Fall 2009

[ BACK ]

Letter from the Dean

Iowa State is one of the universities featured in Princeton Review's The Best 371 Colleges: 2010 Edition. The edition reflects the opinions of more than 122,000 students at about 2,000 colleges and universities who were surveyed by Princeton Review, a test preparation company.

What I especially enjoyed reading in the 2010 edition were these comments on Iowa State:

• "Iowa State holds true to its initial mission of providing affordable, practical education with a special focus on agriculture . . ."
• "Today the school remains a great agriculture school . . ."

We have wonderful students who would express themselves like this to a national audience. This fall the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has more than usual - the highest enrollment we've seen in 30 years.

Our undergraduate enrollment stands at 3,082 students. The last time we were over 3,000 was the fall of 1980. Our record enrollment was 3,623, which came in 1977.

We now offer just shy of 30 majors. New this year are majors in global resource systems, culinary science and diet and exercise - all exciting areas to explore. If you look at the 10 majors with the highest numbers of students this fall, it illustrates the breadth and diversity of our programs: animal science, agricultural business, animal ecology, agricultural studies, biology, agronomy, industrial technology, horticulture and agricultural and life sciences education.

On the graduate student side, we also are seeing some of the highest numbers in years. This fall we have 706 graduate students studying in many disciplines or interdisciplinary programs.

Nearly 87 percent of our first-year students join learning communities, a proven way to make them feel at home, make new friends and study partners and keep their grades up.

The participation in learning communities is heartening, and reminds me how times have changed. In September, on the steps of Curtiss Hall, Neil Harl and his wife Darlene announced a major gift to the college (see Neil Harl's gift remarks). In his remarks, Dr. Harl told a story about his arrival as a freshman on campus in 1951, and how lonely and dejected he felt. Dr. Harl is a remarkable individual; he vowed then and there to persevere. And he did, growing into a career as one of the world's most influential agricultural economists.

I believe the seed of greatness is in many of these 3,082 undergraduates. Iowa and the world needs them. I know they will be tomorrow's leaders for innovations and solutions.

Wendy Wintersteen

Endowed Dean of Agriculture and Life Sciences