Ag and Life Sciences ONLINE

COLLEGE NEWS



- College strategic plan



- Tent-a-Gate with ag alumni



- Administrative changes



- Experiment Station milestone



COMMUNICATIONS KIOSK



- Feedback



INFOGRAZING



- TROL for math-science-tech resources



- Multicultural ag student program



EXTERNAL VOICES



- Seven guiding personal principles



- Top five skills for ag grads



MARGINALIA



- Say it with a smiley







W E L C O M E T O A G O N L I N E !







Welcome to the first issue of Ag Online, a twice-a-month



electronic newsletter for faculty and staff in the College of



Agriculture at Iowa State University.



We hope Ag Online will be one way to help faculty and staff be



well-informed about the college -- and be effective participants



in the college. Ag Online will provide news on what's going on

at



the college level. We hope that some information in the newsletter



will help faculty and staff with situations that come up every

day



. . . computer troubleshooting tips, what to do when a news



reporter calls, managing stress or other topics.



Ag Online will include digests of timely issues of importance

to



the college, whether they be in education, science and technology,



communications or other areas. We will list contracts and grants



awarded within the college as well as papers accepted for



publication in refereed journals, new titles of ISU Extension



publications, software, etc. And we plan to sprinkle in bits and



pieces that'll be interesting, thought-provoking or just fun.





That's the kind of resource we want Ag Online to be. We don't

want



it to divert attention from publications that serve the entire



university community, and do not plan to list honors,



achievements, seminars, calendars and other items that are covered



elsewhere.



We welcome comments about Ag Online. Send them to



bmeyer@iastate.edu



HOW TO SUBSCRIBE (OR SPOT US IN CYBERSPACE)



Since there's no comprehensive list of College of Agriculture

e-



mail addresses, we're asking people to subscribe to Ag Online.



This first issue is being e-mailed to distribution lists that

do



exist, including department, center and extension offices. We

ask



that these offices forward this issue to their local e-mail



addresses. A flyer about Ag Online also will be sent through



campus mail.



To subscribe, send your name, e-mail address and



the message "Ag Online subscribe" to bmeyer@iastate.edu

(or if



you're on the College of Agriculture server, send to



AGCOLLEGE/BMEYER).



Ag Online also will be posted on the Internet, in the College

of



Agriculture directory in the World Wide Web system. The college's

home page can be found through your Web client (i.e., Mosaic,

MacWeb, WinWeb,



Mosaic for Windows, etc.). Open URL and enter the following address:



http://aghelp.exnet.iastate.edu







C O L L E G E N E W S







COLLEGE STRATEGIC PLAN REPORT DUE SOON



The College Planning Advisory Committee (C-PAC) will deliver its



first strategic planning report to the dean in October or



November. "When the report is finished, there will be another



round of discussion about its recommendations. We're aiming for



substantial agreement on goals for the next five years,"

said Mike



Chaplin, committee chairman.



The challenge is narrowing a strategic plan down to a manageable



number of issues, he added. For example, there are issues in



undergraduate and graduate education; the college's role in



changing agricultural systems and rural communities; research

and



extension priorities; international programs; protection of



natural resources; our relationship with other public and private



organizations; and consumer needs and preferences.



"Our final report will only be final as far as C-PAC's activities



are concerned," Chaplin said. "In practice the report

will become



a working document that guides us but doesn't confine us."





TENT-A-GATE WITH AG ALUMNI SEPT. 17



Faculty and staff are invited to visit with ag alumni at Tent-a-



Gate, the College of Agriculture Alumni Society's annual tent



party/tailgater. The event will be held before the ISU-Western



Michigan football game, Sept. 17, beginning at 10:30 a.m. The



society's two tents will be set up east of the Olsen Building,



just north of Cyclone Stadium. The Iowa Pork Producers will serve



a barbecue meal. Meal tickets are available for $5 -- call Roger



Bruene, 54725.



Also, the newest Ag Alumni Forum, the annual publication of the



ISU College of Agriculture Alumni Society, is available from Ag



Information Services. For a copy, contact Marty Behrens, 5



5616 or mbehrens@iastate.edu.



RECENT COLLEGE ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES



Gerald Klonglan will serve as interim associate dean and interim



associate director of the Experiment Station after the departure



of Tom Fretz, who leaves this month to become dean of the College



of Agriculture at the University of Maryland.



Nolan Hartwig is interim associate dean of ISU Extension for the



college, replacing Jerald DeWitt, who is now state specialist

for



sustainable agriculture. DeWitt also is co-leader, with Klonglan,



of Vision 2020, the Kellogg Grant-funded project to examine the



future of land-grant universities in the next 25 years.



Dianne Draper was named assistant director of the Experiment



Station for the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.



Susan Lamont is a new assistant director of the Experiment



Station, replacing Max Rothschild, who returns full-time to the



animal science department after four years in the position.



Lamont, an animal science professor, divides her time between



administration and animal science teaching and research.



Cornelia Flora is director of the North Central Regional Center



for Rural Development, replacing Peter Korsching, who returns

to



teaching and research in the sociology department after 10 years



in the position.



