Admissions
Curriculum
Learning Outcomes
Contact Information
Forms
For Students...
Funding Opportunities
Our Faculty
Our Students
Questions & Answers
Reading
Sus Ag Programs at ISU
|
November 2007
GPSA Faculty Member Receives USDA Teaching Award
|
On 11 November, Amy Kaleita, GPSA faculty member and assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural and
Biosystems Engineering, received the US Department of Agriculture Food and Agricultural Sciences Excellence
in Teaching Award.
The award recognizes outstanding teaching quality, exceptional application of teaching philosophy and methodology,
service to the profession and students, as well as professional growth and development.
A press release with additional details is available at
http://www.ag.iastate.edu/aginfo/news_detail.php?var1=378.
|
|
August 2007
GPSA Faculty Member Named "Friend of Conservation"
|
|
Dick Schultz, GPSA faculty member and professor in the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and
Management (NREM), was recognized this month by the Iowa Chapter of the Soil and Water Conservation Society
as a "Friend of Conservation."
The award honors Schultz's many years of research devoted to soil and water quality in Iowa. His work
focuses on the design and function of riparian management systems that help control the transport of soil and
nutrients into water bodies.
|
A detailed news release about the award may be found at
http://www.ag.iastate.edu/aginfo/news_detail.php?var1=360.
Schultz's faculty Web page is located
at
http://www.sust.ag.iastate.edu/gpsa/faculty/schultz.html.
|
June 2007
Des Moines Register Publishes Editorial by GPSA Student Association
On 18 June 2007, the Des Moines Register, Iowa's leading newspaper, published an editorial composed
by the Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture Student Association (GPSASA).
While the column appears with the bylines of David Correll and Devan McGranahan, both MS
students in the program, it is the product of all association members. Motivated by
their concern for the direction of agricultural policy and feeling the need to engage in the
public debate of that policy, the members of the GPSASA devoted several weeks to discussing and drafting the
content of the editorial.
The GPSASA is a student-managed organization, composed of GPSA students (past and present), GPSA faculty, and
their spouses and partners. The association works to promote sustainable agriculture, consumer outreach
and education, and to improve current agricultural practices.
|
January 2007
First Outstanding Student Service Award is Presented
On January 24, 2007, Valentin Picasso, GPSA PhD candidate, was presented
with the Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture’s 2006 Outstanding Student Service
Award. The award recognized Valentin’s dedication to the GPSA program and his
efforts in increasing student–faculty collegiality.
The GPSA Awards Committee wrote: "Valentin is one of those unique students who is constantly investigating issues
of sustainable agriculture and disseminating any useful information he finds to the GPSA
community at large. While excelling in his coursework and field studies, he found time to
help create a sustainable agriculture community on campus, including advancing the work of
the GPSA student group. He pushed for greater student involvement in GPSA curricula issues
and was instrumental in bringing students’ voices into key decisions regarding
GPSA programmatic development."
Valentin is working with Dr. Charlie Brummer (formerly with the ISU Department of Agronomy,
now at the University of Georgia) on polyculture systems and expects to graduate in Summer 2007.
The Outstanding Student Service Award was created in 2006 to recognize exceptional student contributions
to the program. The award includes a certificate, a gift book, and a $100 cash stipend.
|
September 2006
Mary Nyasimi is Recipient of 2006 GPSA Research Award
|
On 13 September 2006, the Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture awarded Mary Nyasimi
its Interdisciplinary Research Award. Nyasimi is presently a PhD student in sustainable agriculture, with
her home department in Anthropology. The award recognizes Nyasimi's thesis research on the effects of
land management practices on soil and water resources in a village in Kenya, her home country. Her analysis
included evaluating the influence of social institutions and cultural attitudes on the degradation of the
local environment.
The image to the right shows Matt Liebman, professor and chair of the GPSA, presenting Nyasimi with the
award certificate.
