In his fourth floor Agriculture Hall office, Joe Levine is surrounded by souvenirs. Some he has collected over the years on various travels, like the puppets and books from Indonesia and the lamp with the clarinet base he made himself after spending a summer as a clarinet student at the Interlochen Arts Camp.

Most of them, though, are from former colleagues and students who have traveled abroad and returned with a gift-a testament to the legacy that Levine has left on their lives.

In June, after 37 years of teaching, the agriculture and extension education professor will retire.

"I've really enjoyed everything I've done at MSU," Levine said. "And it's a good time to be moving on."

Levine, who specializes in adult education, has been at MSU since he received his bachelor's degree in music education in 1959. Since then, Levine has only been away from MSU for four years. He has received two other degrees from MSU and was soon employed. Levine met his wife at MSU during graduate school and the couple has two daughters, both of whom are MSU alumni.

"We're really a very green-and-white family," Levine said.

In the 1970s, as part of the MSU extension education service, his family got the opportunity to spend a year in Jakarta, Indonesia, while Levine worked with the Indonesian government on developing education strategies in an informal way.

An intricately carved sculpture of a woman, painted gold, sits in Levine's office. She is Sarasvati, Goddess of Education from India, which was given to him from a colleague who had traveled there.

For Michelle McMullen, a first-year agriculture and extension education graduate student, Levine was one of the reasons why she chose MSU for her master's degree.

"He gave a long-lasting impression, a good first impression, of the quality of the faculty," she said. "He really encompasses what a faculty member will be.

Levine's interest in adult education came about after helping to design several instructional materials. He was offered the chance to work on a federally funded project to develop materials to teach music to blind children, which led to an interest in informal education in out-of-school settings, which he said led to a concern for adult learning.

Through the extension education service, Levine was able to work with adults. The former MSU Extension, which established MSU offices in all 84 Michigan counties, was originally created to help farmers receive information, Levine said. Now, it allows him to work with adults in all occupations.

"What's been really neat, is it's allowed me to practice at this institution my expertise," Levine said. "If I were a nuclear physicist, I'd have to go build a reactor somewhere to practice, but I'm an adult educator and I have the wonderful opportunity to practice my expertise every day."

Now in the Department of Agriculture, Levine teaches his students, all of whom are at the graduate level, about adult learning and program planning.

Gwyn Heyboer, who earned her master's degree from MSU in 2000, said Levine is a professor that will be remembered.

"His style of teaching and so forth would definitely stand out," Heyboer said. "He also really emphasized really learning from each other, from different experiences that the students had, had."

Levine said he credits the people associated with MSU as one of the reasons why the campus became like a second home over the years.

"Wouldn't it be neat if we all had the opportunity to have a job like this, where the human element is so great?" Levine said. "That's part of an adult education philosophy - the belief in people. That people have the opportunity to learn and to excel."

Levine refers to retirement as a "transition," adding he is not concerned with how he will spend his time. Although he has interests in music, electronics and woodworking, he said he hopes to become more invested in online education.

"The focus is not on learning," he said. "The focus is on the next steps."