................................................... C O L L E G E N E W S ................................................... COLLEGE TO REVIEW ALL ENDOWMENT ACCOUNTS The College of Agriculture will review its endowments as part of a university-wide effort to ensure proper stewardship of endowment funds. President Geoffroy recently asked every college to review their endowment accounts as a follow-up to a university committee's report. The committee concluded that university endowment funds were being used appropriately and with the intent to comply with donor wishes. Dean Woteki said, "The College of Agriculture and the Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station are firmly committed to providing donors with the highest level of stewardship and management of their gift accounts in keeping with the donor's expressed wishes." In addition to the endowment review, Dean Woteki is continuing a review initiated by Dean Ross to evaluate agreements associated with farms managed by the college. The farm review will ensure that all agreements are well-understood and fully implemented. COLLEGE FACULTY APPROVE DIET AND EXERCISE PROGRAM Ninety-five percent of College of Agriculture faculty last week approved the proposed bachelor’s/master’s degree program in diet and exercise. The program is to be jointly administered by the departments of Food Science and Human Nutrition and Health and Human Performance. The proposal would establish an education and training program in diet and exercise science. Graduates would be preparing for jobs with cardiac rehabilitation programs, health clubs, wellness centers, public and private clinics, community health programming, preventive medicine programs or related programs. College of Family and Consumer Science faculty previously approved the proposal, which will go for a vote this fall before College of Education faculty. Faculty Senate and Board of Regents would then have to approve. FIELD DAYS SET FOR SUMMER AND FALL Research and Demonstration Farm field days begin June 20 at the Northeast farm near Nashua. Fourteen field days are scheduled through September. There are 11 specialty field days beginning with a forage tour at the Northwest farm June 12. The Armstrong farm near Lewis will have an ag career day Sept. 11 to make high-school students aware of career opportunities in the College of Agriculture. Several other farms will hold “student days” to acquaint area elementary school students with agriculture. The farms also will hold nine garden and acreage field days beginning Aug. 1. More information at: https://farms.cals.iastate.edu/research-farms-field-days-and-meetings BRENTON CENTER CAN HELP WITH GRANT PROPOSALS The Brenton Center can help faculty and staff members in preparing grant proposals by incorporating technology into the proposal and by providing estimates for technological components such as video-conferencing and multimedia productions. Technology can be used to help principal investigators comply with requirements of funding agencies, such as those requiring interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaboration. For more information about services and opportunities available through the Brenton Center, contact: Richard Carter, 4-6950, ricarter@iastate.edu, or Rod Fischer, videoguy@iastate.edu. CELL SIGNALING IN PLANTS TOPIC OF PLANT SCIENCE SEMINAR Jian-Kang Zhu, University of Arizona plant scientist, will present the first Distinguished Lecturer Seminar on Plant Response to Environmental Stress on May 31. Zhu will speak about cell signaling under salt, drought and cold stress at 2 p.m. in 1414 Molecular Biology Building. Zhu is a leader in the field of abiotic stress signaling. Each year the Center for Plant Responses to Environmental Stresses (CPRES) will host a speaker who is a leader in the field of plants stress response. For more information, contact Ron Mittler, plant pathology, 4-4755. ISU TEAMS WITH JOHN DEERE TO TEACH AGRICULTURE A changing workforce at the John Deere plant in Waterloo prompted company officials to look for ways to educate employees about agriculture. Faculty and staff in the ISU College of Agriculture and ISU Extension developed John Deere 101, which covers the history of agriculture and present-day agricultural issues. A case study of a three-generation farm family helps illustrate how farming and farm equipment purchases have changed. All employees in the John Deere Waterloo Works will attend the course. Learn more in this week's Agriculture in Action. WARM WINTER INCREASES RISK OF STEWART'S DISEASE Iowa State University plant pathologists predict a high risk of Stewart's disease in this year's corn crop due to last winter's warmer-than-usual weather. "Based on 30 years of historical disease and weather data, we are predicting that 10-15 percent of the seed corn fields in Iowa will have Stewart's disease in 2002," said Forrest Nutter, Iowa State plant pathologist. The disease is especially devastating to corn being raised for seed because seed harvested from infected fields can't be sold to foreign markets. It also can take a toll on sweet corn and in severe cases, hybrid corn yields may be reduced. NUTRITIONAL CHALLENGES IN AFRICA SUBJECT OF LECTURE The College of Agriculture is sponsoring a lecture May 31 on nutritional challenges in Africa. Ruth Oniang'o, professor of food science and nutrition at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology in Nairobi, Kenya, will speak at 2 p.m. in 1951 Food Sciences Building. She will talk about the problem of vitamin A deficiency in Africa. The lecture is open to the public. For more information: David Acker, global agriculture programs, 4-8454. FULBRIGHT SCHOLAR TO CONTINUE RESEARCH IN FRANCE Robert Cogdill, a Ph.D. student in agricultural and biosystems engineering, was one of three ISU students to receive a Fulbright Student Award for Graduate Research and Study Abroad. This fall Cogdill will depart for Montpellier, France, to spend 2002-03 conducting research at the CEMOGRAF-TEMO laboratory. He has been working in the area of hyperspectral imaging, a technology that could help enhance precision agriculture, analyze the quality of biomaterials and detect foodborne contaminants. Cogdill, who received his master’s degree in agricultural engineering last year, has worked on using hyperspectral imaging to analyze corn seeds in the Grain Quality Laboratory. The Fulbright program selects about 800 students each year to study and conduct resesarch in the country of their choice for one academic year. SIX-MONTH GRANT WRITERS’ PROGRAM SET TO BEGIN The college’s next research grant writers' program will include 19 researchers. The program is a six-month commitment to write grant proposals in a systematic manner under the guidance of Steve Russell, the grant writers' workshops and