The Interdisciplinary Research Award is given annually to a GPSA student who best synthesizes natural and
social science disciplines in her/his research. The award includes a certificate and a $300 cash stipend.
Nyasimi plans to expand her research in Kenya for her doctoral dissertation.
|
Select image to enlarge view.
|
July 2006
GPSA Faculty Member Receives Prestigious Crop Science Award
|
|
Jean-Luc Jannink has been named the 2006 recipient of the Young Crop Scientist Award by the
Crop Science Society of America.
Jean-Luc is an associate professor in the ISU Department of Agronomy who works in the field of crop
breeding. More information about his research is available at
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~jjannink/.
|
May 2006
GPSA Faculty and Students Receive Grants through New On-Farm Research Program
GPSA faculty and students were well represented in the recent round of research awards made under
the auspices of the new ISU On-Farm Research and Demonstration Grant Program. A total of ten
projects were funded; six of these include among their investigators
7 GPSA faculty and 3 GPSA students. Project titles follow, with the GPSA participants named.
-
Diversifying the Iowa Farm Landscape for Improved Pest Management.
Matt O'Neal (assistant professor, Department of Entomology) et al.
-
Weed Control in Perennial Wetland Pastures Using Goat Browsing.
Betty Wells, (professor, Department of Sociology), Ryan Marquardt, (MS student) et al.
-
On-Farm Research for Improved Seed Quality of Organic Flax.
Jim Kliebenstein, (professor, Department of Economics), Mary Wiedenhoeft, (associate
professor, Department of Agronomy), Sarah Carlson, (MS student) et al.
-
Manure Rate Effects on Soil Quality
Doug Karlen, (professor, Department of Agronomy) et al.
-
Exploring Illinois Bundleflower as an Alternative Crop for Iowa.
Charles Brummer, (professor, Department of Agronomy), Valentin Picasso, (PhD student) et al.
-
The Use and Effects of Controlled Traffic Farming
Amy Kaleita, (assistant professor, Department of Agricultural & Biosystems Engineering) et al.
New in 2006, the On-Farm Research and Demonstration Program is a collaborative effort of the ISU
College of Agriculture, the ISU Extension Sustainable Agriculture program, and Practical Farmers
of Iowa. Grants up to $5000 each will be awarded annually over the next three years to research
teams consisting of ISU faculty, students, and Iowa farmers.
For a news release with additional details, please see
http://www.ag.iastate.edu/aginfo/news/2006releases/pfi.html
|
October 2005
GPSA Student Takes First Place in Poster Competition
|
|
Select image to view pdf of poster.
|
Mary Nyasimi, GPSA MS student, has won first place in the graduate division of the Fourth
Annual Norman Borlaug Poster Competition, held on 17 October 2005 at Iowa State University. Her
winning entry was titled "Friendship and Power: How Food Defines Our Place in Society." The
recognition includes a $100 cash prize.
The poster competition traditionally focuses on global food-related topics and features submissions from
graduate and undergraduate students. The competition has become an associated event for the annual
Norman Borlaug Lecture, named for the nobel laureate and Iowa native. Both the lecture and poster
programs highlight current issues related to food, agriculture, and the alleviation of hunger.
|
More information about Ms. Nyasimi and her research is available at her Web site:
http://www.sust.ag.iastate.edu/gpsa/students/nyasimi.html.
|
October 2005
GPSA Faculty Member Named Recipient of Sustainable Agriculture Award
Jerry DeWitt, professor of entomology, coordinator for ISU Extension programs in sustainable agriculture, and
GPSA faculty member, has been named the 2005 recipient of the Spencer Award for Sustainable
Agriculture. DeWitt's work in integrated pest management and extension programs and his
support in developing novel programs that place ISU at forefront of sustainable agriculture
activities nation-wide earned him this recognition. Please see
http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/nwl/2005/2005-3-leoletter/dewitt.htm for more about DeWitt.
