the dean's views

Greetings,

On June 14, Oregon State University held its 144th Commencement.  In the College of Agricultural Sciences, we celebrated the graduation of over 400 undergraduate and graduate students.  Graduation is always an exciting time as students close one chapter in their lives and look forward to beginning a new chapter.  It is a time for celebration, but it is also a time for reflection as students think back on the years of engagement, study, and hard work that brought them to this milestone in their lives.  I enjoy the pomp and circumstance associated with graduation, and especially the feeling I get as the platform party enters the stadium at the completion of the graduation march, and see the thousands of students in full regalia seated on the field with their parents, relatives, and friends cheering them on from the stands.  Congratulations to all our graduates who, as President Ed Ray often remarks, are our most important contributions to society.

The 2013 Regular Session of Oregon’s Seventy-Seventh Legislative Assembly adjourned July 8th.  With that came clarity with respect to the state portions of our budget.  The Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station and the OSU Extension Service, which together account for about 80% of our state funding, received an increase of 6.5% for the FY14-15 biennium relative to the FY12-13 biennium.  After four years of declining budgets, these are relatively “good news” budgets.  They should allow us to cover anticipated increases in costs during the FY14-15 biennium.  They do not, however, return us to pre-recession levels of funding.  The legislature also approved one-time funding for our molluscan broodstock program and a canola study, and recurring funding of $1.2 million (biennial) for fermentation sciences (“soil to market”) and additional funding for the State Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Coordinator position.  My thanks to all who participated in the legislative process this year.  Our stakeholders were terrific supporters and participated throughout the process in various ways, including providing testimony and engaging in town hall meetings across the state.  Thanks also to the legislators who make the tough decisions about where to allocate revenue that is never enough to go around.

Over the next few months, I will engage members of the College of Agricultural Sciences community, including staff and stakeholders, in a strategic intent process. We call this our “strategic intent” to distinguish it from a typical strategic plan.  Our goal, succinctly stated, is to determine if the things we are at work on are “roughly right and directionally correct”.  We recognize that the world in which we operate will continue to change in ways that we cannot always predict and that we must maintain flexibility to respond to change and opportunities.  At the same time, it is important to reaffirm our shared goals and priorities.  Our purpose is to determine what areas of research, teaching, and outreach we should emphasize in the next few years, such that we can address today’s problems while we also anticipate and prepare for change.  The results of our efforts will guide how we invest our resources of time, energy, and funds in the next few years.

In this issue of The Source, you will find many stories that chronicle the activities of the College.  I would like to draw your attention to one in particular in the Recent News section.  A prominent university ranking service recently placed agriculture and forestry at OSU as #8 in the world!  The ranking, which is based on evaluations by peers and the impact of our work, speaks to the excellence of the professors at OSU working in the areas of agriculture and forestry.  I hope you share my pride in the exceptional faculty we have in the College.

Dan

Daniel J. Arp
Reub Long Professor and Dean
College of Agricultural Sciences
Director, Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station

Greetings,

We have recently concluded a successful search for just the right person to serve as assistant dean for our College’s Office of Academic Programs. From a field of excellent candidates–each of whom took part in a series of interviews and presentations that involved faculty, staff, and students–we selected Penny Diebel for this important role. She begins in her new job as Spring Term opens here.

Dr. Diebel is an associate professor in our Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics who joined Oregon State in 1995 from the faculty of Kansas State University. Her initial assignment for our College was as a faculty member in the OSU Agriculture Program at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande. She relocated to the Corvallis campus in 2010.

The assistant dean is point person at the College level for our students, so we sought someone who understands and has experience working with students across a broad range from recruitment to advising, curriculum development and teaching, retention to career planning, and beyond. There’s a hint about Penny’s effectiveness in many of those roles when one notes that students chose her in 2012 as the College’s Professor of the Year.

As she described her decision to apply for the assistant dean position, Penny said, “I am applying, first and foremost, because the primary duty of this position, to provide leadership in support of the student experience in the College…, has been and continues to be my personal goal as a faculty member of Oregon State University and of the higher education community.”

