Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Summary of presentations and discussions (see http://www.hrt.msu.edu/NCAC/Agenda.htm for complete agenda) Monday 1 May 2006 " Create 21 Dean Jeff Armstrong, MSU " Creating a national strategic research and extension plan for horticulture, budget issues and farm bill issues Tom Bewick, CSREES National Program Leader (Horticulture) " State reports Committee members " Turf Center Welcome Jim Kells " Tour Hancock Center; Modular Turf for Athletic Fields Trey Rogers " Recruiting activities that work Committee members " Student Organic Farm John Biernbaum " Michigan Wine Grape Industry. "Wineries and Vineyards - Agri Tourism Growth and Opportunities" Charles Edson, Bel Lago, Winery Tuesday 2 May 2006 " Department Personnel Issues Theo H. Curry II, Professor and Director, MSU School of Labor and Industrial Relations " Important People Management Skills " Teaching: Assigning classes to faculty Frank Fear, Acting Sr. Assoc. Dean, CANR Bob Von Bernuth and Sara Risch " Annual Reviews with faculty; preparation, meeting and followup Panel of Department Chairs Recorders notes 1 May 2006 Call to Order: The meeting was called to order by Chairman Ron Perry. Next meetings: Jeff Iles and Rich Marini recalled that Ed Ashworth volunteered Purdue as the site for the 2007 meeting. Tom Michaels volunteered Minnesota as the site for the 2008 meeting. Participant consensus confirmed Purdue in 2007 and Minnesota in 2008. Participants confirmed the 1st week in May as the best time for the annual meeting. [Recorders note 8 Sept 06: Ed is leaving Purdue to become Dean at U. Maine (congrats Ed!). Bob Joly, Interim Head, confirms that NCA-4 is still welcome at Purdue next May] Recruiting: Tom Warner reported that Kansas State has 300+ students and has no problem recruiting. All other speakers voiced concerns about recruiting. Most noted the high number of transfer students relative to new high school students. Reasons cited for lack of student interest in horticulture majors included low salaries for horticulturists, slowdown in growth of golf courses leading to turfgrass graduate demand plateau and trend toward staffing of horticulture industries by non-graduates. Create-21: Creating Research, Extension and Teaching Excellence for the 21st Century. Jeff Armstrong co-chairs this national committee. He reported that the CREATE-21 committee recommends that present internal and external research, extension, education, and international efforts within the U.S. Department of Agriculture be integrated within a new National Institute. For the most recent information, see http://www.create-21.org/. Quoting from the FAQ at that website, The CREATE-21 proposal has two "integral" elements: (1) creation of a new "National Institute" through the consolidation of agencies, programs, and activities currently within the USDAs Research, Education, and Economics Mission Area (REE) and U.S. Forest Service R&D; and (2) authorization of new funding to increase the intramural capabilities of the Institute and its land-grant and related university partners and to increase competitive research programs to address critical food, agriculture, and natural resource problems. CSREES National Program Leader Comments: Tom Bewick reported that wording in the Presidents budget proposal in 2007 and subsequent years will stipulate that 55% of Hatch funds be moved to a multi-state competitive granting process. New projects and projects at the 5-year review stage will also move to this competitive process. Although unlikely to be implemented in 2007 some Beltway insiders speculate that eventually this wording will survive congress make it through to the final budget. The National Grape and Wine Institute will likely receive congressional funding through ARS for the first time. Please see http://www.ngwi.org/index.htm for additional information on the NGWI. The Institute recently harmonized their plan with the USDA strategic vision. NGWI, the National Berry Crops Initiative, the National Citrus Research Council and Tree Fruits met in Hershey PA to form a coordinated list for inclusion in the Farm Bill. State Departments of Agriculture will distribute $500M block grant for specialty crops competitiveness, primarily for promotional and regulatory efforts. The funding could however be targeted to R&D if a state DOA is so persuaded. Tom recommends that stakeholders who support university R&D should lobby the state DOA. Welcome by Jim Kells, Acting Chair, Crop and Soil Sciences Q  Any threat to the Campus farm from urban sprawl? A  No. There seems to be good support for retaining the research farmland on campus. However they feel some threat from construction of additional university buildings. For example, 30a of the hort farm may be under consideration as the location for linear accelerator. Q  How are grad student numbers? A - Grad numbers have dropped by half  100 down to 50 due to cost of grad students, shift to post docs, increasing tuition, challenges to securing applied funding, loss of departmentally funded positions. Hard funded assistantships have been lost to budget cuts over the years. MAES funded 40 assistantships competitively, but these are one year funding. Q  What type of faculty appointments are you offering? A - Bench science oriented faculty positions tend to be 9 month, faculty doing applied research with extension who are out working with growers in summer continue to be 12 month. Tour by Trey Rogers: Trey showed us components from the modular turf project arising from a 1991 challenge to put turf in the Pontiac superdome for World Cup soccer. About 5 modular playing surfaces are in use around the world. The modules are very handy for research plots. Modern modules are plastic, 4x4 and moved by forklift. 