Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Annual Meeting Mississippi State University August 19-20, 2009 August19 We were welcomed to MSU by Lynn Reinschmiedt (Assoc. Dean, MSU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)and Reuben Moore (Assoc. Director, Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station). Our initial discussion included snapshot summaries of the academic and budgetary situations at our universities. Texas A&M University -The budget for Agrilife Research increased 2%. The department enrolls more graduate students than undergraduate students. Programs in bioenergy and nutrient management have expanded, mostly through redirection in 32 positions filled statewide the past three years. Auburn University - The program enrolls 60 undergraduate students, 30 M.S. students and 11 Ph.D. candidates. The budget situation has been a struggle with sequential budget cuts. A 12.5% budget cut was managed by reduction in state-funded technicians and GRAs. A program initiative in bioenergy has started with four faculty replacements in the past year. University of Georgia - The University as a whole still sees a demand for enrollment with 9,000 applications for 3,500 admissions. The department has faculty members located at three campuses: Athens, Griffin, and Tifton. Two faculty positions were filled with commodity group support. The greatest concern is maintaining the core infrastructure for applied research. The department has sent ten agronomists to industry positions but sees no agronomists in the pipeline. New initiatives are in place for water resource management, bioenergy, genomics and marker based breeding. There is a new undergraduate major, Agriscience and Environmental Systems, while the Crop Science and Soil Science majors have been eliminated. University of Arkansas - The department has 67 graduate students and 100 undergraduate students (75 in environmental science and 25 in crop management). New initiatives in water science and nutrient management have been supported. Oklahoma State University - While the base budget decreased 5%, an 8% increase from stimulus funds resulted in a one-time 3% increase. The 5% reduction will occur next year. The department hired three new faculty members; in the future, we are likely to hire fewer replacements. Louisiana State University - The university and department is definitely downsizing following 4% and 8% budget reductions, with more to come. The program currently enrolls 40 graduate students and has undergraduate enrollment in three areas: Environmental Management - 65 students, Horticulture - 40 students, Agronomy - 3 students. Soil remediation and Corps of Engineers activities are a focus in the department. Mississippi State University - The undergraduate programs enroll students in multiple majors: Golf and Sports Turf - 40 students, Horticulture - 19 students, Floral Management - 8 students, Agricultural and Environmental Soil Science - 3 students. The multiple programs enroll 32 M.S. and 23 Ph.D. students. The department has initiated bioenergy research with Department of Energy support. One new faculty member, a corn agronomist, was hired. University of Kentucky - The department participates in four college-wide undergraduate curricula: Horticulture, Plant and Soil Science - 44 students, Natural Resource Conservation and Management - 65 students, Agriculture Biotechnology - 167 students, Sustainable Agriculture (new program) - 8 students. Faculty members in the department are associated with four graduate programs: Soil Science - 9 students, Crop Science - 14 students, Plant Physiology - 20 students and Plant and Soil Sciences MS - 20 students. There is a proposal to merge the four programs into an Integrated Plant and Soil Sciences graduate program. The department closed-out eight faculty lines, filled two positions and retained three vacant positions. There are no plans to fill these vacancies immediately. The group toured the MSU memorial rose garden led by Pam Collins, turf research led by Wayne Philley, Barry Stewart, and Gregg Munshaw and the SPAR facility with Raja Reddy. In the evening the group discussed Intellectual Property with Chase Kasper and Chuck Rivenburgh, Office of Technology Commercialization, Mississippi State University. August 20 Clarence Watson provided the administrative report. The 25 year project terminates 2010. The new project SAC 001 Crops and Soils requires administrative review. We will proceed with the current objectives and update SAC 001 representatives at the experiment station level. The last farm bill completely reorganized CSREES to NIFA. In current markups, earmarks are down 49 million but AFRI has increased 8.5 million in the house and 93 million in the senate. Michael Wagger and David Smith, North Carolina State University were elected chairs for 2010, and Todd Pfeiffer University of Kentucky was chosen as vice-chair and secretary. The meeting in 2010 will be hosted by Robert Bacon at the University of Arkansas. As most attendees liked the 2009 meeting schedule, it was suggested that we proceed similarly in 2010 with the meeting start at noon day one and ending at noon day 2. Role of department chairs in soliciting endowments and gifts was discussed. For most of the departments' solicitation goes through development offices. Some colleges have development offices while some development officers all work for the university presidents. In several universities the department chair helps identify potential donors and helps build relationships. At Texas A&M soliciting funds takes 10% of the chair's time, but names must be cleared through the development office. Graduate assistantships are solicited through corporations. In the past the chairs completed salary surveys to share at this meeting. These surveys were not requested this year. In 2010 Drs. Smith and Wagger are asked to conduct the salary survey. Curriculum opportunities were discussed. Along with new majors, there is an effort to make classes fit into University General Education curricula. Texas A&M had made a push into turf, but enrollment has dropped. They had enrolled 900 students per year in the introductory turf class which fit in the General Education curriculum. Ethics in Agriculture is offered three times per year and capped at 90 students per semester. They are trying to find a way to develop a simple water class that appeals to many. LSU created an environmental management General Education Science class for 25-30 students and an organic gardening class for 40 students. At Mississippi State University, the Introduction to Floral Design course fulfills a General Education Art and Design requirement and enrolls 70 students per semester. The introductory soils course has 70 students per semester. At Auburn, the basic soils course enrolls 60-80 students per semester. At Kentucky, the course PLS 104 - Plants, Soils and People serves as a General Education science course with 150 students per semester. At Arkansas, the basic soils course enrolls 45-65 students. They tried an organic crop production course and a minor in crop biotechnology, but were unsuccessful at attracting students to these. Start-up funds were discussed. Start-up packages were generally negotiated between the department head and the Experiment Station or the university research office. Start-up packages ranged widely among hires within a university and between universities. Lower cost start-ups ranged from 15,000 to 100,000 with higher cost start-ups moving upwards from there to $750,000. Opportunities for collaboration among department chairs were discussed. We express our appreciation to Dr. Jac Varco and the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences for hosting our meeting. We especially thank Donna Johnson for coordinating the meeting. The meeting was adjourned.