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AG AND LIFE SCIENCES ONLINE
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The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Newsletter
Iowa State University
March 5, 2012 No. 690
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COLLEGE NEWS
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CALS ALUM TO PRESENT HERTZ LECTURE TONIGHT, MARCH 5
Joe Taets (`88, agricultural business), senior vice president and president of the agricultural services business unit at Archer Daniels Midland Company, will present the 2012 Carl and Marjory Hertz Lecture on Emerging Issues in Agriculture tonight, March 5, at 7 p.m. in the Memorial Union Great Hall. Taets will speak on "Setting the Global Table: Strategies for Feeding and Fueling a Growing World."
NEW CALS PLACEMENT RATE 97.6 PERCENT
CALS placement rates exceeded 97 percent for fall 2010, spring 2011 and summer 2011 graduates. Eighty percent of respondents were employed and 17.6 percent were pursuing advanced degrees. More than 72 percent stayed in Iowa.
CALS DIVERSITY PROGRAMS INTERVIEWS CONTINUE MARCH 8
Jathan Chicoine, the second of four candidates for the CALS Diversity Programs Officer position, will hold an open seminar on Thursday, March 8, at 1:30 p.m. in 13 Curtiss Hall. Candidate information and open seminar dates are available online. The final two candidates will be held on campus March 19 and March 22.
ISU TURF BOWL TEAM BRINGS HOME 12TH WIN IN 14 YEARS
The ISU Turf Bowl team won first place for the 12th time in 14 years at the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America 18th Annual Collegiate Turf Bowl held in Las Vegas on March 1. For its win, the ISU team received $4,000 from John Deere. Members of the winning team, who are all horticulture majors, include seniors Isaac Mertz, Dan Strey, Shane Lohman and Casey Sheehy, who is a junior. The team is coached by Nick Dunlap, a graduate student in horticulture, and the team advisor is Nick Christians, University Professor of horticulture. In a video produced by the Golf Course Superintendents Association, the narrator indicates that Iowa State is the team to beat.
NATIONAL SWINE NUTRITION GUIDE SOFTWARE UPDATED
The U.S. Pork Center of Excellence has updated its National Swine Nutrition Guide Diet Formulation and Evaluation software. The software enables producers to customize diets that best fit their operations.
MARCH 6 LUNCH AND LEARN: THINKSPACE
The Brenton Center's next Lunch and Learn, scheduled for March 6 at noon in 8 Curtiss Hall, will provide an overview of ThinkSpace, a new online case study tool that helps students develop valuable problem-solving skills. Ann Marie VanDerZanden, horticulture and director of the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, will present. Pizza and refreshments will be provided. To attend, contact Amy Pilcher, apilcher@iastate.edu, 4-1862.
SIGMA XI LECTURE ON HUMAN GENOME EVOLUTION, MARCH 8
Mark Batzer, department of biological sciences at Louisiana State University, will present the Sigma Xi lecture on Thursday, March 8, at 8 p.m. in the Memorial Union Gallery. Batzer will speak on "The Impact of Retrotransposons on Human Genome Evolution."
CALS STUDENTS RECEIVE NCGA SCHOLARSHIPS
The National Corn Growers Association honored recipients of the Academic Excellence in Agriculture Scholarship at the Commodity Classic 2012 I Nashville, Tenn. The scholarships, created to foster promising agricultural leaders for the future, provided the five winners with $1,000. Recipients from CALS are Andy Chamra of Rose Hill, a junior in agricultural business, and Bethany Olson of Jewell, a junior specializing in agricultural business and international agriculture.
ISU COWS RECEIVE PATHFINDER AWARD
Fifteen cows at the ISU McNay Research and Demonstration Farm near Chariton have received Pathfinder awards from the American Angus Association. Primary production criteria for the award include having a first calf at or before the average age of the herd, weaning three calves or more and calving regularly each year. One of this year's Pathfinder cows has produced 10 calves and met all criteria.
REGISTER FOR BIGMAP SYMPOSIUM BY APRIL 1
The ninth annual BIGMAP Symposium will be held April 18. This year's symposium will address "Agricultural Biotechnology Regulation, Trade and Co-existence." Registration is free to ISU faculty and graduate students as long as seats are available, so please register before April 1.More: http://www.ucs.iastate.edu/mnet/bigmap/home.html
DEPARTMENT OF AGRONOMY WINS LIVE GREEN AWARD
The Department of Agronomy's Aaron Brand, greenhouse manager, recently accepted an ISU Live Green Initiative award for best reduction of energy use during semester break. The honor was given to recognize the reduction in energy use in the agronomy greenhouse during winter break.
