COLLEGE NEWS
- Convocation for agriculture graduates on May 10
- Natural born leaders: Ag students in action
- Field days set at ISU research farms
- RSVP for upcoming advisor evaluation program
- Awards edition of Ag Online coming May 2
- Deadlines & Reminders
COMMUNICATIONS KIOSK
- Presentation tip: Remember to pack the fonts
INFOGRAZING
- New-student survey: All in the family
- Drinking water safety the subject of Iowa TV show
EXTERNAL VOICES
- Finding common ground far from the farm
MARGINALIA
- Next Slide, Please
C O L L E G E N E W S
CONVOCATION FOR AGRICULTURE GRADUATES ON MAY 10
The College of Agriculture convocation for graduating students
will begin at 9 a.m., Saturday, May 10, in C.Y. Stephens Auditorium.
The convocation is for spring and summer semester graduates. Students
are recognized individually in the presence of family and friends.
A reception prior to the convocation begins at 8:15 a.m. Faculty
and staff are welcome to attend.
NATURAL BORN LEADERS: AG STUDENTS IN ACTION
A few recent examples of leadership by College of Agriculture
students: Lisa Ahrens, freshman in agronomy and ag business, was
named to the Iowa Board of Regents by Gov. Branstad; Rob Wiese,
ag studies senior, is president-elect of the Government of the
Student Body; Jay McLaren, ag business sophomore, was named president
of the Inter-Residence Hall Association for 1997-98; and Daniel
Faidley, ag business senior, was co-chair of VEISHEA.
FIELD DAYS SET AT ISU RESEARCH FARMS
Twenty-four field days are scheduled from June to September at
ISU's Research and Demonstration Farms. They include Home Demonstration
Garden field days, Agronomy Day and Weed Science Field Day. For
a complete list of dates, times and locations, see this Web site:
http://www.ag.iastate.edu/news/researchfarms.html
RSVP FOR UPCOMING ADVISOR EVALUATION PROGRAM
To attend the May 1 College of Agriculture professional development
program on advisor evaluation, RSVP by April 29 to Norma Hensley,
4-6614 or nhensley@iastate.edu. Indicate a preference for a meat
or vegetarian meal. The program, in 210 Bessey, begins at 5:15
p.m. For more information: Les Wilson, 4-3889 or lawilson@iatstate.edu.
AWARDS EDITION OF AG ONLINE COMING MAY 2
The second annual special edition of Ag Online, featuring recent
awards, honors and accomplishments of College of Agriculture faculty,
staff and students, will be sent next Friday, May 2. Communications
advisors in each department have been collecting and forwarding
this information to us. Contact your local advisor or send a note
to Brian Meyer, bmeyer@iastate.edu, by Wednesday, April 30.
DEADLINES & REMINDERS
May 1: Advisor Evaluation Program, 5:15 p.m., 210 Bessey. RSVP
by April 29: 4-6614 or nhensley@iastate.edu
May 10: College of Agriculture Convocation for Graduating Students,
C.Y. Stephens, 9 a.m.
May 12: Pre-proposal deadline, Multi-state Consortium on Animal
Waste, 4-1823
C O M M U N I C A T I O N S K I O S K
PRESENTATION TIP: REMEMBER TO PACK THE FONTS
On your next trip to make a computer presentation, you could avoid
some odd-looking slides by packing spare fonts. If you plan to
use someone else's computer to make a PowerPoint or similar software
presentation, the computer may create font-substitution problems
if it doesn't have the fonts used to create the presentation.
One solution is to take your fonts along on a disk so you can
install them if necessary. Most software also allows you to embed
the fonts in the presentation. That will mean a larger file, but
the presentation will look as intended.
I N F O G R A Z I N G
NEW-STUDENT SURVEY: ALL IN THE FAMILY
(More results from last fall's survey of 540 new students in the
College of Agriculture.) Percentage who said the following family
members had attended ISU:
Father: 25
Mother: 12
Brother or sister: 27
Aunt, uncle or cousins: 49
In 1985, percentage who said father attended: 18
In 1985, percentage whose mother attended: 6
DRINKING WATER SAFETY THE SUBJECT OF IOWA TV SHOW
The safety of Iowa's drinking water will be discussed on "Iowa
News & Views," a statewide cable TV series. The program,
airing the weeks of April 28 and May 5, will feature L.D. McMullen
of the Des Moines Water Works and George Hallberg of the University
of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory. In Ames, "Iowa News & Views"
airs on Channel 10 on Mondays, 7:30 p.m.; Tuesdays, 10:30 p.m.;
and Fridays, 6:30 p.m. Viewers may participate in an Internet
discussion forum about the show's topics by sending e-mail to
i-news@pobox.com or by visiting the web site at: http://pobox.com/~i-news
E X T E R N A L V O I C E S
FINDING COMMON GROUND FAR FROM THE FARM
"I'm an island in a sea of city people whose culture is so
alien that I can't begin to understand them. But corresponding
daily with [two agricultural listservs] gives me a sense of community
and of belonging to a group with a common background. I have more
in common with a dairy farmer in New Zealand or Ireland than with
the person who lives 30 feet beyond my pasture fence and works
for the post office." F.W. Owen of Homerville, Ohio, from
a two-part series on farmers using the Internet in the New York
Times' CyberTimes: http://search.nytimes.com/library/cyber/nation/032197nation.html
M A R G I N A L I A
NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE
See this issue's "Communications Kiosk" item for a tip
on making presentations go smoother. For those who attend a lot
of scientific presentations, the following poem, "Next Slide,
Please," written by Nobel laureate in chemistry Roald Hoffman,
may sound familiar. (From "A Literary Companion to Science,"
1989.)
there was no question that the reaction worked
but transient colors were seen
in the slurry of sodium methoxide in dichloromethane
and we got a whole lot of products
for which we can't sort out the kinetics
the next slide will show
the most important part
very rapidly
within two minutes
and I forgot to say on further warming
we get in fact the ketone
you can't read it on the slides
but I refer to the structure you saw before
the low temperature infrared spectrum
as I say
gives very direct evidence
so does the NMR
we calculated it
throwing away the geminal coupling
which is of course wrong
there is a difference of 0.9 parts per million
and it is a singlet
and sharp
which means two things
either
you're doing this NMR in excess methoxide
and it's exchanging
or
I would hazard a guess
that certainly in these nucleophilic conditions
there could well be
an alternative path
to the enone you see there
it's difficult to see
you could monitor this quite well in the infrared
I'm sorry in the NMR
my time is up I see
well this is a brief summary of our work
not all of which
I've had time to go into
in as much detail as I wanted
today.