4800 are used in Spartan stadium. 1200 additional modules are maintained at the turf facility to replace turf damaged during the season  enough to replace turf between hash marks from goal to goal. Recruiting issues - Dianne Petersen, academic advisor coordinator: The first concern discussed was diversity recruiting. The second regarded using technology in recruiting, understanding millennial students  tapping into their tech savvy eg. blogging, IM. Also discussed hovering (helicopter) parents. We were joined during the recruiting section by Eunice Foster  Associate Dean for undergrad programs. Eunice informed us that MSU has a recruiting plan and is in the process of hiring a full time recruiter. This plan includes recruiting in middle school as well as high school. Community colleges previously commented that MSU was not user friendly in terms of explaining exactly what courses students needs to take, and this is being addressed. The web site was dated, but now has a new look. They had no IT person to maintain their web presence. The diversity plan for the college has been good for many years, but the actual numbers are quite small (30 students). Many of the students from diverse backgrounds tended to choose Ag Econ. Developing 4 pre-college programs: native American, migrant laborers, 1st generation underserved, and (4th program unrecorded). These are 6 wk programs. How do we sell a College of Ag to African American students from urban areas? Eunice showed us the Find your Fit brochure. Interestingly, this brochure doesnt mention the college name any more necessary. Initially, agriculture and natural resources as program titles do not give a positive message to potential students, but once here (at MSU) they are very happy with the program. The college has 5-6 development people, but was still difficult to get a person for recruiting. Student Organic Farm: John Biernbaum explained the history and operation of the farm. John introduced the (name not recorded) grad student who is installing and studying establishment and output from an integrated perennial permiculture. High tunnel greenhouses are used to provide produce to 50 CSA members (memberships = $410 per 16 weeks) CSA members volunteer 8 hours per 16 weeks. Farm is starting 3rd year of certified organic. 2 May 2006 Theo H. Curry II, Professor and director, MSU School of labor and Industrial Relations: Prof Curry gave us an overview of faculty performance reviews and the importance of developmental feedback (what to do differently for better performance). Ideal process prerequisites include: " Mission, vision, strategic plan established " Workload clearly explained " Unit agreement on performance criteria and the relative mix of these " Unit agreement on standards of excellence Ideal process attributes: " individually tailored career development plan based on mission and objectives (what looks like excellent performance) especially for new faculty members (but ideally for everyone) " yearly update of the plan " plan serves as basis for the annual review " faculty self appraisal and oral input " no surprises Legal issues Adverse personnel decisions - The truth, supported by evidence, is the best defense. Be objective in choice of words and include support. Group discussed the local practices regarding merit increases. Some used percentage, others dollar amount. Recommended fully explaining to faculty the process for setting merit increases and distributing salaries. Teaching: Assigning classes to faculty - Margaret Benson , Frank Fear, Bob Von Bernuth, and Sara Risch Our discussion focused on managing faculty and included examples of conflict resolution issues. Some idease that arose: Dont underestimate the fact that some people like a turbulent environment, and for some there is function in dysfunction. Often we stumble into what works based on trial and error. Be transparent in decision-making since this is associated with increased student satisfaction and instructor performance. Ask ourselves what we as administrators might be doing that exacerbates the problem (like assigning faculty to courses where they dont fit). Just doing teaching and extension kills teaching and extension&need to show scholarship and impact. How will we be able to teach applied courses when we have been recently hiring fundamental researchers? Use extension specialists to teach? They may be able to teach, but it shifts them away from their extension responsibility. What are you delivering in your distance education program? Issues include how to deliver lab content, perhaps transforming these (if grad programs) into course-intensive professional terminal masters program. State reports: interspersed during the two-day session, summarized in notebook handouts. Meeting adjourned