Good morning, CALS,
I hope you had a great weekend. Last week was full of a wide variety of activities for me, and for you, too, I’m certain. We celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Iowa Learning Farms with an event at Reiman Gardens. It was a great evening led by Jackie Comito and team, including Matt Helmers and many others. Attendees included Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship Secretary Mike Naig and USDA Farm Service Agency State Executive Director Matt Russell. There was also the grand opening event for phase I of the new Wyffels Seed Plant in the Prairie View Industrial Center in Ames, just east of Interstate 35, that included an evening reception and dinner in the Sukup End Zone. Kendall Lamkey and I attended and greeted them, including many of our graduates.
Last week, we also started prepping for the third annual George Washington Carver Day event, to be held Feb. 3, 2025. Going forward, this annual event will be led by CALS on behalf of the entire university. Watch for more information on this upcoming event. For this coming year, we have invited the College of Veterinary Medicine to be a co-lead with us.
Last week and this week are the interviews for the next vice president for operations and finance. And we’ll have discussions this week about how to further deepen our connections to the American Farm School in Greece, including considerations for a high school visit from there to Iowa State, and for them to host a World Food Prize Foundation Global Youth Institute, like we helped to set up in Uganda at our Kamuli campus just two weeks ago.
All the best. - Dan
Scenes from CALS
