Academic Report of College of Agricultural Sciences

• Bilingual education strengthens agricultural industry workforce Plant pathologist Luisa Santamaria teaches plant disease prevention to agricultural workers.  Since 2011, Santamaria has reached about 500 Spanish-speaking workers from 25 nurseries through a grant awarded by the USDA and NIFA, helping to keep Oregon’s $745m nursery industry healthy.

• Master Gardeners extend sustainable programs statewide The OSU Extension Master Gardener Program, taught by AgSci faculty, offers 10-week courses on natural resources and horticulture in 28 counties and online. AgSci faculty continue to support 3,800 Master Gardeners statewide as they provide public instruction in sustainable landscapes.

• Summer Ag Institute educates the educators SAI provides hands-on pedagogical experience in agriculture and natural resources to Oregon educators. Each year, two programs (in eastern and western Oregon) offer site-based science instruction and graduate credit to about 30 teachers, who in turn engage hundreds of school children with new ideas for science learning.

• AgSci has developed a set of metrics and goals for the next 3 and 5 years to advance equity and student success for graduate and undergraduate students. The metrics will be reviewed annually and a forum held each year for general discussion of the metrics.
• BioResource Research has 100% job placement: (BRR), one of the nation’s top research-based undergraduate programs, places 100% of graduates in jobs or graduate/professional school within three months of graduating, with 60% continuing toward advanced degrees. In 2014, 29% of BRR students were Underrepresented Minority, in contrast to 17% university-wide. The 6-year graduation rate for BRR students averages 85%.
• Multicultural Scholars Program has 100% graduation rate: (MSP) offers scholarships to undergraduate students of diverse cultural backgrounds and first-generation college students. To date, 22 BRR students have been awarded these prestigious NIFA-funded scholarships. The six-year graduation rate of the 2009 cohort was 100%, with 87.5% graduating in a STEM major.
• Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Sciences ranks among top in nation The OSU MANRRS chapter has received the Region VI Outstanding Chapter Award each year since 2007, twice named as the National Chapter of the Year, and ranked 2^nd in the nation for the last 4 years. Membership is open to all students, but most of its members are from AgSci programs.

• Society for Advancement of Chicano and Native Americans in Science begins 3^rd year at OSU (SACNAS) fosters the success of Hispanic/Chicano and Native American scientists. The OSU SACNAS Chapter was recently re-established by AgSci faculty to fill a growing campus need.

• College Assistance Migrant Program builds leadership (CAMP) continues to provide educational and support services, including outreach efforts, to migrant and seasonal farm workers during their first year of college. Two examples:

• Clarisa Caballero, BRR junior, received an OSU PROMISE Internship and USFWS Conservation Careers Symposium Scholarship. She is incoming president of OSU SACNAS Chapter.
• Crystal Carrillo, BRR senior, is a USDA NIFA Multicultural Scholar and an EOP Alumni Scholarship recipient.She is past-president of the OSU SACNAS Chapter.
• AgSci supports Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) In 2014, AgSci provided tuition assistance to 9 underrepresented students and covered fees for 20 students to participate in the LSAMP Summer Scholars Bridge Program. BEE student, Randi Mendes, won best engineering poster at the 2014 PacNW LSAMP Conference.

• DPD values now integrated into non-DPD courses: Instead of segregating elements of Difference, Power and Discrimination into dedicated courses, AgSci is now integrating DPD curricula into standard, non-DPD-specified courses, in order to increase cultural fluency in our graduates.

• AgSci expands Ecampus to serve nontraditional demographic: Four new online degree programs––Fisheries & Wildlife, Agricultural Sciences, Horticulture, and Environmental Economics & Policy—expand the college’s ability to serve non-traditional students globally.
• Online enrollment doubles in five years: Online enrollment in AgSci courses has more than doubled over the past five years, growingfrom 506 in 2009 to 1,184 in 2014.

• Leadership Academy prepares students for career success AgSci’s Leadership Academy connects undergraduates with faculty mentors for leadership and communication training. The Academy has established two endowed scholarship funds totaling over $225,000 and engaged more than 20 industry professionals as guest speakers and mentors.

• NSF Grant helps engage undergraduates in STEM learning  AgSci is collaborating on a novel, two-credit U-Succeed First Year Experience course that prepares students for STEM undergraduate research, with peer mentors to provide support.

• Provost Initiative Funds provide experiential learning opportunities: Funds helped AgSci hire faculty and staff to promote experiential learning opportunities at our 11 Branch Experiment Stations.
• Graduation rates are rising: AgSci’s 6-year graduation rate from the 2007 cohort is 67.8%, above the university rate of 61.5%, for 2013-14.
• Total number of degrees awarded is increasing: In 2014, AgSci awarded a total of 564 degrees, up from 332 five years ago.
• Bioenergy Program teaches alternatives to fossil fuel: OSU now offers an undergrad minor, master’s scholarship, and pre-college programs in this USDA-funded biofuels development program.

Cultivating transdisciplinary research to advance the science of sustainable earth ecosystems:

• OSU reduces pesticide usage worldwide The Integrated Plant Protection Center has built free online tools that link nearly 16,000 weather stations across the country to the biology of over 100 pests and plant diseases. This allows farmers to spray at precise times, making pesticide usage more efficient and less taxing on the environment.