The College of Agricultural Sciences has long been committed to providing the best possible educational experience for our students. In Penny Diebel as assistant dean we will have someone who has long worked at national and University levels to define institutional best practices for student engagement and success. That policy-level work has been informed by her nearly two decades staffing recruiting booths, visiting high schools and community colleges, representing us at county fairs, and engaging with student groups. In those venues, she has been part of explaining the College’s programs and attracting students to the diverse paths toward education in agriculture, food, and natural resources and the many career opportunities there. She also understands how our College can contribute to increased education in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines.

So, too, is our new assistant dean experienced at engaging students when they first arrive on campus, helping them discover how to be successful. She has a profound respect for our academic advisors and the individual attention they provide to our students. Together with our head advisor and departmental advisors, Penny will ensure that advising continues as an area of excellence for us. And as a teacher who has helped many students gain skills, develop intellectual maturity, and find passion in their studies, I know Penny will ensure curriculum development and teaching are high priorities.

I hope you soon have an opportunity to meet Penny Diebel personally but, even if that’s unlikely, I believe you may trust the College’s Academic Programs office is in good hands. Please join me in welcoming Penny and wishing her the best.

Dan

Dan J. Arp
Reub Long Professor and Dean
College of Agricultural Sciences
Director, Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station

Greetings in 2013,

While life has its share of challenges for those of us who are entrusted as stewards of our education, research, and outreach enterprises, there is seldom a day when there’s not at least one bright spot and, sometimes, many that come to my attention. In introducing this first issue of The Source for the new year, I have the privilege sharing with you a wealth of those “bright spots.”

Some articles in this issue answer the question “What’s new?” One recounts the story National Public Radio told about our new OSU cheese, Beaver Classic. Another tells of our partnership in providing renewable energy to the campus with the establishment of a large array of solar panels on land managed by our College. And there’s always excitement in announcing new educator-scientists joining our faculty—and this issue introduces you to four of them. They bring expertise in turf management, potato breeding, entomology, and dairy.

A special section offers multiple perspectives on our Agricultural Executive Council and the students who make it up. These dedicated and hard-working student leaders are keys to communication and collaboration among the members of the many clubs and organizations that offer co-curricular learning and leadership training through interest-based experience. This year’s “Ag Exec” team has brought student participation and activities to a level unparalleled in the recent past. Read about them and share the excitement!

While our students, faculty, staff, and alumni are known for their dedication, accomplishments, and contributions to society, it is also interesting to recognize and have a generational perspective of what they have achieved. For example, alumnus Denver Pugh of Shedd is the fourth generation in his family to graduate from the College of Agricultural Sciences and the sixth generation to run the family farm. He is an active leader in the grass seed industry and also serves on the board of directors of E. R. Jackman Friends and Alumni.

Because there’s so much going on in our College of Agricultural Sciences, it means The Source never comprises only a few items. I encourage you first to browse the contents—scroll all the way to the bottom. Then come back and click on links of special interest to you. They expand each of the stories, often with photographs and videos as well.

Thank you for your continuing interest in and support of the College of Agricultural Sciences, the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station, and the OSU Extension Service.

Best wishes for the new year!

Dan

Dan J. Arp
Reub Long Professor and Dean
College of Agricultural Sciences
Director, Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station

Greetings,

Each summer, at the request of the provost, the College prepares an annual report that summarizes the activities of our students, faculty, and staff during the previous year. That report is yours here. I think you will enjoy reading about the many accomplishments of the members of the College. We limited ourselves to ten pages, which meant we could choose only a few examples among all the remarkable work going on in the College all the time. But within those examples, you will gain a sense of the breadth and diversity of the activities that fall within our mission. Our research programs go from the most basic to the most applied, deal with all classes of life (including viruses, plants, and humans!), and include projects studying oceans, croplands, deserts, mountains, rivers, and soils. I want to share with you a few of my own observations and a few “points of pride” from our report.

