COLLEGE NEWS
- Colloquium kickoff Monday
- Participate in teaching-extension grant writers’ program
- Wanted: Presenters for Science in Ag Day in April
- Mulford lecture on racism on March 6
- Summer ag study-abroad programs still available
- Leopold Center looks to the future
- Statistics plans conference in honor of Fuller
- Deadlines & Reminders
COMMUNICATIONS KIOSK
- Searching the invisible Web
INFOGRAZING
- Sustainable ag research award nominations
- CSREES seeks nominations for national teaching awards
- Blood-donor limits may affect European travelers
INTERNAL VOICES
- Pesek: Sustainability central for human race
EXTERNAL VOICES
- Expect a bumpy ride
- Expect temptation
- Expect persistence . . . To a point
MARGINALIA
- Pop quiz: What’s the origin of ‘deadline’?
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C O L L E G E N E W S
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COLLOQUIUM KICKOFF MONDAY
The first session of the Colloquium for the Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture will be from noon to 1 p.m. Monday (March 5) in 224 Curtiss. Anyone is welcome to participate in the colloquium, which is a required core course for the Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture. ISU grad Gary Guthrie will deliver a presentation titled Food for Thought: Personal reflection about food, food systems, and sustainable agriculture in Bolivia, El Salvador, Cuba and U.S./Iowa. Refreshments will be provided.
PARTICIPATE IN TEACHING-EXTENSION GRANT WRITERS’ PROGRAM
The College of Agriculture and the College of Education will offer the first Teaching-Extension Grant Writers’ Program, beginning in September. March 23 is the deadline for faculty nominations to participate. Faculty participants will prepare a grant proposal to be submitted to a federal agency. Faculty can get more information and a nomination form by contacting Laurie Vold, 4-2517 or lvold@iastate.edu.
WANTED: PRESENTERS FOR SCIENCE IN AG DAY IN APRIL
Presenters are needed for the College of Agriculture’s 13th annual Science in Agriculture Day on April 19. The event brings top Iowa high school science students to campus for a day of workshops by agriculture faculty and staff. Presenters are aksed to provide engaging, 55-minute, hands-on sessions on a science topic. If you’re interested, contact Ebby Luvaga, 4-5765 or luvaga@iastate.edu, by March 16.
MULFORD LECTURE ON RACISM ON MARCH 6
"Racism and the Coming White Minority" is the title of this year’s Charles Mulford Lecture, Tuesday, March 6, at 8 p.m., Sun Room, Memorial Union. University of Florida professor of sociology Joe Feagin, a leading scholar in social inequality, will present the lecture, which is sponsored by the sociology department, the College of Agriculture Miller Lecture Fund and other campus groups.
SUMMER AG STUDY-ABROAD PROGRAMS STILL AVAILABLE
Faculty and staff are encouraged to remind students that several summer programs and internships are still available through the college’s Study Abroad Office. Destinations include France, Panama, Greece, Thailand, Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica and Ghana. Students can get more information by stopping in 18 Curtiss, calling 4-5393 or checking the Web, http://www.iastate.edu/international.
LEOPOLD CENTER LOOKS TO THE FUTURE
The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture is holding a series of community meetings to gather ideas and comments about the future direction of the center. Meetings with center director Fred Kirschenmann and center staff have been held in Sioux Center and Hiawatha, and others are scheduled in Mount Pleasant, Decorah, Lewis and Greenfield. Kirschenmann also will ask for input at meetings of several Iowa groups. More details on the community meetings, plus a summary of future directions for the center, are on the center website, http://www.leopold.iastate.edu.
STATISTICS PLANS CONFERENCE IN HONOR OF FULLER
The Department of Statistics is planning a June 21-22 research conference in honor of Wayne Fuller’s 70th birthday. Fuller is a distinguished professor of statistics and economics and has been an ISU faculty member since 1959. The program will include four sessions covering topics in time series, measurement error models, survey sampling and application areas influenced by Fuller’s work. There will also be a poster sessions, including one for young researchers.
DEADLINES & REMINDERS
March 5-7: "Agriculture and the Environment: State and Federal Water Initiatives," water quality conference, Scheman Building.
March 6: "Racism and the Coming White Minority," Joe Feagin, the Charles Mulford Lecture (sociology), 8 p.m., Sun Room, Memorial Union.
March 7: "Leaders of a Visionary Future for Iowa Summit," West Des Moines, 4-9107.