• OSU expands pesticide info program A five-year, $5 million grant, funded by the EPA, has enabled OSU’s National Pesticide Information Center to expand its online services. Last year the website had 1.8 million visitors, with 32 million overall hits, and the hotline handled 17,000 phone calls, offering information in over 170 languages.

• OSU breeds drought-resistant wheat varieties: This year, AgSci researchers released two new high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties, “Rosalyn” and “Bobtail,” that show resistance to drought, important to growers in the face of a changing climate.
• REACCH assesses impact of changing climate on NW cereal crops Regional Approaches to Climate Change is a 5-year, $20 million project funded by NIFA. John Antle is leading the Modeling component of the project, which will use climate data and crop simulation models to assess impacts and adaptation in Pacific Northwest wheat-growing systems.

• New research shows how climate change impacts disease vectors A new study, led by Taal Levi (Fisheries and Wildlife), suggests that changing climate patterns may be altering the transmission of certain pathogens, including the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.

• Marine Studies Initiative builds on 75 years of research MSI, a new model created to address critical issues facing Oregon and the globe, is strengthened by long-term, highly interdisciplinary research conducted by three AES research units: the Seafood Laboratory in Astoria (established in 1940), the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station, and the Marine Mammal Institute.

• Study finds reduction in harmful emissions Funded by the OSU Superfund Research Program and led by environmental chemist Staci Simonich, a recent study discovered that emission control systems added to a Portland General Electric plant in 2011—which targeted mercury—inadvertently lowered dangerous airborne PAHs.

• Art About Agriculture connects urban and rural culture for 40 years Space within the remodeled Strand Ag Hall will serve as a rotating gallery for this 250-piece art collection, which was recently appraised at more than $300,000. This collection has been purchased exclusively with private funds, gifts, sponsors, and special grants.

• Faculty combine Art and Science Jay Noller, one of several AgSci scientists/artists, uses soils as a subject and a medium for his paintings, which are exhibited internationally, including a large permanent display at the Allison Inn in Newberg. He uses visual art as a way for students to see the world beneath their feet.

• To strengthen supported graduate programs, AgSci created a new policy to provide units with a clear and defined model for predicting graduate tuition remission.
• Doctoral students are recognized for Noteworthy Advance in Bioinformatics: Zhian Kamvar and Javier Tabima (Botany and Plant Pathology) were featured in PeerJ for their novel statistical software to analyze data on clonal populations of microbes, fungi, and oomcyetes.
• Graduate student groups are active in collaborative outreach and research, for example:
• Team-Tox, in Environmental and Molecular Toxicology, provides professional development beyond the formal EMT curriculum. In 2014, Team-Tox set up grade-school level demonstrations, experiments, and resources for teachers, reaching over 700 K-12 students.
• Hatfield Student Organization works to expand educational experiences and increase professional development through fundraising and research activities. They raised over $3,600 for the Samaritan Foundation Patient Support Fund.
• Fisheries and Wildlife Graduate Student Association actively engages online students with campus-based colleagues in activities, symposia, and professional development opportunities.
• BUDS (Bolstering Undergraduate Development and Success), created by graduate students in Botany and Plant Pathology to mentor undergraduates and strengthen academic excellence.

• Provost Hiring Initiative funding provided the College with 5 new faculty positions in addition to 7 new positions funded by AgSci to strengthen programs across the state. Among the new hires are:
• Leigh Torres, studying geospatial ecology of marine megafauna, directed toward improving conservation management of protected species.
• Sergio Arispe, studying rangeland plant communities, directed toward how grazing affects revegetation following wildfire.
• Valtcho Jeliazkov, the new Director of the Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center, focusing on improving the sustainability of winter wheat production in the region.
• AgSci faculty secures $49.4 million in sponsored research grants and contracts in FY2015. A few examples:
• John Selker will use NSF funding to collect thermal data using drones in atmospheric zones that have been hard to study until now.
• Michael Behrenfeld will lead a NASA-funded research project investigating phytoplankton blooms—the foundation of the marine food web. He will test the idea that warming oceans will have previously-unforeseen impacts on marine ecosystems.
• Bruce Mate is leadinga new U.S. Navy-funded research project investigating the movements of whales and how marine life will be affected by current El Nino conditions.
• Robert Tanguay received an EPA grant to conduct the first-ever comprehensive in vivo toxicity studies of flame retardants.
• Hong Liu collaborated with Widmer Brewing to use fuel cells to clean wastewater and produce electricity. Her research, which began as a BEST award, is being extended with an NSF grant.
• Pankaj Jaiswal, with NSF funding and international co-investigators, is developing a common semantic framework for the ever-expanding array of sequenced plant genomes and phenotype data, called the Planteome Project.
• Jeff Chang and colleagues received funding from USDA-NIFA-SCRI to work on gall-forming bacterial diseases that cause nurseries up to $1 million in lost revenue annually.
• AgSci offers in-depth faculty orientations and trainings to increase faculty success The College sponsors ongoing research discussion groups and professional development workshops for new and mid-career faculty. Recent topics: grant-writing workshops and specific grant intensives; Paul Axtell trainings for new faculty and administrators; mentoring workshops; networking events to build collaborative research, including one integrating research on the topic of water.