seminars consultant. Those involved are: Linda Pollak, Robert Thornburg, Barry Falk, Rajesh Singh, Philippe Marcoul, Quinn Weninger, Brad Skaar, Lance Gibson, Carolyn Komar, Michael Godfrey, Jacquelyn Litt, Marcia Michaels, Tom Brumm, Carl Mize, Junwei Zhu, Karin Dorman, Jay Harmon, A. Whitney Sanford and Reuben Peters. The program will begin with an orientation session on June 24 in 142 Curtiss Hall. NADC COLLABORATOR WINS TECH TRANSFER AWARD Mark Rasmussen, animal science assistant professor and a National Animal Disease Center collaborator, was among 11 Agricultural Research Service scientists honored May 8 as winners of 2002 Federal Laboratory Consortium Awards for Excellence in Technology Transfer. Rasmussen and Thomas Casey, microbiologists at the National Animal Disease Center in Ames, both won the award for helping develop a light-based contamination imaging technology that determines meat carcass and product cleanliness. Jacob Petrich, an Iowa State chemistry professor, also received an award for his part in the project. DEADLINES AND REMINDERS May 20-21: National ultrasound training and certification conference, Kildee Hall June 28: Sign-up deadline, second College of Agriculture Research Grant Writers Workshop beginning Aug. 27, more info: Elena Polouchkina, 4-8493 or elenap@iastate.edu July 1: Nomination deadline for Agricultural Safety and Health Hall of Fame Award July 9: Lauren Christian Pork Chop Open, 10 a.m., Veenker Memorial Golf Course ....................................................................... C O M M U N I C A T I O N S K I O S K ....................................................................... MONITOR YOUR FONTS THROUGH SOFTWARE You probably look at it most of the day, but do you really see it well? Your computer monitor, that is. Fonts can typically be made more readable by using software already on your computer. Most programs allow for font adjustment. Some let you increase the size of fonts on the screen without affecting their size when printing, like Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer. On Windows systems look in the Appearance tab under the Display option on the Windows Control Panel to change fonts. For extreme magnification, the Magnifier option in the Accessibility folder on the Start menu's Programs area is available. For those with Windows XP and an LCD screen, fonts can be improved by turning on the ClearType option. Look in the Display area of the Control Panel, click on Appearance and then on Effects. On Macintosh, OS 8.5 and up, try using the Smooth Fonts option in the Appearance Control Panel under Fonts. (New York Times, May 16) ................................................... I N F O G R A Z I N G ................................................... NEW FARM BILL INCLUDES RISING IFAFS FUNDING The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 recently passed by Congress and signed by President Bush on May 13 contains more than $1.5 billion in funding for new research, extension and educational programs. The Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food Systems (IFAFS) program is funded at a level of $120 million in fiscal year 2004, rising $20 million each year until FY 2007, when it increases to $200 million per year and continues at that level. David Acker, assistant dean for national and global programs, noted that the IFAFS request for proposals is not expected until November. Among the bill’s other provisions are increases for biotechnology, organic research, rural e-commerce, renewable resources, biodiesel fuel education and biomass research and development. The entire bill is on the USDA website: http://www.usda.gov/farmbill. NEW REPORT ON AGRICULTURAL AND URBAN LINKS “Urban and Agricultural Communities: Opportunities for Common Ground” is a new report that provides a road map on how urban and agricultural interests can benefit one another. The Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) released the report today (Monday) in Dallas at the Urban Agriculture Symposium. The report focuses on the role agriculture can play in serving as a common denominator between rural and urban sectors, said report co-chair Lorna Michael Butler, the Henry A. Wallace Endowed Chair for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State. The report is available at: http://www.cast-science.org. ................................................... E X T E R N A L V O I C E S ................................................... COMMON SENSE UNCOMMON AMONG THE HIGHLY COMPETENT? "[Common sense] is possessed by any human being who bears even a modicum of sanity and rationality. What is it then that makes people up and down organizational ranks and in their professional lives -- accomplishments and erudition notwithstanding -- succumb to behaviors and actions that reduce them to asinine nincompoops? . . . [Highly competent people share certain traits, like being decisive, ethical, perceptive and empathetic, but] we can also find common traits among those people who, in spite of their intelligence, appear to be devoid of common sense . . . Might it be fair to contend that skills and competencies may propel us to untold heights of fame, fortune and mastery, but it is common sense that allows us to stay there?" (Columnist Henry Astorga, writing in the April 29 issue of Asia Pacific Management Forum) ................................................... M A R G I N A L I A ................................................... WHEN PIGS FLY, PEOPLE TAKE NOTICE Nine pigs that became overnight stars in Britain after being featured in a television commercial will live out their lives high on the hog. They became a sensation after being seen charging down a runway and taking off to the theme from the 1964 film "633 Squadron" in an ad for Zurich Financial Services. The number given out by Zurich for queries about its financial products was inundated by calls about the pigs' welfare, forcing the company to set up a separate "hogline." The pigs will spend the rest of their lives in comfort on a farm in central England. A spokeswoman for Zurich said it was unlikely the pigs would come out of retirement for an encore of their flying feat. "I think they're carrying a bit too much ballast now," she said. (Reuters, May 17) Next issue: May 28 Deadline: May 24 ........................................................ AG ONLINE ........................................................ EDITORS Ed Adcock, edadcock@iastate.edu, and Brian Meyer, bmeyer@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 University's College of Agriculture, is e-mailed every Monday. To subscribe, send your name, e-mail address and the message "Ag Online subscribe" to edadcock@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.
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