COLLEGE NEWS
- Briefing on ISU's new benefits plan for ag faculty/staff
- Parent and Family reception on Saturday, Nov. 2
- Address changes for college administrative offices
- Record number of employers at Ag Career Day
- ISU-MANRRS hosts regional conference
- Meyers named interim director of CARD
- Deadlines & Reminders
COMMUNICATIONS KIOSK
- As different as strawberry shortcake and sand
INFOGRAZING
- Web searches: Colleges the third most popular search
- Web searches: Research-specific engines needed
- Web searches: Parallel engine organizes what it finds
- Web searches: Desperately seeking someone
EXTERNAL VOICES
- Faking it through class, through life
MARGINALIA
- Looking good: Access granted / Smelling bad: Access
denied
C O L L E G E N E W S
BRIEFING ON ISU'S NEW BENEFITS PLAN FOR AG FACULTY/STAFF
On November 12, 13 and 14, the College of Agriculture will host
three sessions to brief faculty, P&S and supervisory staff
on the new university benefits program (ISU Plan). These sessions
will occur the week before the general university sessions, and
before the workbook and enrollment forms arrive. If you can't
attend the university sessions, or would like a preview or an
early chance to get your questions answered, you can attend a
session at 9-10 a.m., Tuesday, Nov. 12; 1-2 p.m., Wednesday, Nov.
13; or 6-7 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 14. All will be held in the Curtiss
Hall auditorium. After each session, refreshments will be served
in the college's new conference room in 142 Curtiss, and presenters
will be there to continue the question-and-answer session. Spouses
are invited. If you plan to attend, please call 4-2518 or e-mail
PARENT AND FAMILY RECEPTION ON SATURDAY, NOV. 2
This weekend is Parent and Family Weekend at ISU. A College of
Agriculture reception for parents will be held 10-11:30 a.m.,
Saturday, Nov. 2, in the Scheman Building. Ag Student Services
sent more than 700 invitations to parents of new students, and
invited students through their orientation classes. At the reception,
ag faculty and Student Ag Council members will visit with parents,
Dean Topel will greet the group, Associate Dean Eric Hoiberg will
talk about establishing a parent council and Ag Council President
Dan Belzer will discuss student activities. Door prizes will be
given away, including mums and apples from horticulture, summer
sausage from animal science, Ag Ed Club mugs and other college
paraphernalia.
ADDRESS CHANGES FOR COLLEGE ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES
The Macarena may be sweeping the nation, but in Curtiss Hall they're
doing the shuffle again. Remodeling is coming to an end. Please
make a note of the new office mailing addresses below because
they won't be listed in the new campus directory. Phone numbers
remain the same. (A note about Suite 130: It's the south hallway
of the first floor, which has been enclosed, and will include
the staff offices of Cindy Hansen, Norma Hensley, Julie Honeick
and Marie Miller.)
The following addresses were effective Oct. 28:
Room 138: David Topel, Dean
Room 138: Colin Scanes, Executive Associate Dean
Room 134: Eric Hoiberg, Associate Dean-State Programs
Room 137: Gerald Klonglan, Associate Dean-Nat'l Programs
Room 131: Russ Wilson, Candi Kelly & Donna Evans, Development
Office
Room 141: Roger Bruene & Karen Klaiber, Career Services
Room 133: Del Koch, Laurie Vold, Josie Neeld & Barb Martin,
Budget and Finance
Room 138: Joyce Shiers, Dean's Office, & Cathy Good,
Executive Associate Dean's Office
Suite 130: Cindy Hansen, Dean's Office
Room 26: Shirley Riney & Carla Persaud, Experiment Station
Room 3397 Food Sciences Building: Mary deBaca, College of
Agriculture
The following addresses are effective Nov. 6:
Room 132: Wendy Wintersteen, Interim Associate Dean-Industry
Programs
Room 134: Norma Hensley, Office of Associate Dean-State Programs
Room 137: Marie Miller, Office of Associate Dean-National
Programs
Room 132: Julie Honeick, Office of Interim Associate Dean-Industry
Programs
RECORD NUMBER OF EMPLOYERS AT AG CAREER DAY
A record number of employers -- 140 -- are expected at Ag Career
Day on Nov. 12 in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union. More than
25 are first-time participants in the annual job fair, which attracts
close to 2,000 students, alumni and other visitors interested
in careers in agriculture and natural resources. Faculty and staff
should especially encourage underclass students to attend because
106 employers have summer job opportunities. Ag Career Day is
coordinated by College of Agriculture students and the Ag Career
Services office. For more information: 4-4725.
