Issue: 182

................................................... AG ONLINE ................................................... The College of Agriculture Faculty/Staff Newsletter Iowa State University October 26, 2001 No. 182 ................................................... C O N T E N T S ................................................... COLLEGE NEWS - Open forums begin Monday for ag dean candidates - Ag Career Day on Tuesday, Oct. 30, in Memorial Union - Latino immigration challenges topic of conference - Nutritional Sciences Council to sponsor Borlaug lecture - Grant will help students study global food issues - Wireless computing: Ready for primetime? - AST Club to host farm equipment field day - Have rakes, will travel - Order holiday sausage and cheese gifts by Dec. 1 - Forestry students place fifth at Midwestern Conclave - Research Farms provide harvest materials for events - Deadlines & Reminders COMMUNICATIONS KIOSK - Web writing: Maximum meaning in minimum text INFOGRAZING - Seventy-nine percent of ag faculty active in sponsored funding - Upcoming deadlines for research grant proposals INTERNAL VOICES - Thoughts on pigs and population EXTERNAL VOICES - The Peace of Wild Things MARGINALIA - Seeing agriculture through a childs eyes ................................................... COLLEGE NEWS ................................................... OPEN FORUMS BEGIN MONDAY FOR AG DEAN CANDIDATES The first open forum for College of Agriculture dean candidates is Monday, Oct. 29, with Thomas Fretz, dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Maryland. All forums will be held from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in the Ensminger Conference Room, 1204 Kildee, and will be followed by a reception. The open forum for Lee Sommers, director of the Agricultural Experiment Station at Colorado State University, will be Nov. 5. The open forum will be Nov. 7 for Catherine E. O'Connor Woteki, senior research scientist with the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Maryland, and professor of nutrition and food safety at the University of Nebraska. For vitae, schedules and more information, look online. AG CAREER DAY ON TUESDAY, OCT. 30, IN MEMORIAL UNION Almost 140 employers are expected at Agriculture Career Day on Tuesday, Oct. 30, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Great Hall and Campanile Room, Memorial Union. Ag Career Day is the largest event of its kind in the country. A list of employers planning to attend can be found on the Web, https://www.career.cals.iastate.edu/cals-career-day. Ag Career Day is the unofficial kickoff for several weeks of campus internship and job interviews scheduled by employers. LATINO IMMIGRATION CHALLENGES TOPIC OF CONFERENCE Agriculture and other industries have attracted Latinos and other immigrants to the Midwest. Most communities lack the resources to provide a smooth transition for new immigrants. A forum on these issues, The Changing Face of the Rural Midwest: Latino/a Immigration Challenges for Communities and Institutions, will be held in Lincoln, Neb., Nov. 7-9. The meeting will include educators, extension leaders, community leaders, state agency officials and others. More information is posted on the web, http://www.miac.org . The event is cosponsored by ISU under the auspices of the MidAmerica International Agricultural Consortium. MIAC members are ISU, University of Nebraska, University of Missouri, Kansas State University and Oklahoma State University. For more information: Tonya Mjelde, 4-3803 or tmjelde@iastate.edu. NUTRITIONAL SCIENCES COUNCIL TO SPONSOR BORLAUG LECTURE At the World Food Prize ceremony last week, ISU President Geoffrey announced that the ISU Nutritional Sciences Council will sponsor a Norman Borlaug Lecture next fall. Details need to be worked out, but the lecture will be held in conjunction with next October's World Food Prize event. Don Beitz, animal science, will coordinate the lecture. Borlaug, an Iowa native, won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize and had the vision to establish the World Food Prize. The Nutritional Sciences Council is a group of 70 faculty members who coordinate activities and research in nutrition. GRANT WILL HELP STUDENTS STUDY GLOBAL FOOD ISSUES The U.S. Department of Educations Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) has awarded Iowa State a $200,000 grant to help students understand global food issues. As leader of a three-university consortium, ISU will coordinate activities with a similar program in Europe. Students and faculty will participate in electronic learning-communities, study-abroad and work-exchange programs. The grant also provides scholarships for travel and language skills education. The program