaining. I'd just like to have enough income so I can relax and do what I'm doing so far.
I don't know if I have enough money to feed the animals for a year. So that's important. That's what's on my mind all the time: money.

HR: There's a lot of horse money in these parts.
NJ: There is. And some people are helping us in little ways. But I need a major donor. Recently, a lovely family stepped up to the plate and gave me a four-wheeler to help feed. We have had a couple of relatively large donations, but I spend most of my time worrying about where the money is going to come from to do the next event.

HR: Are there any misconceptions about the program?
NJ: Yeah, I think most people think it's primarily English-based. And it's not. We start these horses under stock saddles, most of them. I have a couple of students who wanted to ride English and I let them, but I don't teach English.

HR: What else are you doing?
NJ: This summer we're going to have our first horsemanship clinic. We're going to bring in kids from 8-18; we're targeting 4H kids. We'll provide the horses and they'll come in and we'll teach them about safety and handling, stable management and give riding lessons. It'll be about a week long.

HR: What's your strength personally?
NJ: I'm an excellent teacher, and I can talk to a cadaver. I'm not shy.

HR: Someone I talked to said that you’re really good at programs. Is that why you're doing them?
NJ: No. I'm doing them because they need doing. Northwest Arkansas is starved for education. There's no higher-level education going on.

HR: So we have a lot of horses but not a lot of educated horse owners?
NJ: Oh my god. Yeah.

HR: Is that daunting?
NJ: No. How can I screw up? All I have to do is a small program and it makes a huge difference. We have people who raise horses who allow them to graze on fescue and don't have any idea that there's anything wrong with that. The majority of people who raise horses around here don't have the first clue that they don't need to be letting those horses eat fescue. So I can make a big difference.
When I was in Virginia, I was in the learning phase. Here I'm giving back — a lot.

HR: Do you envision any additional programs?
NJ: What I'd like to do is just do what we're doing now and do it well.