ISU-MANRRS HOSTS REGIONAL CONFERENCE
The ISU chapter of Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources
and Related Sciences (MANRRS) hosted the organization's Region
V conference on Oct. 25. Attending were more than 55 students
and faculty from six universities, and five students from the
Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences. The two-day conference
included a career fair; workshops on leadership, the Internet,
preparation for grad school, and internships and summer programs;
and a panel discussion on recruitment and retention of minority
students. Charanne Parks, director of Agriculture Minority Programs,
is the advisor for ISU-MANRRS.
MEYERS NAMED INTERIM DIRECTOR OF CARD
William Meyers has been named interim director of the Center of
Agricultural and Rural Development. Meyers has been associate
director of CARD, and is a professor of economics, executive director
of the Midwest Agribusiness Trade Research and Information Center
(MATRIC) and co-director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research
Institute.
DEADLINES & REMINDERS
Nov. 2: College of Agriculture Reception, Parent and Family Weekend,
Scheman Bldg., 10 a.m.
Nov. 4-8: Flu shots for faculty/staff, 205 TASF; 4-0874
Nov. 12: Ag Career Day, Memorial Union
Nov. 18: Leopold Center research proposals due, 209 Curtiss
Nov. 13-15: FFA National Convention, Kansas City
C O M M U N I C A T I O N S K I O S K
AS DIFFERENT AS STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE AND SAND
A College of Agriculture staff member recently provided a tip
for remembering how to correctly spell "dessert" and
"desert." Dessert is spelled with two s's: think strawberry
shortcake. Desert is spelled with one s: think sand.
I N F O G R A Z I N G
WEB SEARCHES: COLLEGES THE THIRD MOST POPULAR SEARCH
The third most popular search subject on the World Wide Web is
finding colleges and universities, according to the Alta Vista
search engine. (The two most popular? Sex and its variants, and
finding a job.)
WEB SEARCHES: RESEARCH-SPECIFIC ENGINES NEEDED
Most scholars agree that the average, run-of-the-mill Internet
search engine doesn't produce much of value to their academic
research efforts. One philosophy professor at the University of
Evansville has taken matters into his own hands and created a
search engine for his area of expertise, the ancient world. His
engine, called Argos, filters out unwanted information by limiting
searches to preselected Web sites deemed by a group of editors
to be scholarly and topical. "We're imagining a whole series
of these search engines to serve academe," he says. Argos
can be found online (Chronicle of Higher
Education, Oct. 18)
WEB SEARCHES: PARALLEL ENGINE ORGANIZES WHAT IT FINDS
Inference Find's parallel search engine simultaneously searches
all the major search engines and eliminates duplicate findings,
clustering the information into content type and organizing it
according to user preferences. Check out the website
and click on "InFind." (Information Week, Aug. 19)
WEB SEARCHES: DESPERATELY SEEKING SOMEONE
Digitized directory assistance can track almost anyone down. Here
are several Web sites that provide directory assistance (from
Forbes, March 11):
Big Book: http://www.bigbook.com
Four11: http://www.four11.com
Nynex Interactive Yellow Pages: http://s14.bigyellow.com/
Internet Address Finder: http://www.iaf.net/
Switchboard: http://www.switchboard.com
WhoWhere: http://www.whowhere.com
E X T E R N A L V O I C E S
FAKING IT THROUGH CLASS, THROUGH LIFE
"Faking it for a class session is one thing. But it's so
easy to find ourselves making faking it a lifestyle. This summer
I saw a bumper sticker that said: 'Jesus is coming. Look busy!'
. . . But laziness is not just the refusal to give our physical
effort to being prepared. Often it is the failure to give expression
to our convictions; we do not live them . . . Society would rather
invest in prisons [than in] education, employment programs and
serious compassionate welfare reform . . . Society works hard
at being unprepared!" From a convocation speech to students
given by Luther E. Smith, professor of church and community at
Emory University. (Chronicle of Higher Education, Oct. 11)
M A R G I N A L I A
LOOKING GOOD: ACCESS GRANTED
SMELLING BAD: ACCESS DENIED
Two emerging technologies for improving security: The Miros company
has created a device that controls computer access using a small
video camera mounted on top of the monitor. When someone sits
down at the machine, the device's software snaps a picture of
the would-be user and compares it with those stored in an image
database. If it can't make a match, access is denied. (So you
might want to wash off that Halloween makeup first.) At Tufts
University, researchers are developing an electronic sniffer to
grant access to a building or room based on a person's personal
body odor. The system combines fiber-optic sensors and neural
network software to identify specific smells. By analyzing the
reaction of a bundle of sensors, the neural network software can
sort out up to a million chemical compounds. (From Information
Week, Sept. 2, and Business Week, Dec. 11, 1995)