The Spencer Award was established in 2001 and is intended to recognize significant contributions to the
advancement of ecological and economic practices that will make agriculture sustainable and the
family farm secure for the future. For more information about the award, please see
http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/resources/spencer/spencer.htm.
The award will be given on 14 November 2005, during the
Fifth Annual Iowa Organic Conference to be held
in Ames, Iowa.
|
September 2005
BusinessWeek Online Highlights MBA-GPSA Minor Program
"B Schools That Do It Their Way," in the 5 September edition of BusinessWeek Online, focused
on business-school programs around the US that offer students unique combinations of training
packages that venture outside the framework of typical MBA curricula. Among the programs
highlighted was the College of Agriculture and College of Business collaboration at Iowa State
that offers students the opportunity to earn an MBA with a sustainable agriculture minor. Please
see
BusinessWeek Online for the complete text of the article.
Four students are now participating in the program: Kory Beidler, Scott Kincaid,
Erik Schneider, and Andrea Spiker. See the preceding news item for August 2005 for additional details.
|
August 2005
|
GPSA Enrolls Three New Students in Joint MBA-Sustainable Ag Minor Program
|
|
Scott Kincaid, Andrea Spiker, and Kory Beidler (pictured left to right) begin
classes in Fall 2005 as the newest additions to the joint MBA-Sustainable Agriculture minor degree
program, presently the only one of its kind offered in the US. The program draws upon faculty
expertise in the ISU College of Business and the Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture
(GPSA) to produce graduates with a unique set of business skills who also possess sensitivity to
issues of sustainability.
|
Photo courtesy of Leopold Center
|
|
|
The joint program began in Fall 2003, at which time its first student, Norm McCoy,
enrolled. Erik Schneider followed in Fall 2004. Participants in the program
take a full load of MBA courses in addition to 12 credits of sustainable agriculture coursework. McCoy
was the program's first graduate this past spring and has taken up management of a family farm in the
Des Moines area.
|
|
|
All five students have been and will be supported by assistantships, provided through the
Value Chain Partnerships for a Sustainable Agriculture (VCPSA)
project, supported by a
Kellogg Foundation grant and administered by the
Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture
at ISU. Additional VCPSA partners include
Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI), the
ISU College of Agriculture,
ISU Extension, and the
Henry A. Wallace Endowed Chair for Sustainable Agriculture. The project aims to bring together
farmers, commodity groups, non-profit organizations, and university and community partners to address
production, processing, distribution, and marketing issues in the food and fiber sector. Ultimately,
the goal is to create value chains that reward small and mid-size farmers who employ production methods
that involve high standards of environmental and community stewardship.
|
April 2005
GPSA Student Receives Fellowship from The Land Institute
|
|
Greg Shepherd has been named the recipient of a Natural Systems Agriculture Graduate Research Fellowship
from The Land Institute. The Natural Systems Agriculture program was inaugurated in 1998 to award
fellowships of up to $9,000 per annum to graduate students to conduct research projects at the MS or
PhD levels on university campuses. More information about the program may be found at
The Land Institute.
Greg is an MS student working with Heidi Asbjornsen in the Department of Natural Resource Ecology
and Management.
|
April 2005
Three GPSA Students Receive NCR SARE Grants
The USDA North Central Region (NCR) Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE)
program has awarded research grants to three GPSA students at Iowa State: Ryan Atwell,
Hannah Lewis, and Valentin Picasso.
Summary information about their respective projects follows.
Ryan Atwell
Project:
Agricultural Landscape Design through Participatory Modeling: Collaboration
among Diverse Stakeholder Groups
Major Professor:
Lisa Schulte (NREM)
|
Hannah Lewis
Project:
Assessing Feasibility of Entry into Entrepreneurial Agriculture for
Mexican Immigrants in Marshalltown
Major Professor:
Jan Flora (Sociology)
|
Valentin Picasso
Project:
Illinois Bundleflower: A Perennial Multiple Purpose Third Crop for Iowa
Major Professor:
Charles Brummer (Agronomy)
|
This year the program received 38 proposals; a total of 15 were funded,
with 3 coming to ISU, the maximum number awarded to any one institution.
