- College strategic plan
- Tent-a-Gate with ag alumni
- Administrative changes
- Experiment Station milestone
COMMUNICATIONS KIOSK
- Feedback
INFOGRAZING
- TROL for math-science-tech resources
- Multicultural ag student program
EXTERNAL VOICES
- Seven guiding personal principles
- Top five skills for ag grads
MARGINALIA
- Say it with a smiley
W E L C O M E T O A G O N L I N E !
Welcome to the first issue of Ag Online, a twice-a-month
electronic newsletter for faculty and staff in the College of
Agriculture at Iowa State University.
We hope Ag Online will be one way to help faculty and staff be
well-informed about the college -- and be effective participants
in the college. Ag Online will provide news on what's going on
at
the college level. We hope that some information in the newsletter
will help faculty and staff with situations that come up every
day
. . . computer troubleshooting tips, what to do when a news
reporter calls, managing stress or other topics.
Ag Online will include digests of timely issues of importance
to
the college, whether they be in education, science and technology,
communications or other areas. We will list contracts and grants
awarded within the college as well as papers accepted for
publication in refereed journals, new titles of ISU Extension
publications, software, etc. And we plan to sprinkle in bits and
pieces that'll be interesting, thought-provoking or just fun.
That's the kind of resource we want Ag Online to be. We don't
want
it to divert attention from publications that serve the entire
university community, and do not plan to list honors,
achievements, seminars, calendars and other items that are covered
elsewhere.
We welcome comments about Ag Online. Send them to
HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR SPOT US IN CYBERSPACE)
Since there's no comprehensive list of College of Agriculture
e-
mail addresses, we're asking people to subscribe to Ag Online.
This first issue is being e-mailed to distribution lists that
do
exist, including department, center and extension offices. We
ask
that these offices forward this issue to their local e-mail
addresses. A flyer about Ag Online also will be sent through
campus mail.
To subscribe, send your name, e-mail address and
the message "Ag Online subscribe" to bmeyer@iastate.edu
(or if
you're on the College of Agriculture server, send to
AGCOLLEGE/BMEYER).
Ag Online also will be posted on the Internet, in the College
of
Agriculture directory in the World Wide Web system. The college's
home page can be found through your Web client (i.e., Mosaic,
MacWeb, WinWeb,
Mosaic for Windows, etc.). Open URL and enter the following address:
http://aghelp.exnet.iastate.edu
C O L L E G E N E W S
COLLEGE STRATEGIC PLAN REPORT DUE SOON
The College Planning Advisory Committee (C-PAC) will deliver its
first strategic planning report to the dean in October or
November. "When the report is finished, there will be another
round of discussion about its recommendations. We're aiming for
substantial agreement on goals for the next five years,"
said Mike
Chaplin, committee chairman.
The challenge is narrowing a strategic plan down to a manageable
number of issues, he added. For example, there are issues in
undergraduate and graduate education; the college's role in
changing agricultural systems and rural communities; research
and
extension priorities; international programs; protection of
natural resources; our relationship with other public and private
organizations; and consumer needs and preferences.
"Our final report will only be final as far as C-PAC's activities
are concerned," Chaplin said. "In practice the report
will become
a working document that guides us but doesn't confine us."
TENT-A-GATE WITH AG ALUMNI SEPT. 17
Faculty and staff are invited to visit with ag alumni at Tent-a-
Gate, the College of Agriculture Alumni Society's annual tent
party/tailgater. The event will be held before the ISU-Western
Michigan football game, Sept. 17, beginning at 10:30 a.m. The
society's two tents will be set up east of the Olsen Building,
just north of Cyclone Stadium. The Iowa Pork Producers will serve
a barbecue meal. Meal tickets are available for $5 -- call Roger
Bruene, 54725.
Also, the newest Ag Alumni Forum, the annual publication of the
ISU College of Agriculture Alumni Society, is available from Ag
Information Services. For a copy, contact Marty Behrens, 5
5616 or mbehrens@iastate.edu.
RECENT COLLEGE ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES
Gerald Klonglan will serve as interim associate dean and interim
associate director of the Experiment Station after the departure
of Tom Fretz, who leaves this month to become dean of the College
of Agriculture at the University of Maryland.
Nolan Hartwig is interim associate dean of ISU Extension for the
college, replacing Jerald DeWitt, who is now state specialist
for
sustainable agriculture. DeWitt also is co-leader, with Klonglan,
of Vision 2020, the Kellogg Grant-funded project to examine the
future of land-grant universities in the next 25 years.
Dianne Draper was named assistant director of the Experiment
Station for the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.
Susan Lamont is a new assistant director of the Experiment
Station, replacing Max Rothschild, who returns full-time to the
animal science department after four years in the position.
Lamont, an animal science professor, divides her time between
administration and animal science teaching and research.
Cornelia Flora is director of the North Central Regional Center
for Rural Development, replacing Peter Korsching, who returns
to
teaching and research in the sociology department after 10 years
in the position.
