Hello, CALS,
I hope everyone had a Happy Fourth of July as we celebrated America's independence last week. It is a day and a living idea worth noting, beyond the opportunity for vacation, fireworks and your favorite version of a backyard cookout (I did two of the three and would have liked to hit the trifecta)!
Please take a moment a re-read the Declaration of Independence and contemplate it in the current day, as well as at the time it was written, as best you can. It's a remarkable statement of intent, cause, resolution and goals. It's both factual and aspirational. It's worth a few minutes, considering the effort it took to create and enliven in the 1770s, the 248 years since, and the next 248.
Think, too, about the arc of Iowa State University and our college as an effect of independence, and then a cause of the path of American evolution.
My best for a great next week. - Dan
Scenes from CALS
Last week at our satellite campus in Kamuli, Uganda, we hosted and co-sponsored with the World Food Prize Foundation (WFPF) a Youth Institute. It was a great success with 42 students from 21 schools, teachers from all of the schools, the District Education Officer and the Kamuli Municipality Education Officer in attendance. The effort was led by Gail Nonnecke and by Martin Lukwata from our Uganda program with help from many of the Uganda-based ISU-Uganda Program staff. Jon Wogman, WFPF director of youth programs and partnerships, participated in the event. This was the first youth institute in Africa, and we are so pleased to be part of it. It's a great natural extension of some of the work we do with schools throughout the Kamuli District. Also participating from CALS were David Acker, Andy Zehr, Catherine Swoboda, Saul Abarca and 10 Iowa State and 20 Makerere (Ugandan) University undergraduate students who are participating in the Uganda Service Learning Program. In the photo with the students holding certificates are Sharon Tusiime ('14 MS horticulture, '19 PhD), a seed specialist at Makerere University Regional Centre for Crop Improvement, and Saul Abarca, assistant teaching professor in global resource systems at Iowa State.
Fourth of July fireworks show.