Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture
Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences
A newsletter for faculty, staff and students
January-February 2006 • Vol. 32, No. 1
Table of Contents
WHO, WHAT,
WHEN, WHERE
• Notables
• Grants
• Articles Published
• New Projects
• New Publications
• Coming Events
• Dean reviews 2005 accomplishments
• 700-plus attend ‘Party of the Century’
• Food Science Building expanded
• Robert Bacon is CSES interim head
• Robertson to coordinate Apparel Studies major
• Food packaging, processing expert joins UA faculty
• AGCS adds digital media specialist
• Donors provide new scholarships and building funds
• Legislature applauds UA fruit breeding program
• Crop Biotechnology minor proposed
• Bumpers welcomes transfer students
• Magazine features U of A spinach breeding program
• Congratulations to fall graduates
• Poultry science students win national awards for research
• CSES students win ASA poster contest
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Vision Archive Index
All About Advising
• Monthly newsletter index
UA Agri LInks
• Division of Agriculture
• University of Arkansas
• Dale Bumpers College of
xxxAgricultural, Food and
xxxLife Sciences
• Arkansas Agricultural
xxxExperiment Station
• Cooperative Extension
xxxService
• Alumni and Development
• Future Students
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Vision Credits
Vision is published six times a year by the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station in the U of A System's Division of Agriculture and by the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences. It is produced by the Communication Services unit of the Department of Agricultural and Extension Education, 110 Agriculture Building, U of A, Fayetteville, AR 72701. 479-575-5647.
• Editor: Howell Medders, (hmedders@uark.edu).
• Web manager: David Edmark (dedmark@uark.edu).
• Writers and photographers: Fred Miller and Karen Eskew
• Editorial Assistants: Cassandra Cox and Amalie Holland
• Broadcast e-mail support: Arkansas Alumni Association
E-mail items for publication in Vision to ahollan@uark.edu
Fall Faculty Meeting Address
Gregory Weidemann
Dean and Associate Vice President for Agriculture
You have much to be proud of as a faculty and I thought I would review some of that success with you today.
Once again, our enrollment grew at a rate greater than the campus as a whole. Indeed, since the chancellor established enrollment and quality goals in 1997, our undergraduate enrollment has increased 50% leading all colleges. Total enrollment in the college now stands at 1,529, which is a 6% increase over last year. Undergraduate enrollment increased 7% and graduate enrollment decreased slightly. This fall we were the only college to increase our undergraduate retention rate to 83%. This past year our six-year graduation rate increased to 64%, which is very near our 2010 goal of 66% and leads all colleges.
For most measures, we are on track to meet our 2010 goals. This increase in student enrollment, retention and quality is a direct reflection of your dedication as a faculty and to our quality staff. Only in graduate enrollment and diversity are we well behind the pace required. We will need to continue to place a priority on increasing the diversity of our students, staff and faculty. With this in mind, I will form a task force to work with me on updating and revising our diversity plan during the spring term.
In July, the campus concluded the Campaign for the 21st Century and celebrated our success in October. That the university exceeded its one billion dollar goal is truly remarkable and is a testament to the strong support we enjoy with our alums and friends. The combined goal for the Division and college was nearly $70 million and we exceeded our goal by a wide margin at $98.5 million.
These funds more than doubled our scholarship endowment to $11 million, added 77 new scholarships or fellowships and 11 Honors Academy Scholarships, resulted in the renovation or commitments to renovate 10 classrooms, provided six new chairs and professorships, and provided several new buildings including the Dorothy E. King Equine Pavilion, the Abernathy Agriscience Center and a new headquarters facility at Marianna.
These gifts have gone a long way towards meeting some of our most pressing needs although significant space needs exist. We recently announced a new professorship in rice genomics funded by a gift from Anheuser Busch and we will be announcing additional faculty support in the near future as the details of the Tyson Foods gift are worked out. Again, these gifts are a tribute to your excellence as a faculty that has attracted such a high level of support from our friends and supporters.
Our management plan has now been completed and will be posted soon on the website. This plan will help chart our future over the next five years and is a distillation of the thoughts and suggestions of many of you. We will review our progress towards these goals annually.
As I stated at our spring meeting, the grade change policy met some resistance from a number of our students. While this seems to have died down, the decision process suggested that our students lacked an adequate voice in our affairs. Therefore, I will work with the department heads to create a student advisory board who will serve as a link between our students and the faculty council so that in future students will be better informed about changes that effect them and so that they have a means of communication back to the faculty.
Finally, this has been a historic year for the college celebrating our centennial year. On December 3, we held our centennial gala attended by more than 700 faculty, staff, students, alums and supporters. For those of you who were there, it was a celebration to remember. Today, we will seal a 50-year time capsule in the Agriculture Building as our final centennial event. Please plan to join us. I think we all should be proud of sharing in this historic occasion in the life of our college. I would like to publicly thank the centennial committee chaired by associate dean Graham for planning a number of events throughout the year and a particular thanks to the gala committee chaired by Sandi Caster and Karen Eskew for making the gala such a success.