New department executive officers include Willis Goudy, chair
of
sociology, and Arne Hallam, interim chair of economics. John
Miranowski will become the new economics chair on Jan. 9.
PAPER-TRAIL MILESTONE FOR EXPERIMENT STATION
The Experiment Station reached a milestone on August 29 with the
authorization of its 16,000th journal paper. J-16000 was "Elm
leaf
beetles have greatly reduced levels of gene diversity" by
E.S.
Krafsur and Pramoda Nariboli. Complete records on authorized
papers have been kept since July 8, 1938, when J-569 ("New
smut
and rust resistant oats from Markton crosses," F.A. Coffman)
was
issued. Recently, there's been a considerable increase in research
paper production. For example, J-15000 was authorized on July
7,
1992, showing an average of about 500 papers authorized per year.
C O M M U N I C A T I O N S K I O S K
KEEP GETTING BETTER: GET FEEDBACK
Encourage informal feedback from faculty, staff and students
through conversations, memos, letters, phone calls, e-mails and
meetings. But also ensure more formal regular feedback. This
includes course evaluations, readership studies, exit interviews,
surveys, advisory groups, program evaluations, focus groups, etc.
Feedback usually contains some surprises -- and surprises usually
mean learning.
I N F O G R A Z I N G
MATH-SCIENCE-TECH RESOURCES TO SHARE? TRY TROL
The Master's Network is a teacher resource project directed by
Seattle Pacific University. Its goal is to enhance teaching and
learning of math, science and technology in Washington State.
The
network provides TROL (Teaching Resources On Line) for Math-
Science-Technology, a catalog database designed to provide
Washington State's K-12 teachers with easy access to resources
available statewide and across the nation. This fall, TROL will
be
available to educators directly through Internet or by calling
a
toll-free number. If you'd like to share information on resources
provided by your organization, contact Ray Myers, director,
Master's Network TROL, Box 71, Seattle Pacific University, 3307
Third Avenue West, Seattle, WA 98119; phone 22504, fax
206-
281-2756.
MULTICULTURAL SCHOLARS PROGRAM
USDA CSRS requests proposals for competitive grants under its
Higher Education Multicultural Scholars Program. Grants will be
awarded for undergraduate multicultural scholarships to meet
national needs for training food and agricultural scientists and
professionals. Scholarship recipients will be selected by the
colleges and universities receiving project grant awards. About
30-40 grants, averaging $50,000 each, will be made in fiscal year
1995. These will support between 80-120 scholars at about 20
colleges. Deadline for submitting proposals: Sept. 16, 1994. For
a
copy of the Application Kit and Program Announcement, contact
Proposal Services Branch, Awards Management Division, CSRS,
USDA,
Room 303, Aerospace Center, Ag Box 2245, Washington, DC 20250-
2245; phone 25048.
E X T E R N A L V O I C E S
TOP FIVE SKILLS THAT EMPLOYERS LOOK FOR
The College of Agriculture at University of Nevada, Reno, asked
employers in agribusiness and the food industry (140 in 38 states
and Canada) to rate the five most important areas of knowledge
for
agriculture grads. The top five: 1) business and economics, 89
percent; 2) communications skills, 88 percent; 3)
management/administration, 76 percent; 4) production agriculture,
73 percent; 5) computer science, 54 percent. Number six was
science/biology, mentioned by 20 percent of respondents.
SEVEN GUIDING PERSONAL PRINCIPLES
The following list, "Some guiding personal principles,"
was
outlined by Thayne R. Dutson, dean of the College of Agricultural
Sciences at Oregon State University and director of the Oregon
Agricultural Experiment Station, in a September 1993 draft of
a
strategic planning document for the college:
- Decisions are built from the ground up.
- It is more important to develop cooperative solutions than to
win negotiations.
- Stick to your word.
- Seek the positive interpretation of situations.
- Try to understand the long-term consequences of a decision --
before making it.
- It is tough to get anything done without taking risks.
- One does not need to manage every detail of a system, but it
is
important to have a pretty good understanding of the system and
why it is there.
M A R G I N A L I A
SAY IT WITH A SMILEY: EMOTICONS
Emoticons are cryptic little codes used to convey the spirit in
which a line of text is typed -- for example, to indicate that
the
"snide" comment you just read was really a joke. They're
figures
created with keyboard symbols and used to express the emotions
of
normal voice communication. Some are funny, some bizarre. They
are
read with the head tilted to the left. Here's some examples:
Emoticon Meaning
-------- -------
:-o User is shocked
:-( Sad
:-< Real sad
>:-< Mad
8-| Suspense
|-) Hee hee
|-D Ho ho
:-I Hmm
:-O Uh oh
|-) User is asleep (boredom)
|-P Yuk!
:-s User after a BIZARRE comment
:-& User is tongue-tied
:-7 User after a wry statement
;-) Winking Smiley
,-} Wry and winking
:-p User is sticking tongue out (at you!)
:-| No expression face, 'that comment doesn't phase me'
:- Undecided user
#-) User partied all night
:-: User is mutant
*<|:-) User is Santa Claus (Ho Ho Ho)