Young Alumni Q & A: Mike Norton B.S.A. ’13

Biographical Information

Name: Mike Norton

Graduation Year: 2013

Degree: B.S.A. in Agricultural Business and Poultry Science

College: Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

Honors College: Yes

What is your favorite memory from your time at the U of A?

I spent the summer between my sophomore and junior year in Accra, Ghana working for the World Cocoa Foundation, a Gates Foundation-funded NGO. WCF sent me all over the southern half of the country teaching me about cocoa and then surveying farmers (with the help of a translator!) to measure the programs’ effectiveness. On a trip where I was observing their training for a few days, I convinced a co-worker to let me ride his cooperative extension service-issued dirt bike. He rode on the back and I got it up to 60. I don’t think he was expecting that 1) I knew how to ride a dirtbike, 2) would get it that fast.

What are you doing now and where?

I’m in law school at Stanford. I completed a Ph.D. in the UK beforehand on the Marshall Scholarship and worked in DC before that.

What experiences at the U of A have served you best in your career/grad school?

Serving in the ASG Senate for all four years, including senior year as Chair of Senate, taught me a lot about finding compromise between different perspectives and voices. That will be something I carry with me for my whole career.

What do you wish you had taken advantage of as an undergraduate?

I wish I had taken advantage of the Southern Studies minor in Fulbright. I gained some of that history curriculum in grad school, but it would have been great to have gotten it earlier.