includes Dalum Agricultural College in Denmark; Institut Superieur Agricole de Beauvais in France; and University College Cork, Ireland. WIRELESS COMPUTING: READY FOR PRIMETIME? The pros and cons of wireless computing and a demonstration of the technology is set for noon on Nov. 12. "Wireless Computing: Ready for Primetime?" will be presented by Tom Hillson, system support specialist for the College of Agriculture, and Jeff Kenton, system support specialist with the College of Education, in Brenton Center Conference Room, 8 Curtiss. AST CLUB TO HOST FARM EQUIPMENT FIELD DAY See the latest in farm equipment on Saturday, Oct. 27, at the Agricultural Systems Technology Clubs Ride and Drive Field Day. The first field day last year attracted 300. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., tractors and tillage equipment will be available for inspection. There is no charge. A free noon meal prepared by the Story County Cattlemen will be served. The field day will be held on a private farm north of Ames. Take exit 116 off Interstate 35 and go east three miles on E29 to the intersection with R77. HAVE RAKES, WILL TRAVEL Members of American Society of Agricultural Engineers student branch will come to your home next weekend to rake leaves as part of the clubs Fall Yard Cleanup. The fundraiser is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 2, and Sunday, Nov. 4. To schedule a time, call 4-2311 or e-mail club president Sheldon Stevermer, ssteverm@iastate.edu. The charge is $30 for the first hour and $15 an hour after that. Leaves will be removed by the club crews. ORDER HOLIDAY SAUSAGE AND CHEESE GIFTS BY DEC. 1 Dec. 1 is the deadline to order summer sausage and cheese holiday gift packages from the Block and Bridle Club. This is the 25th year the club has been processing summer sausage. It is produced at the Meat Laboratory under the supervision of the federal meat inspector, meat lab personnel and faculty advisers. The cheese is provided by Cheese Maker of Plain, Wis. Order information is available online. FORESTRY STUDENTS PLACE FIFTH AT MIDWESTERN CONCLAVE ISU forestry students took fifth place overall and received the Sportsmanship Award at the Midwestern Forestry Conclave on Oct. 13, held at the University of Minnesotas Cloquet Research Center near Duluth. The annual event tested forestry knowledge and skills in 18 team and individual events. Thirteen ISU students competed. RESEARCH FARMS PROVIDE HARVEST MATERIALS FOR EVENTS When the Knoll needed stalks and ears of corn for decorating in a harvest theme, a call was made to the Research and Demonstration Farms office. A similar request came from organizers of last weekends groundbreaking ceremony for the Plant Sciences Institutes Roy J. Carver Co-Laboratory. The Research Farms office provided shelled corn for the institutes center directors to symbolically plant at the site, illustrating the event's "seed of an idea" theme. DEADLINES & REMINDERS Oct. 27: Deadline, college/university award nominations Oct. 29: Sustainable Ag Colloquium, IPM to EBPM: New Paradigm in Pest Management or Just Another Acronym, Fabian Menalled, National Soil Tilth Lab, 1204 Kildee, 12:10 p.m. Oct. 30: Ag Career Day, Memorial Union, 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Oct. 31: Leopold Center proposals due Oct. 31: Deadline, grant proposals for Faculty Research Exchange Visits, Mary de Baca, 4-8574 Nov. 5: Sustainable Ag Colloquium, Sustainable Ag in the Netherlands: Some Observations, Matt Liebman, Agronomy, 1204 Kildee, 12:10 p.m. Nov. 8: "A Sense of Wonder," play on Rachel Carson, Maintenance Shop, 8 p.m. (doors open 7 p.m.) ....................................................................... COMMUNICATIONS KIOSK ....................................................................... WEB WRITING: MAXIMUM MEANING IN MINIMUM TEXT A comment on writing for the Web from Crawford Kilian, a teacher and writer in Vancouver, from a presentation given at the Agricultural Communicators in Education annual meeting in Toronto last summer: "Every sentence, every phrase must fight for its life. Pack the maximum meaning into the minimum text so your readers get the message in the shortest possible time." ................................................... INFOGRAZING ................................................... SEVENTY-NINE PERCENT OF AG FACULTY ACTIVE IN SPONSORED FUNDING The Faculty Participation Index records the participation of tenured and tenure-track faculty as principal investigators or co-principal investigators for any sponsored funding during the last three years. The 2001 index was based on FY99, 00 and 01. Participation rate in the College of Agriculture was 79 percent (434 faculty members), second only to the College of