From the Director
Greetings and welcome to the Spring-2018 edition of the PJ. I cannot believe that the classes are already in the third week of the spring semester. The snow-covered campus is beautiful; however, with swift snow removal, sidewalk salting, parking lot clearing by the grounds crew it is safe. We are grateful for all their efforts and services. Grounds crew have no set hours, they start work as early as 3 a.m. and stay until the job is done. They work just like our farmers!
Grounds crew works and services is much appreciated and very significant. Especially this week as the Spring-2018 Career Fair (Feb 6-8) is happening with hundreds of employers and visitors coming to the campus. The Career Fair is a great opportunity, especially to the students of the School of Agriculture to connect and seek numerous opportunities available within the agricultural industries.
Over the Winterim-2018 (Dec-Jan), many (seven members) School of Agriculture (SOA) faculty traveled abroad, conducted site visits and engaged with host institutions. Please see the 'Faculty & Staff' section of the Pioneer Junction. [Read more]
The leadership of the campus is engaged in the Collaborative Integration efforts. Many of you may know that UW-Platteville is assuming the leadership role for the UW-Richland and UW-Baraboo campuses. This presents us with unique opportunities and demands us to extend our academic excellence to these campuses. The leadership is working on sa mooth transition and work teams have formed to achieve this. From the SOA standpoint, we will get an opportunity to develop new programs at UW-Richland. More about the integration efforts will come to you in the near future. Things are happening fast with tight timelines.
Another exciting happening in the SOA is to further student entrepreneurship. With generous support from alumni, Mr. & Mrs. Vale, and contribution from Novus fund the School of Agriculture is embarking on a student-managed business, hydroponic production of lettuce and culinary herbs, with the support of the university and local community customers as shareholders. Using the hydroponic production systems, student business startup will produce most popular salad crops such as lettuce, basil and culinary herbs and market to the local communities. Students will operate the business from start to finish. From sowing to selling, students are involved in skill-based learning, professional development, and experiential business training. The central idea is with the skills that the students acquire and the experience they gain running a business, they can graduate confidently with the knowledge to set up businesses. This student-managed and led business will train a new generation of entrepreneurs who will understand the local food systems. One of the goals of the School is to increase the prominence of high-impact teaching and learning practices, as well as engagement with sustainable agricultural practices at home and around the globe, for the students.
Many student club activities are also happening. Last month (Jan 26-28) a significant number of students participated at the American Dairy Sciences Association conference in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Agbusiness classic was atteded by our staff and faculty in Madison and promoted the school activities. Soon, (Feb 15-18) Drs. Lucie Kadjo and Rick Bockhop will lead a group of students (nine) to the 2018 NFU College Conference on Cooperatives in Minneapolis, MN. Faculty, staff, and students will be attending the organic conference sponsored by MOSES at La Crosse, WI on Feb 23. Soon, students will be competing in Dairy classic at Madison. Many faculty are staff are also fully engaging with classes and farm operations.
It is evaluations time within SOA. We are going to be busy next the two weeks with internal faculty and staff evaluations. If God asks me what I want, at this moment I will ask, please spare me couple a more minutes of work time. Busy, busy and busy. Enjoy reading the current Pioneer Junction. Thank you.
