Austin Peay State University's Southeastern Grasslands Initiative (SGI) recently partnered with the Tennessee Department of Transportation's (TDOT) Pollinator Habitat Program on a conservation project that brought nectar-bearing prairies to the strips of land abutting Exit 1 in Clarksville. SGI was contracted by TDOT in 2019 with a $150,000 grant to identify, plant and assist in cultivating natural pollination locations along Tennessee's highways.

In its 35th year, the center remains an opportunity for Austin Peay, for Clarksville and Montgomery County and beyond. Since its inception in 1986, the center has expanded from a focus on the fauna and flora of the Land Between the Lakes to establishing a footprint across the United States, such as with the Southeastern Grasslands Initiative - which since 2017 has worked to restore thousands of acres of grasslands from Texas to New Jersey.

Austin Peay's Center of Excellence for Field Biology lost one of its founding members, Dr. Floyd Scott, earlier this year. "He was the closest thing to a brother that I ever had," said Dr. Eugene Wofford, a longtime botanist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. "He was a very kind, very compassionate person, and I miss him dearly."