Message from the Dean - November 11, 2024

November 11, 2024

Hello, CALS,

A short note this week as I am at our campus in Kamuli, Uganda, where our Mpirigiti Rural Training Center is located that supports our Center for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods programming there. This week, nearly 40 people are gathered here from our local staff and leadership in Uganda and from Ames, through a special gift, to engage in strategic planning for this work over the next five years. Very exciting prospects for work all across the college and beyond.

Last week, we appreciated the three candidates who interviewed for our college position of Associate Dean for Research and Discovery. Please consider responding to the online survey to provide feedback on the candidates by Wednesday, Nov. 13, at 5 p.m. Also, review their CVs and watch their seminar presentations, as posted, if you have not already. If you see them around, be sure to tell them how much we appreciate them stepping up to be considered for this important role.

Today is Veterans Day. If your schedule allows, I encourage you to attend the annual Gold Star Hall ceremony, which will take place at 4:15 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 13, in the Memorial Union Great Hall. Two of the three honorees are former CALS students - James Wayne Herrick, Jr. and Sidney Peterson. Thank you to all who have served or are currently serving our country!

Have a great week! - Dan

Scenes from CALS

Person standing and presenting to a group of seated people inside a building.
David Acker addressing the ISU-Uganda Program / CSRL strategic planning team at the CALS Mpirigiti Rural Training Center campus in Kamuli, Uganda.
Group of Ugandan children seated inside a classroom.
School children at a primary school where our ISU-Uganda Program works.
People standing inside a kitchen at a Ugandan school.
The kitchen at a primary school that feeds Ugandan children.
Amaranth growing in a field with trees in the background.
Grain amaranth growing near the Ugandan school.
Iowa State University's central campus, as seen from the steps of Catt Hall.
A view from the top of the front steps of the old Agricultural Hall, now Catt Hall, that George Washington Carver would have seen coming out of the building where his faculty office was in 1896 - allowing that the trees and landscape he saw were 128 years younger than today.