Message from the Dean - September 8, 2025

September 8, 2025

Hello, CALS,

What a great Cyclone weekend we just had! The weather was perfect, and so was the outcome of the CyHawk game – with a “W” in the column for the team from Ames. The football team and the band played so well! The game opening included a helicopter fly-over and ended with a 54-yard field goal – an exact match to the end of the same game a year ago. 

Last week, we had the kick-off for the Pathways to Innovation and Leadership program in Harl Commons, led by Carmen Bain and Amy Mendee. Students were lined up out of the door to learn and to sign up for the program! We hope that 100% of our undergraduate students will participate. Great thanks to advisors for steering students to this helpful approach to add value to their experience here.

Also last week, I attended board meetings for the Iowa Soybean Association and the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, and as always, what I reported on to them was met with an excellent reception. Friday afternoon, more than 500 Cyclones attended the rousing thank-you recognition event for Jeff Johnson as the retiring Talbot Endowed President and CEO of the ISU Alumni Association. The outpouring of thanks and admiration for Jeff was outstanding! If you’ve had the chance to benefit from his work or to know him personally, please consider sending him an email on his Iowa State account!

We also had President Wintersteen's new Iowa State faculty reception last week. New CALS faculty are:

  • Aimee Wertz Lutz, associate professor of animal science, director of Iowa Beef Center
  • Amy Burgin, professor and chair of the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology
  • Angelos Lagoudakis, adjunct assistant professor of economics
  • Dalton Humphrey, research assistant professor of animal science
  • Dylan Liu, assistant professor of food science and human nutrition
  • Glen Ritchie, professor and chair of the Department of Agronomy
  • Gustavo Gutierrez, adjunct associate professor of animal science
  • Jacob Goheen, assistant professor of natural resource ecology and management
  • Jessica Anderson, assistant professor of practice of agricultural and biosystems engineering
  • Jim Schweigert, lecturer of plant pathology, entomology and microbiology
  • Joshua Strable, assistant professor of genetics, development and cell biology
  • Kyle Schindl, assistant professor of statistics
  • Landon Jones, assistant professor of natural resource ecology and management
  • Madeline Henrickson, adjunct assistant professor of plant pathology, entomology and microbiology
  • Matthew Eddy, lecturer of economics
  • Ryan Best, assistant professor of agricultural education and studies
  • Scott Heuchelin, professor of plant pathology, entomology and microbiology, director of Seed Science Center
  • Steven Goodhue, assistant professor of practice of economics
  • Taleb Warrad, visiting professor of economics
  • Terry Loecke, associate professor of natural resource ecology and management
  • Thomas Detmer, assistant professor of natural resource ecology and management

This week, there is a lot going on for all of us. I’ll spend a couple of days in Columbus, Ohio, attending the annual Egg Industry Issues Forum, led by our Egg Industry Center (Brett Ramirez, Lesa Vold, Maro Ibarburu) as a nation-wide/global activity.

Some pictures of the season and more below. Enjoy. My best - Dan

Scenes from CALS

Traffic signals in a field under a cloudy sky.
What's up with this photo? Do you know where it is and why? Send me your guesses!
Moon rising over a field of corn.
Moon rising over a corn field Sunday evening. Almost (and just like) a Harvest Moon! But this year that'll really be Oct. 5-7. 
Three people standing behind a table, handing out grape and wine samples.
The Student Innovation Center's EXCITE! open house took place Sept. 4. Several CALS programs were featured on the fourth floor of the building, including the ISU Winery.
Three students putting together dioramas.
As part of the EXCITE! open house, the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management had students put together dioramas of woodland scenes, an activity Tim Stewart's class would lead for elementary students.
Glass soybean pod mounted on a wooden display.
This glass artwork in the shape of a soybean pod was made by the Gaffer's Guild at Iowa State and presented to Greg Tylka, director of the Iowa Soybean Research Center, along with a plaque, for his Distinguished Service Award from the Iowa Soybean Association.
Group of people gathered for a photo outside a building at the Iowa State Fair.
During the Iowa State Fair, members of the team that are studying agrivoltaic practices at the Alliant Energy Solar Farm at Iowa State University were asked to be at a booth providing information on this topic. During that time, Governor Kim Reynolds stopped by and chatted with the team, including Mike Killewald, outreach coordinator for the project.
Four FFA members standing around a table, judging various cuts of meat presented.
Iowa State hosted the State FFA Meat Judging Contest earlier this summer in the Meats Lab in Kildee Hall. We hosted 61 FFA members from 17 schools across Iowa, during which the participating students gained valuable hands-on experience in meat science and meat evaluation. Huge thanks to Caroline Downey, assistant teaching professor and intercollegiate Meat Judging Team coordinator, and the many others who helped with this event.
Two people painting a football field.
Members of the Iowa State University Athletics Turf crew have been busy getting the field at Jack Trice Stadium in top shape for this fall's home football games. Painting the red MidAmerican Energy logo is Logan McDonough, senior in horticulture, and Sam Tuttle, sophomore in horticulture.
Three people painting the lines on a football field.
Painting the hash marks on the stadium field are Jagger Ferrie, sophomore in horticulture, Riley Hoogeveen, turf and field management assistant with the ISU Athletic Department, and Cooper Hastings, senior in horticulture.