DEADLINES AND REMINDERS
March 5: Gamma Sigma Delta award nominations due
March 28: Mega Trends in Agriculture
April 10-11: Fourth Annual Egg Industry Issues Forum,
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FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
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NSF IGERT PREPROPOSALS DUE MARCH 19
The NSF Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship program has been developed to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with interdisciplinary backgrounds, deep knowledge in chosen disciplines, and technical, professional and personal skills. A limit of one proposal may be submitted by an institution either as a single institution or as a lead institution in a multi-institution proposal. CALS researchers should submit preproposals to Joe Colletti (colletti@iastate.edu) by close of business on March 19. Centers that do not report to a college should submit preproposals to the VPR office. More: http://www.ag.iastate.edu/research/fundingResources/
RFP FOR ISU PUBLICATION SUBVENTION GRANTS
Publication subvention grants are available to support the publication of the scholarly writings and other worthy productions of ISU faculty and staff, as well as selected manuscripts by others whose manuscripts deal with topics related to the State of Iowa and the surrounding region. Publications can use any appropriate medium, such as books, CDs, DVDs or the internet. Approximately $100,000 per year will be available, and individual grants cannot exceed $20,000. Applications should be submitted electronically (in PDF format) to Gaye Simonson (gmsimon@iastate.edu) by April 6.
FUNDING INFORMATION, OPPORTUNITIES AND DEADLINE REMINDERS
Dates listed are application deadlines. Contact: Roxanne Clemens, rclemens@iastate.edu
Additional information is posted at CALS Funding Resources, http://www.ag.iastate.edu/research/fundingResources/
March 19: Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health, Pilot/Feasibility Projects Program.
March 30 (notice of intent):ARPA-E Open Funding Opportunity Announcement (OPEN FOA): $250,000 to $10 million. More: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/
April 1: NSF Sustainability Research Networks. More: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=503645&WT.mc_ev=click
April 2: Native Seed and Seedling Development Project in Montana; $2,500 to $30,000.
April 16 (receipt of tenders): UK Food Standards Agency, International Study of Different Existing Delivery Models for Feed and Food Official Controls.
May 14 (letter of intent): NIH Collaborations for Macromolecular Interactions in Cells (R01 and U54). More: (R01) http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-GM-13-004.html, (U54) http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-GM-13-005.html
June 1: NASA Atmospheric Composition: Modeling and Analysis. More: http://goo.gl/hVG6V
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INFOGRAZING
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AMBASSADOR SPEAKS ON FIGHTING HUMAN TRAFFICKING, MARCH 6
Ambassador Luis CdeBaca, President Obama's appointee to direct the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, will speak on Tuesday, March 6, at 8 p.m. in the Memorial Union Sun Room. CdeBaca, a Huxley native an ISU alumnus, and son of retired CALS diversity programs director, Mary de Baca, has worked under three presidential administrations to combat human trafficking and modern forms of slavery.
SP@ISU LUNCH ON ACHIEVING SUCCESS IN BROADER IMPACTS
Strengthening the Professoriate will host a lunchtime discussion on Tuesday, March 6, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Memorial Union Gallery, featuring faculty members who have been successful in obtaining grant funding and have strong ideas of broader impacts. Faculty featured are Basil Nikolau, biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology; Drena Dobbs, genetics, development and cell biology; and Jim McCalley, electrical and computer engineering. More: Megan Heitmann, heitmann@iastate.edu, 4-8061
EVENT SUBMISSIONS FOR ALUMNI CALENDAR DUE APRIL 1
Submissions for the 2012-2013 ISU Calendar of Events are being accepted through April 1. Send to Karen Good at the Alumni Center, kjlgood@iastate.edu, 420 Beach Ave., 4-9402 fax. Due to space limitations, not all events will be included, but every attempt will be made to cover a wide range of campus activities. Inclusive dates are Aug. 1, 2012 through July 31, 2013.
CROUP SCOUTING COMPETITION OPEN TO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
The Crop Scouting Competition for Iowa Youth 2012 will be held July 31 at the ISU Field Extension Education Laboratory (FEEL) Farm near Boone. High school students are invited to compete. The competition is conducted by ISU Integrated Pest Management Program with support from the Iowa Soybean Association and Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.
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INTERNAL VOICES
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SEEDSTOCK.COM: ISU AND SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE
(From a Feb. 29 article posted on Seedstock.com, a sustainable agriculture blog; the first in a series of articles profiling land-grant universities.) In the world of agricultural education, Iowa State University has historical bragging rights"¦ The university is now a leading agricultural college with an edge in sustainable agriculture programs and research, particularly through the university's renowned Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. ISU is home to the nation's first comprehensive graduate program in sustainable agriculture, and it claims to have the largest group of faculty in the country working on sustainable agriculture issues"¦ The idea behind ISU's BioCentury Research Farm is to boost innovation and production capacity associated with bio-based fuels, chemicals and products, and to do it sustainably. "Anything you can dream of making from petroleum, there is probably a route to make it from biomass," said Larry Johnson, director or the BioCentury Research Farm. "The issue is economics. Not all of them are economical, and our mission is to make them economical." More: http://seedstock.com/2012/02/29/iowa-state-nations-first-land-grant-univ....
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AG AND LIFE SCIENCES ONLINE
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EDITOR
Julie Stewart, jstewart@iastate.edu
Phone: (515) 294-5616 Web site: http://www.ag.iastate.edu/aginfo/
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