SARE graduate student grants support thesis and dissertation projects that address questions in sustainable
agriculture research. Proposals are evaluated for their technical merit and relevance. Past SARE
awards have supported projects relating to producer profitability, environmental quality, and quality-of-life
enhancements for producers, rural communities, and society as a whole. For more information on the SARE
program, see http://www.sare.org/ncrsare/cfp.htm.
GPSA students Parker Forsell and Andy Hegenstaller have also received SARE grants (see news item for
April 2003 below).
|
May 2004
Sustainable Agriculture Program Chair Testifies Before Senate Agriculture Committee
|
|
Dr. Tom Richard testified on 6 May 2004 before the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee
at a hearing focusing on use of agricultural products for energy generation.
|
|
May 2004
Khatounian is Program's First Doctoral Graduate
Dr. Carlos Khatounian has become the Program's first graduate to earn the PhD degree.
Dr. Khatounian, a member of the Program's first cohort (2001), researched the conversion to organic
soybean production in southern Brazil by documenting the weed-suppressive characteristics of black
oat mulch. He was advised by Dr. Matt Liebman. After finalizing publication drafts of his research
typescripts, Dr. Khatounian will return to his native Brazil, where he is a recognized scientist in
the field of organic agriculture. He will resume his job as researcher with IAPAR,
the state of Parana's agricultural research institution.
|
April 2004
Olmstead Receives Land Institute Graduate Researach Fellowship
Julia Olmstead has been awarded a Land Institute Graduate Research Fellowship. Julia entered
the program in January 2004 and is pursuing her degree with Charlie Brummer (Agronomy). She is the
third student of Brummer's to receive this unique support and recognition from The Land Institute.
Julia's fellowship project is: "Comparative genetics for yield and yield stability in
annual and perennial Medicago species." She will be doing genetic mapping work on Medicago truncatula,
an annual relative of alfalfa, and comparing her results with other work Brummer's lab is doing on alfalfa.
M. truncatula is a model legume and is easy to grow. One of the questions is whether the genetic
basis of important traits in perennial alfalfa can be assessed in the annual (and diploid and autogamous)
model. The larger question, from the Land Institute's point of view, is what can be gleaned from annual
crops and applied to perennials.
|
May 2003
The Program's First Graduates!
The Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture awarded its first degrees to three Master's students
who completed their studies in Spring Term 2003:
Jennifer Bousselot
Project:
The Emergence Capabilities of Maize Landraces
Major Professor:
Deb Muenchrath (Agronomy)
Employment:
Colorado State University Extension (Douglas County)
|
Garth Kelly
Project:
Method for Comparative Analysis of Agricultural Systems
Major Professors:
Mary Wiedenhoeft and Ricardo Salvador (Agronomy)
Employment:
Forage Research, Iowa State University Agronomy Department
|
Ryan Rusk
Project:
Effect of Composted Swine Manure Ammendments on the Nitrogen Mineralization of Legume Green Manure
Major Professor:
Mary Wiedenhoeft (Agronomy)
Employment:
Northwest Research Farm, Iowa State University College of Agriculture
|
|
May 2003
Dr. Norman Uphoff Facilitates "Pathways to Sustainability" Workshop
The Director of Cornell University's International Institute for Food, Agriculture and
Development, Dr. Norman Uphoff, spoke and facilitated the concluding workshop of the project
"Pathways to Sustainability: Shaping Global Food and Agricultural Systems. "
The project, funded by ISU's Council for International Programs, resulted from a proposal
"Internationalization of the Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture through
Faculty-Student Engagement," led by Drs. Lorna Michael Butler and Hsain Ilahiane
(Anthropology Department), assisted by Paige Knutsen, MS student in GPSA.
