Message from the Dean - February 10, 2025

February 10, 2025

Hello, CALS,

I hope you all had a great weekend. This week, on Thursday, Feb. 13, from 2:30-3:30 p.m., join the CALS Staff Council in Harl Commons for hot chocolate and sugar cookies - all are welcome. Please come out and enjoy some collegiality with the college's outstanding staff. And thanks to Staff Council President Michael Kaiser and his team for organizing this.

Last Monday evening, the college led the university's annual George Washington Carver Day celebration! It was a great event in a full Great Hall at the Memorial Union (see pictures below). The keynote speaker was Jewel Bronaugh, president and CEO of the 1890 Universities Foundation. She was outstanding. There was also a terrific presentation by Iowa State College of Veterinary Medicine Dean Dan Grooms and his dean counterpart for vet med at Tuskegee University College of Veterinary Medicine, Ruby Perry, who did a tag team presentation on the work and overlap of Carver and another extraordinary Iowa State alum, Frederick Douglass Patterson. And then the most amazing musical performance by the Iowa State Department of Music and Theatre's Cantamus Treble Ensemble. The entire event was recorded and available for viewing online.

As part of the Carver event, there was also the George Washington Carver "I Can" Poster Challenge led by Carmen Bain. The posters will be displayed in the Curtiss Hall Dean's Gallery in the near future!

Just recently, we learned of the upcoming summer retirement of Ruth MacDonald. Ruth has served this college in the most amazing ways, including as department chair for FSHN for many years and, most recently, as the college's inaugural and outstanding associate dean for personnel and finance. She has truly brought us forward into a period of great success through the challenging management of fiscal constraints, in so many ways. Please help me thank Ruth! Over the next months, we'll plan forward and find the next person for this key role. If you have any questions, please let me know.

I want to acknowledge the uncertainty surrounding actions by the Federal government and how they'll impact our university and others. It is really too soon to tell, but our campus leadership is monitoring things closely, will guide us forward, and together we'll figure it out. I think patience must be an operative approach.

Very best for a great week. - Dan

Scenes from CALS

Woman standing behind a lecture and speaking during a ceremony.
Jewel Bronaugh, president and CEO of the 1890 Universities Foundation, provided the keynote address during the George Washington Carver Day event on Feb. 3, in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union.
Four people standing and speaking on a stage during a ceremony inside the Great Hall of the Memorial Union.
Ruby Perry, on stage left, dean of Tuskegee University College of Veterinary Medicine, and Dan Grooms, on stage right, dean of Iowa State's College of Veterinary Medicine, were joined by a student from each of their respective colleges as they reflected on the legacy of Frederick Douglass Patterson.
Choir singing during a ceremony inside the Great Hall of the Memorial Union.
Odosa Amadasun, senior in sociology, performs a solo during the ISU Cantamus Treble Ensemble's performance of "Change is Gonna Come."
Four people looking at posters on display on easels.
Prior to the start of the George Washington Carver Day program, attendees viewed the posters entered in the George Washington Carver "I Can" Poster Challenge.