New department executive officers include Willis Goudy, chair

of



sociology, and Arne Hallam, interim chair of economics. John



Miranowski will become the new economics chair on Jan. 9.



PAPER-TRAIL MILESTONE FOR EXPERIMENT STATION



The Experiment Station reached a milestone on August 29 with the



authorization of its 16,000th journal paper. J-16000 was "Elm

leaf



beetles have greatly reduced levels of gene diversity" by

E.S.



Krafsur and Pramoda Nariboli. Complete records on authorized



papers have been kept since July 8, 1938, when J-569 ("New

smut



and rust resistant oats from Markton crosses," F.A. Coffman)

was



issued. Recently, there's been a considerable increase in research



paper production. For example, J-15000 was authorized on July

7,



1992, showing an average of about 500 papers authorized per year.









C O M M U N I C A T I O N S K I O S K









KEEP GETTING BETTER: GET FEEDBACK



Encourage informal feedback from faculty, staff and students



through conversations, memos, letters, phone calls, e-mails and



meetings. But also ensure more formal regular feedback. This



includes course evaluations, readership studies, exit interviews,



surveys, advisory groups, program evaluations, focus groups, etc.



Feedback usually contains some surprises -- and surprises usually



mean learning.







I N F O G R A Z I N G







MATH-SCIENCE-TECH RESOURCES TO SHARE? TRY TROL



The Master's Network is a teacher resource project directed by



Seattle Pacific University. Its goal is to enhance teaching and



learning of math, science and technology in Washington State.

The



network provides TROL (Teaching Resources On Line) for Math-



Science-Technology, a catalog database designed to provide



Washington State's K-12 teachers with easy access to resources



available statewide and across the nation. This fall, TROL will

be



available to educators directly through Internet or by calling

a



toll-free number. If you'd like to share information on resources



provided by your organization, contact Ray Myers, director,



Master's Network TROL, Box 71, Seattle Pacific University, 3307



Third Avenue West, Seattle, WA 98119; phone 22504, fax

206-



281-2756.



MULTICULTURAL SCHOLARS PROGRAM



USDA CSRS requests proposals for competitive grants under its



Higher Education Multicultural Scholars Program. Grants will be



awarded for undergraduate multicultural scholarships to meet



national needs for training food and agricultural scientists and



professionals. Scholarship recipients will be selected by the



colleges and universities receiving project grant awards. About



30-40 grants, averaging $50,000 each, will be made in fiscal year



1995. These will support between 80-120 scholars at about 20



colleges. Deadline for submitting proposals: Sept. 16, 1994. For

a



copy of the Application Kit and Program Announcement, contact



Proposal Services Branch, Awards Management Division, CSRS,



USDA,



Room 303, Aerospace Center, Ag Box 2245, Washington, DC 20250-



2245; phone 25048.







E X T E R N A L V O I C E S







TOP FIVE SKILLS THAT EMPLOYERS LOOK FOR



The College of Agriculture at University of Nevada, Reno, asked



employers in agribusiness and the food industry (140 in 38 states



and Canada) to rate the five most important areas of knowledge

for



agriculture grads. The top five: 1) business and economics, 89



percent; 2) communications skills, 88 percent; 3)



management/administration, 76 percent; 4) production agriculture,



73 percent; 5) computer science, 54 percent. Number six was



science/biology, mentioned by 20 percent of respondents.



SEVEN GUIDING PERSONAL PRINCIPLES



The following list, "Some guiding personal principles,"

was



outlined by Thayne R. Dutson, dean of the College of Agricultural



Sciences at Oregon State University and director of the Oregon



Agricultural Experiment Station, in a September 1993 draft of

a



strategic planning document for the college:



- Decisions are built from the ground up.



- It is more important to develop cooperative solutions than to



win negotiations.



- Stick to your word.



- Seek the positive interpretation of situations.



- Try to understand the long-term consequences of a decision --



before making it.



- It is tough to get anything done without taking risks.



- One does not need to manage every detail of a system, but it

is



important to have a pretty good understanding of the system and



why it is there.







M A R G I N A L I A







SAY IT WITH A SMILEY: EMOTICONS



Emoticons are cryptic little codes used to convey the spirit in



which a line of text is typed -- for example, to indicate that

the



"snide" comment you just read was really a joke. They're

figures



created with keyboard symbols and used to express the emotions

of



normal voice communication. Some are funny, some bizarre. They

are



read with the head tilted to the left. Here's some examples:



Emoticon Meaning



-------- -------



:-o User is shocked



:-( Sad



:-< Real sad



>:-< Mad



8-| Suspense



|-) Hee hee



|-D Ho ho



:-I Hmm



:-O Uh oh



|-) User is asleep (boredom)



|-P Yuk!



:-s User after a BIZARRE comment



:-& User is tongue-tied



:-7 User after a wry statement



;-) Winking Smiley



,-} Wry and winking



:-p User is sticking tongue out (at you!)



:-| No expression face, 'that comment doesn't phase me'



:- Undecided user



#-) User partied all night



:-: User is mutant



*<|:-) User is Santa Claus (Ho Ho Ho)