Ag and Life Sciences ONLINE

COLLEGE NEWS



- Higher ed forum at ISU



- Family farm ag ethics program



- Future soy oil uses



- CommLab welcomes queries



- Deadlines & reminders



COMMUNICATIONS KIOSK



- Just say it



INFOGRAZING



- Conflict resolution: I cut, you choose



- Changing diet by 2050



EXTERNAL VOICES



- Virtual neighbors



- Virtual institutions



MARGINALIA



- A straight answer



- Hot pink







C O L L E G E N E W S







HIGHER ED FORUM AT ISU



The Department of Agricultural Education and Studies and the W.K.

Kellogg Foundation are sponsoring a forum on the future of higher

education and graduate studies. The forum, March 27-31 at the

Memorial Union, will examine trends and issues in higher education,

diversity, communications, extension, adult education, agribusiness,

the environment, distance learning, graduate studies, international

programs, bioethics, technology and rural sociology. Speakers

are from universities, businesses, governmental agencies and organizations.

Speakers are available to meet with individual departments. Faculty,

staff and the public are welcome to attend. Contact Alan Kahler,

294-0894, for a program.



FAMILY FARM AG ETHICS PROGRAM



The Experiment Station and the ISU Bioethics Program are sponsoring

an agricultural ethics workshop on the family farm, 11:10 a.m.-1

p.m, Tuesday, March 28, 2050 Agronomy. The first hour is a video

on ethics and farm structure, followed by discussion. Students,

faculty, staff and the public are invited. Background reading

material is available. Instructors who wish to bring classes to

the workshop are encouraged to get the reading material in advance.

Contact Sue Lamont, 294-3629, or Gary Comstock, 294-0054.



FUTURE SOY OIL USES



Faculty and staff are invited to attend sessions of a March 28-30

workshop on identifying future industrial uses for soybean oil.

The meeting will include an announcement of a new ISU effort to

study agriculture-related chemical products. National and international

experts from industry and the public sector will speak. Workshop

sponsors include the Experiment Station, Center for Crops Utilization

Research and Institute for Physical Research and Technology. To

find out more: Connie Hardy, 294-3394 or chardy@iastate.edu.



COMMLAB WELCOMES QUERIES



Last semester the college's Communications Laboratory offered

14 short lessons and two TA training sessions and scheduled 60

tutoring appointments. Nine departments or programs used the lab's

services last fall. CommLab welcomes requests or inquiries. For

more information: Lee-Ann Kastman, 294-7550 or lkastman@iastate.edu.





DEADLINES & REMINDERS



MARCH 24 -- Foreign travel grant applications due, 122 Curtiss.



MARCH 31 -- Proposals to College of Agriculture for computer-based

instructional support due, 124 Curtiss.



APRIL 1 -- College curriculum improvement proposals due, 124 Curtiss.









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









JUST SAY IT



Try reading your prose out loud. Hearing your words can help you

spot problems with the clarity of your sentences. Listen to your

words to decide whether your ideas flow smoothly or get jumbled.

And if you're striving to write in a conversational style, speaking

your piece will help you hear if you're on the right track. A

tip from Ag Information.







I N F O G R A Z I N G







CONFLICT RESOLUTION: I CUT, YOU CHOOSE



A mathematician and a political scientist have solved (to the

satisfaction of the prestigious American Mathematical Monthly)

the problem of fair, envy-free division of anything at all (cake,

inheritance, divorce settlement, wage dispute, etc.). The idea

is a generalization on the fair procedure for dividing a cake

into two pieces: "I cut, you choose" -- the presumption

being that I will cut the cake into two pieces I consider to be

equal, and so I will have no problem accepting the piece that

you leave for me. Generalizing the idea to three or more participants

required two conceptual breakthroughs: do the division into a

number of separate rounds rather than divide the whole "cake"

(such as an inheritance) at once; and in each round divide the

cake into more pieces than there are participants (and then simply

do another round). The procedure and its applications are included

in the forthcoming book, "Fair Division: From Cake Cutting

To Dispute Resolution." (Discover, March)



CHANGING U.S. DIET BY 2050



At February's American Association for the Advancement of Science

meeting, a panel of experts said environmental degradation coupled

with a growing population will radically change the diet of the

average American by the year 2050. With lands already pushed to

the limit and crop yields unable to keep up, panelists said they

believe there will be less meat, but more pasta, beans and potatoes

on American tables in the future. "Modern agriculture is

using land to convert petroleum to food," said Albert Allen

Bartlett of the University of Chicago, adding that domestic oil

wells will be depleted in 20 years. David Pimental of Cornell

University said the U.S. will lose an additional 120 million acres

of farmland to urban sprawl and erosion in the next 60 years while

the population doubles. If those trends play themselves out, the

U.S. will no longer be in a position to export food by the year

2025. (Minneapolis Star Tribune, Feb. 18)







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







VIRTUAL NEIGHBORS



"(Online) networks are based on choice. When they get uncomfortable,

it's easy to opt out of them. Communities teach tolerance, co-existence

and mutual respect. ... I fear that calling a network a community

leads people to complacency and delusion, to accepting an inadequate

substitute because they've never experienced the real thing and

they don't know what they're missing." Eric Utne in the March-April

issue of Utne Reader.



VIRTUAL INSTITUTIONS



"Intellectual work is social work -- notwithstanding the

myth of the solitary genius -- and the university is a social

institution. The Internet can enhance the society of the university

and quicken its pace of discovery and invention, but the electronic

environment cannot replace physical human society. We humans cannot

thrive in a bodiless, frownless, smileless ecology, and our intellectual

society cannot be complete without physical interaction,"

says the University of Pennsylvania's provost -- a point of view

that author Lewis Perelman characterizes as "an expression

of hope triumphing over logic." (Chronicle of Higher Education,

Jan. 27)







M A R G I N A L I A







A STRAIGHT ANSWER



After a professor remarked in class that "straight lines

on the landscape are put there by man," Gail Jensen Sanford

composed a list entitled "Straight Lines in Nature."

Originally published in the Visalia, CA, newspaper, items in her

list were excerpted in February's Harper's Magazine. A few examples:

"Distant edge of a prairie. Paths of hard rain and hail.

Snow-covered fields. Surface of a calm lake. Bill of a duck. Angle

of migrating birds. Trunks of young, fast-growing trees. Pine

needles. Silk strands woven by spiders. Cracks in the surface

of ice. Inside edge of a half-moon."



HOT PINK



One of the year's hottest trends: pink food and beverages, predicts

the National Food Processors Association. Food processors will

use more guava puree to add rosy color and a tropical flavor to

juices and other beverages. (Investor's Business Daily, March

3)