COLLEGE NEWS
- Spring semester convocation to be held Jan. 16
- New chair for food science & human nutrition
- Updated college desk directory available
- Communications advisors in each department
- Ag Ambassadors making recruitment visits
- Global food needs the theme of '97 ag forum
- New Web site for Ag Online newsletter
- Other online internal newsletters in college
- Deadlines & Reminders
COMMUNICATIONS KIOSK
- Get a grip . . . on the second or third drafts
INFOGRAZING
- Higher education: Healthy return on state dollars
- Higher education: Research to replace shrinking dollars?
EXTERNAL VOICES
- Revere nature by getting to know it
- A speaking acquaintance with trees
MARGINALIA
- I get a charge out of you
C O L L E G E N E W S
SPRING SEMESTER CONVOCATION TO BE HELD JAN. 16
The College of Agriculture's spring semester convocation will
be held at 4 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 16, in the Curtiss Hall auditorium.
Faculty and staff who received awards or honors during the past
year will be recognized.
NEW CHAIR FOR FOOD SCIENCE & HUMAN NUTRITION
Diane Birt has been named chair of the Department of Food Science
and Human Nutrition. She will begin her new duties on July 1.
Birt is a professor at the Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer
at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. She also
is a professor in biochemistry and in pharmaceutical sciences
there. From 1991-94, she was interim chair of the medical center's
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Birt was an
assistant professor of human nutrition at ISU from 1975-76. Pamela
White has served as interim chair of the department since September
1995, when chair Wayne Bidlack started a new job in California.
UPDATED COLLEGE DESK DIRECTORY AVAILABLE
Ag Information has updated the College of Agriculture desk directory
and sent copies to each department's communication advisor. The
one-page directory lists college, department and center administrators
and support staff, along with phone numbers and e-mail addresses.
Also listed are university administration, extension administration,
other college deans and miscellaneous offices on and off campus.
To get a copy, contact your department's communications advisor
(see next item for their names). If you aren't connected to a
department and would like a copy, contact Marty Behrens, Ag Information,
4-5616 or behrens@iastate.edu.
COMMUNICATIONS ADVISORS IN EACH DEPARTMENT
Advisors in each department are helping the College of Agriculture
improve internal communications. They are: Barbara Kalsem, ag
& biosystems engineering; Linda Drennan, ag education and
studies; Martha Isaacson, agronomy; Lyn Van De Pol, animal ecology;
Renee Knosby, animal science; Kathy Wiederin (interim), biochemistry
& biophysics; John Schlenker, economics; Donald Lewis, entomology;
Judy Strand, food science & human nutrition; Rose Turner,
forestry; Kim Gaul, horticulture; Anita Nimtz, microbiology, immunology
& preventive medicine; Mary Jo Vivian, plant pathology; Ramona
Wierson, sociology; Mary Johnson, zoology/genetics; and Marty
Behrens, college administration.
AG AMBASSADORS MAKING RECRUITMENT VISITS
This semester break, and over spring break, 30 students are scheduled
to visit 62 Iowa high schools and one Minnesota high school to
let students know about the advantages of attending ISU and the
College of Agriculture. Ag Student Ambassadors talk about career
opportunities and the college's programs and classes; show a college
recruitment video; and distribute brochures. Ag Ambassador advisors
are Mark Hanna, ag and biosystems engineering extension program
specialist, and Karen Bolluyt, director of college relations.
GLOBAL FOOD NEEDS THE THEME OF '97 AG FORUM
The 1997 National Forum for Agriculture, March 3-4 in Des Moines,
will focus on the world's changing food needs. The forum, "Food
in a Borderless World: A Dilemma of Politics, Money and Beliefs,"
is organized by the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development
and the Food and Agriculture Committee of the Greater Des Moines
Chamber of Commerce Federation. For more information: 4-6257.
NEW WEB SITE FOR AG ONLINE NEWSLETTER
Ag Online has a new Web site. Issues are posted the day they are
e-mailed. The latest 10 issues are listed, and there's a link
to the back issues. You can get to the site from Ag Information's
home page: http://www.ag.iastate.edu/aginfo/
OTHER ONLINE INTERNAL NEWSLETTERS IN COLLEGE
A quick search found the following online internal newsletters
in the college. Are there others? Drop a note to bmeyer@iastate.edu
with the newsletter's address.
