URIs_MOMENTUM_Research_and_Innovation_Magazine_Spring_2022_M

Photo by Casey Johnson

makeshift classroom with as many as 40 students at a time cramming in to attend Durfee’s animal science class. A Durfee-designed poultry processing plant made a few freshmen squirm, though most students, he says, came from rural Rhode Island where poultry processing was common. The turkeys processed went to the Kingston Campus for sale to faculty and staff for Thanksgiving dinner. In time, the state’s economy changed, emphasis on poultry industry receded, and the Department of Poultry Science merged with what is now the Department of Fisheries, Animal, and Veterinary Sciences. Durfee switched to aquaculture and in the 1980s the University opened a new fisheries building at East Farm to replace the cramped quarters 20 minutes north in Wickford, RI. The half-million dollar, 6,000-square-foot facility was considered innovative for its time. The URI Foundation agreed to provide $400,000 for its construction under a lease-purchase agreement. The project proved to be the last major investment in the farm for several decades. Eventually, the poultry buildings were razed or repurposed. Visitors who climb the stairs to the woodshop can find a sign

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