Hello, CALS,
Happy Monday, and welcome back from Spring Break!
Congratulations and thanks to the CALS Staff Council for the “The pRICE is Right!” food drive they held before spring break, generating over 400 pounds of rice (the most requested item at the SHOP) for this important and meaningful effort! Thanks to everyone who contributed (see picture below)!
This week is National Ag Week and National Ag Day, and it’s worth taking a moment to contemplate what this means for the nation and for us. Agriculture is, after all, the means by which 8.2 billion people worldwide are sustained, including 338 million Americans and 3.2 million Iowans. It's more than just food – as we know so well here in Iowa it is fuel too (and elsewhere around the world – firewood and charcoal), and in many parts of the world the production of fiber for fabrics, cellulose for paper products of every kind, and wood for building, and so much more. It is sometimes said, accurately, that a hungry person has only one problem, while the rest of us may have many. It is also said and attributable in various ways, that any part of the world is only a few meals away from chaos. And it’s all fully dependent on statements like, "I hope it rains enough," "I hope it doesn’t rain too much," "I hope the pests don’t show up," "I hope the markets will be OK," and so forth. The most fundamental of all things people do and depend on is based on hope as a strategy (can it be called that?), or at least a dependency on conditions reasonably close to normal each year.
Agriculture is food, fiber and fuel security, it's national security, it's trade and policy, and it's central to Iowa. We are certainly blessed to be sitting on the world’s largest concentrations of the best soils. We have those because of the five soil-forming factors – climate, landscape/topography, organisms, parent material/geology and time. That, combined with people, science and technology, is the reason Iowa agriculture is world-leading. CALS is certainly proud and holds fast to our obligation to serve this fundamental aspect and advantage of Iowa.
Recently, I’ve been in discussion with Andy Zehr about the work of his group on CALS communications and marketing, and regarding the new emerging university-wide approach to further enhancing Iowa State’s work in this arena. One thing we’ve been talking about is that our brand is stories. We believe this to be true. Our numbers and metrics are certainly indicators of success, but our real brand, our story, is the experiences, findings and impacts of our professional purposes (see our Statement of Purpose). The numbers support the story, but they aren't the story itself. As Andy has waxed philosophical on this – our college is a classic heroes trope!
There were lots of things going on over spring break, including, for many of you, your own getaways. Our Global Engagement Office was more than a bit busy, with the following trips out and about:
- Costa Rica, 18 students
- Peru, 12 students
- Next Generation Institute in Kamuli, Uganda, five students
- Australia, 30 students
- iCon in Uganda, Murchison Falls, 12 students
- Brazil and Argentina, 16 students
Great thanks to the faculty and staff who went along to lead these experiences, and to Francis Owusu, Shelley Taylor, Jodi Cornell and others in our global offices for making these transformative experiences (stories!) happen.
Last week, I had the terrific opportunity to accompany Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition’s Keith Vorst and Greg Curtzwiler, along with Associate Vice President for Research Jim Reecy, to Lake Jackson, Texas (south of Houston, almost to the coast) to explore with Dow Chemical their interest in establishing a recycling studio/lab here at Iowa State in order to push forward with the industry the latest and greatest in advanced-value circular manufacturing. This is an outcome of the excellent work Keith and Greg do as leads of the Polymer and Food Protection Consortium.
And finally, please note the new Research Security Training requirement, which nearly everyone in the college will need to do, given how USDA funds are spread.
Have a great week! - Dan
Scenes from CALS