Agronomy Dept.
Horticulture Dept.
DEADLINES & REMINDERS
Jan. 6: First-quarter deadline, Leopold Center conference and
workshop grant applications, 4-3711
Jan. 6: Foreign travel grant applications due, 138 Curtiss
Jan. 13: Spring semester begins
Jan. 16: College of Agriculture spring convocation, Curtiss Hall,
4 p.m.
Jan. 28: Spanish grammar/conversation courses for ag-vet med faculty
begin, 4-3972.
Feb. 3: Nominations deadline, Floyd Andre and Henry A. Wallace
awards, 134 Curtiss; and Excellence in International Agriculture
award, 104 Curtiss
C O M M U N I C A T I O N S K I O S K
GET A GRIP . . . ON THE SECOND OR THIRD DRAFT
Writing first drafts can be painful. But those kinds of messes
aren't always bad, according to Anne Lamott, author of "Bird
by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life." She writes:
"Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground -- you can still discover
new treasures under all those piles, clean things up, edit things
out, fix things, get a grip. Tidiness suggests that something
is as good as it's going to get. Tidiness makes me think of held
breath, of suspended animation, while writing needs to breathe
and move." Keep that in mind during subsequent drafts.
I N F O G R A Z I N G
HIGHER EDUCATION: HEALTHY RETURN ON STATE DOLLARS
In a front-page item, the Wall Street Journal noted that "a
state's return on higher education may beat a 30-year treasury
bond." The Journal was reporting on a University of Illinois
study, which found that the Illinois state government receives
an inflation adjusted 6 percent return on each college student
it invests money in. Running a cost-benefit study, UI researcher
W. Randall Kangas compared the state's average 1994 per-student
cost -- $5,096 -- with the extra income a male college graduate
is expected to earn during his lifetime because of his undergraduate
degree --$1,028,463. Kangas said Illinois eventually collects
$4.31 in income tax revenue for each dollar invested in UI undergraduates.
(Wall Street Journal, Nov. 14)
HIGHER EDUCATION: RESEARCH TO REPLACE SHRINKING DOLLARS?
A report by Toronto-based Mercer Management Consulting Inc. says
that as institutional budgets shrink and outside grants become
scarcer, universities have more incentive to commercialize the
results of scientific research. It's an "enormous opportunity"
to replace diminishing internal budgets, the report says. The
report also goes on to say that it takes 6,000 scientific findings
to generate a single successful new venture. (Investor's Business
Daily, Dec. 30)
E X T E R N A L V O I C E S
REVERE NATURE BY GETTING TO KNOW IT
In her "Cuttings" column in the Dec. 8 New York Times,
Anne Raver writes about learning the names of tree species: "Maybe
this need to name things comes from getting older. Maybe it's
a way of feeling more connected to a place, like being able to
say, 'Hi, Al,' to the security guard in the lobby, rather than
just nodding to a nameless face. And once you know the name of
something, or someone -- and trees, the ancients believed, were
full of spirits -- you begin to want to know more....It's not
all that different with a plant....I think the only way to get
back to revering nature is to get to know it, from the state of
your mud to when clouds mean snow."
A SPEAKING ACQUAINTANCE WITH TREES
In her column, Anne Raver (see item above) quotes Donald Culross
Peattie, author of "A Natural History of Trees of Eastern
and Central North America": "Wherever you live, wherever
you tramp or travel, the trees of our country are wondrously companionable,
if you have a speaking acquaintance with them. When you have learned
their names, they say them back to you, as you encounter them
-- and very much more, for they speak of your own past experience
among them, and of our nation's forest life."
M A R G I N A L I A
I GET A CHARGE OUT OF YOU
IBM has developed a prototype for a Personal Area Network. The
PAN allows two people, each wearing a pager-like receiver and
transmitter the size of a deck of cards, to exchange data just
by touching each other. The transmission uses an electrical current
of one-billionth of an amp. IBM officials predict the technology
could be used not only for business purposes, but could, for instance,
one day allow emergency medical technicians to quickly gather
information on an accident victim's identity and medical history.
(Investor's Business Daily, Dec. 9)