March 26: Deadline, Leopold Center conference/workshop proposals, 4-3711.
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C O M M U N I C A T I O N S K I O S K
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SEARCHING THE INVISIBLE WEB
An estimated half of the Web's content is hidden, or in forms that most popular search engines fail to examine. This "invisible" Web consists of such things as non-HTML files (PDF files, etc.), Webbed databases, sites requiring registration or login, archives (newspapers and magazines, etc.), dynamically created Web pages and interactive tools (calculators, etc.). LibrarySpot lists the four best search engines for delving into the invisible Web at: http://www.libraryspot.com/features/invisibleweb.htm?news
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I N F O G R A Z I N G
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SUSTAINABLE AG RESEARCH AWARD NOMINATIONS
The nomination deadline is May 1 for the second annual Seventh Generation Research Award. The award recognizes a person or group that has done outstanding work in sustainable agriculture research. The award is sponsored by the Center for Rural Affairs and the Consortium for Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education.
CSREES SEEKS NOMINATIONS FOR NATIONAL TEACHING AWARDS
The CSREES Higher Education Programs Office seeks nominations for the National Awards Program for Excellence in College and University Teaching in the Food and Agricultural Sciences. Nominations must be received by April 15. Awards are presented to two national ($5,000) and eight regional ($2,000) recipients. Guidelines and forms can be found online.
BLOOD-DONOR LIMITS MAY AFFECT EUROPEAN TRAVELERS
The Food and Drug Administration soon will ban certain frequent travelers to France and Portugal from donating blood, acting as an extra precaution against mad cow disease. But officials fear American Red Cross plans for a stricter ban might cause blood shortages and confuse the public. The FDA rule would forbid blood donations by anyone who lived or traveled in France or Portugal for a total of 10 years since 1980. The agency already prohibits donations by anyone who spent a total of six months in Britain between 1980 and 1996, when that country was the epicenter of the mad cow crisis. (Chicago Tribune, Feb. 16)
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I N T E R N A L V O I C E S
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PESEK: SUSTAINABILITY CENTRAL FOR HUMAN RACE
"Sustainability of an agriculture that is environmentally benign in relation to world resources, population and the environment is a serious issue -- perhaps the central issue for the human race . . . We are overdue in adopting new policies -- replacing the old with those that are better and safer for farmers, healthier for consumers, kinder to the environment, and ultimately sustainable. After all, we will depend on agriculture for food forever. Even if we do not look forward any farther than we look back to the beginning of agriculture, we are speaking not of decades or centuries but of thousands of years. And our population continues to grow." John Pesek, retired Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in agronomy, speaking at the inaugural John Pesek Colloquium on Sustainable Agriculture on Thursday. The full text of his speech is on the Leopold Center’s website, http://www.leopold.iastate.edu. A hard-copy version may be requested from the Henry A. Wallace Endowed Chair for Sustainable Agriculture office, 110 Curtiss.
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E X T E R N A L V O I C E S
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EXPECT A BUMPY RIDE
The road to success is always under construction.
- Lily Tomlin, 1939-
EXPECT TEMPTATION
The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.
- Will Rogers, 1879-1935
EXPECT PERSISTENCE . . . TO A POINT
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No sense being a damn fool about it.
- W.C. Fields, 1879-1946
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M A R G I N A L I A
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POP QUIZ: WHAT’S THE ORIGIN OF ‘DEADLINE’?
To what did the word "deadline" originally refer?
A. A fallen telephone wire.
B. A prison boundary.
C. An unfinished letter.
Answer: B. Nowadays we may grumble about meeting a deadline, but the word began with a more sinister sense. During the Civil War, "deadline" was the boundary of a prison camp, and any prisoner who dared cross that line was in danger of being shot. (Copy Editor, February-March)
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AG ONLINE
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NEXT ISSUE: March 16 DEADLINE: March 14
EDITORS
Brian Meyer, bmeyer@iastate.edu, and Ed Adcock, edadcock@iastate.edu
Phone: (515) 294-5616 Web site: http://www.ag.iastate.edu/aginfo/
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Ag Online, the newsletter for faculty and staff in Iowa State University’s College of Agriculture, is e-mailed every other Friday. To subscribe, send your name, e-mail address and the message "Ag Online subscribe" to bmeyer@iastate.edu. To unsubscribe, send "Ag Online unsubscribe."
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