7/11/00

Contacts:
Mark Gleason, Plant Pathology, 515/294-0579
Susan Thompson, Agriculture Information, 515/294-0705

COSTA RICAN STUDENTS AND FACULTY TO VISIT ISU

AMES, Iowa -- The next step in an exchange program between a Costa Rican university and Iowa State University will take place July 27-Aug. 4. That's when a group of students and faculty from the University of Costa Rica (UCR) comes to Ames.

The group will include 15 graduate and undergraduate students who have an emphasis in integrated pest management of crop plants, plus several faculty and administrators from the Facultad de Agronomia of UCR.

Mark Gleason, a plant pathology professor, is coordinating the visit. "This is the next stage in what we envision will be a continued interchange of students and faculty in pest sciences, horticulture and agronomy between ISU and UCR," Gleason says. "These two institutions have a long history of cooperation, and many ISU classes have visited Costa Rica and UCR. But this is one of the first times a student group from Costa Rica will visit ISU and Iowa."

The group will tour various types of farms, from conventional soybean and corn operations to organic and specialty-crop operations. Tours of research facilities at Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc., and ISU also are planned.

The Costa Rican group will stay at Friley Hall at ISU, and there will be several social and recreational events so the visitors can mix informally with ISU students and faculty.

The trip is being sponsored by the ISU College of Agriculture, the ISU departments of plant pathology, entomology and horticulture, UCR and Bayer Inc.

Gleason says he sees the visit as a way to give UCR students and faculty a close-up view of ISU and Iowa agriculture, while building new linkages between the two universities.

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