Hello, CALS colleagues,
Our academic summer has arrived, and graduation exercises are in the rear-view window!
CALS Convocation and the university commencements (grad and undergrad) were terrific, as always, and the happy smiling faces of our most recent alums were vibrant proof of that! It is always a point of pride for me, and perhaps unknowingly for some of us in CALS, that we seem to have the most and certainly the most enthusiastic (in my honest opinion) faculty marshals serving the university at graduation exercises! From my vantage point on the elevated platform at the exercises, I get to see and marvel at the energy and enthusiasm of our following colleagues, as they bob-and-weave and move the multitudes of students and others through the exercise with skill and service:
- Tom Brumm
- Elnaz Ibrahimi
- David Kwaw-Mensah
- Jan Thompson
- Jodi Sterle
- Ebby Luvaga
- Ajay Nair
- Carmen Bain
- Jodi Cornell
- Brian Hornbuckle
- Lee Burras
- Chief faculty marshal Robert Wallace
Please help me thank them for their service!
At our very own CALS Convocation, we have so many to thank as well. There are way too many people who make the successes of our Convocations over the years possible. Last week, the number of people planning, conducting and participating in Convocation was at least 66! Special thanks to Angie Weeks and Mary Clancy from the Office of Academic Innovation who really do the heavy lifting to make it work. Special thanks, too, to Shelley Taylor and Lee Burras for reading the 333 names and plans of our graduates who crossed the stage, and to our special speakers, Ruth MacDonald as the college leadership person, and Ryan Wolf as the featured student speaker. Both gave very excellent remarks! And finally, one of the things I am most proud of is the handshake and high-five line to greet and celebrate with our students as they come off the stage and begin to commence! I plan next year to be on that line!
I noted in my own remarks at Convocation that I, too, am about to commence. After the privilege of serving as your Dean for the past 7.5 years, and moving to step away and continue on as a faculty member in NREM, it is a bittersweet transition for me to leave behind the work and team I truly love, and to embrace new opportunities and ways forward. Together, we have all accomplished so much, as you may have read in my letter to the college sent via email on May 12. Below are excerpts from my Convocation remarks last week that best summarize my feelings:
- Graduates, families and friends of graduates, welcome to the Iowa State University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Spring 2026 Convocation!
- Thank you for coming today to celebrate and honor our newest graduates! The great scientist Louis Pasteur famously said, “Chance Favors the Prepared Mind,” and you graduates are indeed – prepared!
- My name is Dan Robison, and I have the honor and privilege of serving as dean of this great College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Which is truly YOUR College of Agriculture and Life Sciences!
- Graduation is rightfully the happiest time of the year at any university, and most certainly here at Iowa State. All of us in this great room here at Hilton Coliseum, where we know that magic happens, are happy about the prospects of our graduates seated here before us.
- You graduates are the newest next generation of great thinkers and doers to step forth to embrace the world anew, to solve the problems we see and the ones we don’t see yet over the horizon, to seize the opportunities immediately in front of you and those opportunities that require finding and elevating to make real.
- Graduation is a time of some looking back on where our graduates come from, and what they have accomplished here, and even more so about where they’re going! You graduates are truly about the “commence!”
- Of course, that is why the ceremony tomorrow is called – commencement. It’s about stepping forward into whatever is next. You graduates are ready!
- I like to say to our students that their careers begin not at graduation, but on their very first day as freshmen in the college. From that day forward, graduates, you have been focusing and honing your skills and interests, expanding your outlook and understanding, and building the skills to carry you forward to all the next aptitudes you’ll need in your careers and lives. Be a life-long learner – that will make you a more effective life-long thinker and doer.
- The world is changing fast all around us. If you’re an Iowa State College of Ag and Life Sciences graduate – then you have learned to run with the thoroughbreds, faster and further than any. Live that! Enjoy that! Spread that sense of confidence and determination to make the world a better and better place.
- Since 1858 when this great university first began, as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, now called Iowa State University, there have been people just like you, graduates, who have come here to learn and to do, to challenge themselves and to make things better. And a hundred years from now graduates like you will still be commencing to make the world an ever better place.
- You are now part of a long-line of Cyclones that have been serving others since the first graduating class. We all stand on the shoulders of those who were here before, and future generations will stand on our shoulders. Give them strong shoulders to stand on!
- One of your college’s most famous alums, who we are as proud of as we are of you, none other than George Washington Carver, said, and I quote, “How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.”
- As College of Ag and Life Science alums, we know you are ready for the challenges before you, including as Carver implies and instructs – to be aware and to be empathetic, in all things.
- I am personally not an alum of this great college, as you are about to be – but I can wish I might be! I am, however, also about to “commence.” Let me tell you how and why.
- I arrived here in 2019 to take on the opportunity of being Dean of the college, to work with the extraordinary students, faculty, staff and leadership here, and to do my part to advance the best intents and purposes of our college, and the great land grant tradition that remains vibrant and critically important after 164 years. What we do here, what you studied and learned, through our teaching, research and extension programs, is to provide access and service to people and communities everywhere, and to enable better lives and landscapes, for Iowa and around the world.
- Now, seven-and-a-half years later, and after 15 years of leadership at other universities, I am preparing to step-away from being your dean, this summer, and take up a new role as a faculty member in forestry. I am excited to “commence,” there’s that word again (!), to this new role, and to serve in a new way here at ISU. That is where I’m going next, and excited to do so and to add some new college energy towards making lives and landscape better! I thank you all for the opportunity I have had to serve and to lead, and especially call-out the incredible leadership team here in the college, seated on the platform today – these people are the best! Please help me recognize and thank this college team!
- Now - wherever you go, or are from, from the fertile fields of Iowa to the furthest reaches of the globe, whether you are working in a high-tech lab, or on a high-tech tractor, in a high-impact office or value-add organization, we wish you graduates well, we will celebrate your successes, we will swell with pride at your accomplishments, and we will support you and always be here for you. Please keep us in mind as you move forward, wherever things take you, as you will always be part of this CALS Cyclone family.
- To conclude — I say to you: Believe in yourself. You have earned the right to walk across the stage today.
I will conclude my service as your dean this summer, and yet remain part of and true to this college, and each of you. Next week, I’ll send another note about the transition and moving forward. My best and always open to hear from you. - Dan
Scenes from CALS
Below is a sampling of photos from CALS Convocation, which took place May 15 in Hilton Coliseum.