Engineerings 80 percent. Departments with 100 percent participation included agricultural and biosystems engineering, animal ecology, microbiology and plant pathology. Campus-wide, the participation rate was 57 percent. Listed among the top 10 departments with the highest numbers of participating faculty were economics (53), agronomy (52), animal science (51) and sociology (41). (ISU Research and Graduate Education newsletter, October) UPCOMING DEADLINES FOR RESEARCH GRANT PROPOSALS Here are some upcoming deadlines for research grant proposals. For more information, contact Elena Polouchkina, 4-8493 or elenap@iastate.edu. Oct. 29: North Central Soybean Research Program (preproposal) Nov. 2: Iowa Corn Promotion Board (preproposal) Nov. 2: Applied research projects, Center for Advanced Technology Nov. 2: Scientific Cooperation Research Program, USDA/FAS International Cooperation & Development Research and Scientific Exchange Division Nov. 12: National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation Program (preproposals) Nov. 15: National Research Initiative, for plant responses to environment, managed ecosystems, soils/soil biology, watershed processes/water resources, and improving human nutrition ................................................... INTERNAL VOICES ................................................... THOUGHTS ON PIGS AND POPULATION In the Oct. 15 issue of the Iowa Pork Industry Center newsletter, center director John Mabry wrote about a recent drive around North Carolina: "As I traveled the interstates . . . the population appeared to be extremely dense. There were exits every couple of miles, not the long stretches of empty interstate that are commonly seen here in Iowa. As I drove up I-85, on the western side of North Carolina, there were no signs of pig facilities. As I drove back on I-95, on the eastern side of the state, there were many signs of pig facilities. What does this infer about the future of pigs in North Carolina? With a large population base and its pig farms concentrated on one side of the state, there is much more potential for neighbors to notice -- and potentially dislike -- pigs. Combine that with the lack of a traditional swine production history and it is no wonder that North Carolina is ground zero for environmental lawsuits against pig farms . . . While all this may suggest that the hog numbers in North Carolina will go down over time, remember that any precedents set from litigation in North Carolina will have effects here in Iowa." ................................................... EXTERNAL VOICES ................................................... THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's life may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. - Wendell Berry ................................................... MARGINALIA ................................................... SEEING AGRICULTURE THROUGH A CHILDS EYES ISUs Northwest Research and Demonstration Farm at Sutherland is active in educational programs for area youth. Each year almost every sixth grader from OBrien County and every fourth and fifth grade student from Cherokee County visit the farm. Students from Bryant School in Sioux City who participated in an "Ag for Kids" program sent thank-you notes to the farm. Here are excerpts from those letters: - "Thank you very much for the interesting show on grains. Dont ever stop talking about all the oats, corn, soybeans. I wish I could do a demonstration just like that but Im a singer." - "My favorite vegetable is corn. I like corn because you have to brush your teeth after." - "Thank you for telling us about corn, oats and soybeans and grain. I was really surprised about the ingredients in all those things. I wish that I lived on a farm, but I dont." - "You did a very good demonstration on the grains. I didnt know all the stuff in marshmallows and pop. I didnt know that pigs got so much off their ears. I knew that goats got their tails cut off. It was really cool up there. You did great." ........................................................ AG ONLINE ........................................................ NEXT ISSUE: Nov. 9 DEADLINE: Nov. 7 EDITORS Brian Meyer, bmeyer@iastate.edu, and Ed Adcock, edadcock@iastate.edu Phone: (515) 294-5616 Web site: http://www.ag.iastate.edu/aginfo/ SUBSCRIBE Ag Online, the newsletter for faculty and staff in Iowa State Universitys 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." Iowa State University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, sex, marital status, disability or status as a U.S. Vietnam Era Veteran. Any persons having inquiries concerning this may contact the Director of Affirmative Action, 1031 Wallace Road Office Building, Room 101, (515) 294-7612.