Hello, CALS,
Happy Monday to you all. It feels like the pace of the semester has picked up with the increasing number of events, banquets and award ceremonies happening, as well as planning for CALS Convocation and university commencement gearing up! Thanks to all of you who engage in all of these wonderful activities. Please note these activities on your calendars when you get word of them, and plan to attend when you can. It really makes a difference when our students and your fellow faculty and staff are recognized at one of these activities and there are people there to cheer them on!
Tomorrow afternoon, March 7, we have our annual college faculty and staff awards event in 127 Curtiss Hall, starting at 4:10 p.m. It would be terrific to see many of you there. Please do plan to attend, enjoy the recognitions and the fellowship, as well as the snacks – and help to further build the wonderful collegial and friendly community that is your college. That sense of community only persists and is enhanced if we all participate in fostering it. Thanks!
Last week on Monday evening, we celebrated with the 25 Year Club – members of the university community that have reached their 25th, 35th, 45th and 50th work anniversaries! Here is a list of your colleagues who reached these anniversaries:
25 years
- Amy Andreotti and Donald Fulton, biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology
- Erica Beirman, food science and human nutrition
- John Burnett and Tom Isenhart, natural resource ecology and management
- Gregory Courtney, Claudia Lemper-Manahl, Christopher Marett and John Shriver, plant pathology, entomology and microbiology
- Jack Dekkers, animal science
- Kathleen Delate and Cynthia Haynes, horticulture
- Rodney Fischer, Brenton Center
- Steven Freeman and Alan Kuuttila, agricultural and biosystems engineering
- Ebby Luvaga and Darin Wohlgemuth, economics
35 years
- Kristine Bell, agricultural and biosystems engineering
- Lee Bendickson, biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology
- Todd Campbell, Philip Gassman and Giancarlo Moschini, economics
- Carol Cornelious, Seed Science Center
- Jeffrey Erb, Iowa State Research Farms
- Michael Holtzbauer, animal science
- Gail Nonnecke, horticulture
- Julie Roberts, ANR Extension
- Grace Welke, agronomy
Have a great week, and all the best - Dan
Scenes from CALS
The 119-year-old Scots pine, Pinus sylvestris, was taken down in front of the Farmhouse. At that age, from an approximate count of the tree rings, it was planted during the time of former CALS Dean Charles F. Curtiss! At the time, he lived in the Farmhouse, so maybe on a beautiful spring day in 1904 with his family he actually dug the hole and planted the tree himself! Scots pine is a beautiful tree with characteristic mature orange bark, brought here from Europe. Older specimens especially have twisted forms, as the original seed sources were collected from stunted trees near coastal regions in Europe where the cones were easy to collect. Imagine all the things that tree saw in its years here?! Not sure why it died, but over the past months its needles turned brown and gave up. A beautiful thing now in memory. Consider this "Trees" poem by Joyce Kilmer.
