Greetings, CALS colleagues,
Some global notes this week:
When you read this note, I’ll be about 35,000-feet up on my way to visit our satellite campus in Uganda, arriving Monday evening. This is my fourth summer trying to go, the last two interrupted by COVID restrictions. Of course, I am very excited about this visit.
Kamuli, Uganda, is home to our program, the Center for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods, and includes a variety of people many of you know well from here on campus, and even more who are our in-country program staff. They do incredible work, under David Acker’s leadership, using service learning as a front-end mode in program areas of agronomy and post-harvest, community nutrition, livestock, education, entrepreneurship, water, sanitation and health. The impact and learning is off the charts! And it’s all funded by private giving from a host of tremendous supporters, alumni and donors.
While I am there, the dormitory will be bustling with our CALS students (undergraduates and some graduates), colleague students from Makerere University in Uganda, and CALS faculty Gail Nonnecke, Tom Brumm, Julie Blanchong, Lee Burras, Dorothy Masinde, Dick Schultz and David Acker. They are there to teach and do, not to entertain me!
The last few weeks we had a terrific group of students in Italy participating in our Dean's Global Agriculture and Food Leadership Program (which makes use of the College of Design’s satellite campus faculty there), co-led by Sergio Lence and Ebby Luvaga. Carmen Bain also provides leadership to the program. The group works each summer with representatives from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to tackle some of the world’s most challenging problems and provide input and ideas to policy makers and doers in the agency. Below is a great pic of their final gathering this year. Among many great meetings (and food, I’m sure!), they met with the U.S. Ambassador to the UNFAO Cindy McCain – how cool is that?!
Orientation is in full swing, bringing life and excitement to the Iowa State community. Counting new students and their support network, CALS alone will host well over 1,000 guests during the month of June. Let's all extend a warm welcome to our guests and be sure to thank the red-polo clad Cyclone Aides who help our guests find their way around campus.
As summer really kicks into high gear, please remind yourself and your team to always put safety first, to stretch out and enjoy your work, to take time to stop and smell the roses, to think on those less fortunate and renew your sense of our mission – to enable those striving to achieve and those struggling to thrive.
My best - Dan
Scenes from CALS
Members of the Dean's Global Agriculture and Food Leadership Program in Rome at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization headquarters gathered for a group photo. Pictured are, left to right: Associate Dean Carmen Bain, Grace Jakes (animal science, global resource systems), Taylor Lekin (agriculture and society, journalism and mass communication), Andrew Ernat (horticulture, global resource systems), Megan Lampright (dietetics), Alex Logan (agronomy), Nolan Monaghan (horticulture, global resource systems), Paige Dvorak (agricultural business, economics), Economics Teaching Professor Ebby Luvaga, Alene Scallon (animal science) and Economics Professor Sergio Lence.
