Hello, CALS colleagues,
Welcome to the spring semester! This is the time that we enjoy the vibrancy and energy of returning students and campus snapping back to life! We also have the pleasure of seeing our beautiful campus set in sparkling snow (see images below). We can rest assured the snow will seep into the equally beautiful soils covering our Iowa landscape, which are surely in need of reinvigorating soil moisture for the greening spring to come.
Welcome back, too, to another semester of hard work, of fun and of laughter, of discovery and learning and engagement, of COVID cautions and precautions, of care and concern about mental health and stress management, and of pursuit of all the things that make Iowa State extraordinary. Thank you for your resilience and determination in all these regards.
Yesterday we thought of and celebrated MLK Day. In his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.” This is the same quote I have shared with our graduates at CALS Convocation.
Lots of items to report in today's CALS Online newsletter and in the coming weeks. This week be sure to check out the great news from our CALS Development team, under Sarah Roelfs’s terrific leadership.
Wishing you a great spring 2022 semester, and go Cyclones! - Dan
Nature in Focus
The Ames area received 12+ inches of snow last Friday. Breanna Wetzler, CALS communication specialist, snapped these photos Friday afternoon.
Lisa Schulte Moore, natural resource ecology and management, snapped this picture of Peter Moore and their fun find while cross-country skiing in northern Minnesota over winter break: a porcupine feeding high up in a fir tree.
In honor of MLK Day, below is an image of the Stone of Hope granite statue of Dr. King, located at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C.