You may have heard that student numbers at OSU continue to grow. This fall, OSU enrolled more than 26,000 students! But what can get lost in those large numbers is the impact on the College of Agricultural Sciences. Among the colleges with undergraduate programs, we are typically among the smaller in terms of student numbers. Nonetheless, we are experiencing dramatic growth in those programs. From the 2000-2001 academic year to 2009-2010, our undergraduate student numbers averaged slightly more than 1,100 students. Last academic year (2011-2012), we enrolled 1,793 undergraduate students, a 48 percent increase from 2009-2010! Part of that increase is driven by students’ desires to provide food, fuel, and fiber for a growing world population. Another driver is the realization by more and more students that our programs lead to productive careers where jobs continue to be available.

A point of pride for the University is our success with external grants. Last year, OSU researchers brought in $281 million in grants and contracts. Within the College, we were responsible for more than $53 million of that total, the highest amount for any single college. For three years in a row, our professors and their teams have earned more than $50 million in grants and contracts. Most of these grants come from federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Institutes of Health. What many people do not realize is that within the competitive process in which these grants are awarded, for most agencies only about one in ten proposals is funded. Within that context, the success of our scientists is even more impressive! And, of course, it is those grant dollars that help support our continuous search for new knowledge, that provide solutions for local and global challenges, and that allow us to maintain our emphasis on academic excellence.

As you explore our annual report, under the heading Student engagement and success, you may read more about the quality of our students and the innovative educational programs we are making available for them. Under the heading Living sustainably within the framework of natural systems, you can learn about research programs dealing with marine productivity, bioenergy development, grazing, and irrigation. Similarly, under the heading Living to ensure health, wellness, and quality of life, you will read about the role energy balance and barley can play in improving human health. And if you are interested in our impacts on economic and social well being, you may read about how climate change will influence cropping decisions and how new hazelnut varieties helped save an industry. As you read these reports, I am confident you will share my sense of pride in the accomplishments of all the members of the College of Agricultural Sciences.

Dan

Dan J. Arp
Reub Long Professor and Dean
Director, Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station
College of Agricultural Sciences

I have been in my new role as dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences for a few weeks now. I am approaching the halfway mark on my “first hundred days plan” that is designed to have me meet many of the members of the College’s community–on campus and across the state.

I have visited several of our branch experiment stations where I have appreciated meetings with advisory groups, enjoyed attending field days, and learned about the ongoing work at the stations. I have met with faculty and staff of several of our academic departments where I have learned about the exciting work they are doing, their plans for the future, and the challenges they face. I have met with state and federal legislators and been introduced to legislative committees in Salem. I have also had the opportunity to meet individually with a number of our stakeholders and hear their stories. And there have been conversations with several of our industry groups and their representatives. Finally, I have had many opportunities to interact with our students. It has been an exciting and energizing few weeks!

Through these first few weeks, I have been reminded of key themes relevant to the College. One of these key themes is the amazing diversity of our food, agriculture, and natural resource enterprises in the state. Collectively, we take advantage of the many different climate zones and growing regions that make up our state to produce an incredible variety of foods, fibers, and other products.

I have also had the opportunity to gain an even greater appreciation of the faculty we have in the College and the importance of the work they do. Our faculty do work that is relevant, that is cutting edge, and that makes a difference. I have also been impressed with the students I have met, including their commitment to their studies, but also their engagement in activities outside the classroom.

It has been a pleasure to be welcomed into the network of stakeholders who interact with the College. From growers and producers to natural resource managers to policy makers to educators, it is clear that people in many different settings depend on the College to conduct research and provide objective analysis of information that is relevant to our collective economic, environmental, and community sustainability.

Another theme that comes through loud and clear is that resources matter. Over the past several years, fewer dollars have meant fewer people available to carry out the mission of the College. And this shortfall has consequences for all members of the College’s community. We will, of course, continue efforts to broaden the base of our support while working to stabilize and enhance our traditional sources of support. Towards that end, we already are engaged in the process to build the state budget for the next biennium (July 2013-June 2015).

Dan

Dan Arp
Reub Long Professor and Dean
Director, Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station
College of Agricultural Sciences
126 Strand Agriculture Hall
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331

Tel: 541-737-2331
Fax: 541-737-4574
Email: dan.j.arp@oregonstate.edu
url: http://agsci.oregonstate.edu/