Margaret Balbach continues to leave her mark on Illinois State’s horticulture program.
Before her death last year at age 91, Balbach and her husband established the Drs. Margaret and Harold Balbach Endowment Fund. It recognizes his work as a research biologist with the Army Engineer Research and Development Center and her impact as an ISU faculty member.
“It was a great contribution to her legacy,” said Illinois State Professor of Horticulture David Kopsell ’93, a former student of Balbach’s. “She started the program here and championed it for 20-plus years.”
Balbach joined Illinois State’s Department of Agriculture in 1973 and founded the department’s horticulture-agribusiness program. She retired as a full professor of plant and soil science in 1994.
The endowment will help support the Horticulture Center, which is led by another of Balbach’s former students, Jessica Chambers ’93. The fund will also support the Horticulture Club, which is one of ISU’s 300-plus registered student organizations.
The Horticulture Club will use the gift to pay for students to attend the National Association of Landscape Professionals’ National Collegiate Landscape Competition. The annual event—which has been held in California, Georgia, and Kansas in recent years—is a great learning and networking experience for the students.
The Balbach Endowment Fund is just one example of how myriad individuals continually bolster campuswide programs in need of additional support to continue and grow. Donors provide private support that also funds important extracurricular activities for Illinois State students.
“I don’t want a student to say, ‘I can’t go because I can’t afford it,’” Kopsell said.
The endowment will also cover the expense of greenhouse supplies and landscaping equipment at the Horticulture Center, which is the students’ outdoor laboratory.
A charter member of the Garden Writers of America, Balbach authored a weekly horticulture column in The Pantagraph from 1976–2006. She was certified as a professional horticulturist through the American Society for Horticulture Science and was a Champaign County Master Naturalist.
The horticulture program at Illinois State still follows the model that Balbach created. It’s half business and half horticulture, with a focus on preparing students to own and operate their own businesses. “I still teach the class like that today,” Kopsell said.
The program also prepares the students to work as superintendents at golf courses, as horticulturists for municipalities, and in management for landscaping companies.
Along with horticulture classes, students in the program take several business courses, including those in finance, human resources, management and marketing. The students also get hands-on landscaping training by completing community service projects around Bloomington-Normal.
“I get them off campus in real-world situations,” Kopsell said.