|
April 2003
GPSA Students Receive SARE Awards
Parker Forsell (left) and Andy Heggenstaller (right) were each awarded a
Graduate Student Grant from the
North Central Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program. Forsell was funded
to develop case studies of various sustainable farms in the north central region for his PhD
project: "Restoration Agriculture: Resource Conservation and On-Farm Re-Cycling on Fourteen
Farms in the North Central United States." Heggenstaller will use his funding to create
various cropping systems models for use in the classroom, under a project titled: "Developing
Educational Tools to Facilitate Systems Thinking in Sustainable Agriculture." Forsell
studies under major professors Fred Kirschenmann (Philosophy and Religious Studies) and Ricardo
Salvador (Agronomy). Heggenstaller is an MS student with Matt Liebman (Agronomy).
|
April 2003
Plath Accepts Offer to Join Community Food Alliance
GPSA student Pernell Plath has accepted an offer to work as Research Coordinator with Kentucky's
Community Food Alliance, an
organization devoted to preserving family farming and strengthening rural community life. Plath
assumed her duties in late May, saying that the job provided an ideal opportunity to work in exactly
the professional role for which she has been preparing. She hopes to conclude her thesis for the MS
degree later this year. Her project, which explores the technical support needs of women landowners
in Cass County, Iowa, has been conducted in cooperation with the "Women, Food and Agriculture
Network." Pernell has extensive experience in organization, having served as coordinator for
various initiatives during her time at ISU, including the
Center for Indigenous Knowledge and Agricultural Rural Development, the
Student Organic Farm,
and the
Global Agricultural Science and Policy Initiative. Her major professor is
Ricardo Salvador (Agronomy).
|
April 2003
GPSA Student Receives Graduate Fellowship from the Land Institute
Valentín Picasso was one of seven students selected from a nationwide pool to receive a 2003
Natural Systems Agriculture Graduate Research Fellowship from The Land Institute. The fellowship provides
funding specifically to promote "a new perspective and enthusiasm for science and technology research
that is explicitly informed by considerations of public interest and ecological sustainability."
Picasso's research project will be:
"The role of functional diversity in the establishment phase of perennial
polycultures." Picasso, a PhD student with Charlie Brummer (Agronomy), joins fellow GPSA
student Fred Iutzi, also a student of Brummer's, who received a Land Institute Fellowship in 2002,
which was renewed for 2003. More information about the Land Institute program may be found at
http://www.landinstitute.org/vnews/display.v/ART/2001/01/01/3a75ce902.
|
April 2003
Iowa State MBA Program to Offer Minor in Sustainable Ag
The Master of Business Administration (MBA) program in Iowa State University's College of Business will
incorporate a sustainable agriculture minor and two new graduate assistantships next fall. For full
details, please see
http://www.iastate.edu/%7enscentral/releases/2003/apr/mba.shtml
The new MBA/GPSA-minor combines some of the coursework from ISU's Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture
(GPSA) in the College of Agriculture. The GPSA, which began in 2001, was the first graduate program of
its kind among land grant universities.
|
December 2002
Meet the Leopold Scholars
In 2000, the Leopold Center Advisory Board approved funds for up to three years for a graduate assistantship
in Iowa State University's newly created Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture (GPSA). For each of the
past two years, the Center has helped sponsor a new student entering the GPSA program at ISU.
Currently, the Center provides partial support for three outstanding Leopold Scholars:
Xiaofan Niu
Shenyang, China,
enrolled Fall 2001,
advised by X.B. Yang, Plant Pathology
|
Karie Wiltshire
Indianapolis, Indiana
enrolled Fall 2002,
advised by Kathleen Delate, Agronomy and Horticulture
|
Erin Tegtmeier
Chicago, Illinois
enrolled Spring 2002,
advised by associate director Mike Duffy, Economics
|
|
|
|
