150 Points of Pride

The Iowa State University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has a proud and distinguished history. As part of Iowa State's sesquicentennial celebration, 150 points of pride related to the College - accomplishments, discoveries, contributions, highlights, famous and interesting people - will be posted here. These postings will coincide with 150 days of the 2007-2008 academic year, beginning Aug. 20, 2007 and ending May 2, 2008, with time off for the Thanksgiving, winter and spring breaks. Check back each Monday for five new items.

Agriculture Career Day

The Iowa State University Ag Career Day is the largest agricultural career fair in the nation with about 150 ag-related companies recruiting the more than 1,100 students in attendance for jobs and internships. The event is the unofficial kick-off for the fall recruitment season, and about 40 interview schedules generally are offered the day after the event. The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Career Services office is dedicated to providing students the attention needed to be successful in today’s agricultural workforce. The office at 141 Curtiss Hall offers several services to help students find jobs, internships and summer employment, including general career guidance and advice on writing resumes and cover letters, preparing for interviews and developing job search techniques.

Fast fact: Of 2005-2006 College of Agriculture and Life Sciences graduates receiving a bachelor’s degree, 98.2 percent were either employed or pursuing further education within six months of graduation.

Crop Adviser Institute

The Crop Adviser Institute (CAI) at Iowa State is an online continuing education provider for agricultural professionals in North America. The Institute was established in the fall of 2002. Its mission is to provide high quality, interactive, computer-based, learning modules designed for the continuing education of agricultural professionals. This mission is being fulfilled by a partnership between the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Iowa State University Extension. Agricultural continuing education has traditionally been delivered on-site. The CAI was established to provide an alternative method of delivering continuing education. Users who access the CAI course modules have a broad range of course topics to choose from and may choose when and where to complete courses. Courses have been developed in five areas: nutrient management, crop management, soil and water management, integrated pest management and professional development. Once a user completes the course, he or she has the option of taking a short on-line exam to receive continuing education units to maintain their Certified Crop Adviser certification through the American Society of Agronomy.

Fast fact: There currently are 2,100 users in the CAI database. While users aren’t required to input a snail mail address, it’s known participants live in Canada, Norway and many other parts of the world.

First crop bioterrorism course

A course offered in the 2003 fall semester was the first in the United States to address crop bioterrorism. “Issues Related to Crop Bioterrorism and Food Security” was offered in the departments of plant pathology and entomology in a colloquium format. The two-credit course included the study of microorganisms and insect pests that can directly affect the health and productivity of crops. A series of seminars by invited speakers from science, industry and government led off the course. A two-hour discussion with the speakers was held the day after the seminars. The course was open to both undergraduate and graduate students. Graduate students in the course produced a “white paper” that listed the top 10 disease and insect pests that threaten Iowa agriculture.

Fast fact: Another new course will be offered in 2008 that is an outgrowth of the earlier one on crop bioterrorism. The course on crop and food biosecurity will cover potential points of vulnerabilities in the U.S. cropping, food processing and food distribution systems.

Iowa Pork Industry Center

The Iowa Pork Industry Center (IPIC) was created in July 1994 to serve as the central access point for Iowa State programs related to the pork industry. It offers a coordinated effort of the colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, and focuses on programs that are integral and complementary to work by ISU Extension. Located on campus, IPIC faculty and staff provide leadership to swine-related research, educational programming and distance learning efforts. IPIC engages in cooperative working relationships with more than 25 extension field specialists, all Iowa county extension education directors, and more than 50 faculty and staff with responsibilities for teaching, research and extension in the departments of agricultural and biosystems engineering, animal science and economics. IPIC uses multidisciplinary expertise to secure external funding from a variety of sources, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture and state, commodity and industry organizations. IPIC uses field-collected data to help producers determine strengths and opportunities for improving their operations, and aggregate these data to develop decision aids for the Iowa pork industry; works with industry representatives, commodity organizations and producers to establish value-added markets for Iowa pork products; assists animal industry personnel in establishing and evaluating animal identification/traceability, pork quality and swine welfare assurance programs; and responds to industry-critical challenges, such as animal care and well-being, food safety and production profitability.

Fast fact: The series of Sow Longevity spreadsheet software programs provided by IPIC has been distributed to more than 400 producers and other members of the pork industry representing a total of 25.4 million sows from all continents except Antarctica.

PQA Plus Program

The Iowa Pork Industry Center at Iowa State is at the forefront of swine welfare and pork quality assurance training and assessment. Beginning with the development of the former Swine Welfare Assurance Program (SWAP) and continuing with the Pork Quality Assurance Plus (PQAPlusTM) program, ISU faculty and staff members are integral to the ongoing success of these national programs. Iowa State's James McKean, Ken Stalder and Tom Baas were among the initial group of educators who developed the voluntary SWAP program, complete with certified assessor and producer training programs. These three were joined by Locke Karriker and Anna Johnson as part of the Pork Industry Animal Care Coalition that was responsible for the PQAPlusTM program. As part of this leadership opportunity, ISU Extension swine field specialists were among the first in the nation to be certified as SWAP assessors and PQAPlusTM advisors, and remain in demand as trainers for Iowa individuals, groups and organizations associated with PQAPlusTM.

Fast fact: In the first four months of the PQAPlusTM program, IPIC faculty trained more than 150 PQAPlusTM advisors. Every scheduled training session from May through October was filled with waiting lists extending into December 2007.

*Some historic photographs courtesy of the University Archives.

150 Points of Pride Archives