Upcoming Event
May 14-16
20th Annual University of Maryland Personal Finance Seminar for Professionals
Sponsored by University of Maryland Cooperative Extension.
Expert speakers discuss today's most critical consumer-spending issues.
Location: Doubletree Hotel Annapolis,
Annapolis, Md.
Information & registration:
http://www.money.umd.edu/
Contact: Jinhee Kim
jinkim@umd.edu
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Eastern Shore participants in Annie's Project
"Being a woman in a male-dominated field--
--has its challenges," says ag and natural resources educator Jennifer Rhodes. Rhodes is referring specifically to the 19 Eastern Shore farm women, ages 23 to 70, who recently completed seven weeks of classes known as Annie's Project. Through the program, developed in Illinois, home of the real life Annie, women develop and sharpen their skills in running a farm business.
"For decades we farm women have been on the 'back burner'" is how one participant assessed her status before she took the classes and networked with other women. A result of the program, says Rhodes, a University of Maryland Cooperative Extension agent, is "farm women grow in confidence, business skills, and community prestige." The course curriculum covered five areas of risk management: production, marketing, finances, legal risk, and human resources
"I learned so much," one of Rhodes's students told her, "I feel empowered to run a farm business." The real Annie died in 1997 a wealthy woman. Her habit of meticulous recordkeeping guided her as she learned the art of making wise business decisions. Rhodes and colleague Shannon Dill coordinated and taught the classes at Chesapeake College's Office of Continuing Education and Workforce Training.
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Being a woman in a male-dominated field redux
The number of women awarded Ph.D.s in the hard sciences is ever rising. The question is has this increase resulted in a rise in the number of women academics in tenure-track positions? The good news: in most scientific fields, the answer is yes. The bad news: for the agricultural sciences, such as natural resources, crop breeding, and agronomy, the answer is no, according to an American Association for the Advancement of Science taskforce.
Marla McIntosh, multiple award-winning professor in plant sciences and landscape architecture, raised this issue at a seminar in April. A member of the taskforce, "Aiming Higher: The How and Why of Advancing Women in the Agricultural Sciences," McIntosh has made a commitment. She avows to promote a dialogue that addresses why women Ph.D.s in the ag sciences are choosing--or settling for--the role of nontenure-track instructor instead of professor. Reasons she offers: lack of successful, satisfied role models; isolation from other female faculty; lack of women academic leaders in colleges of ag; and the tenure process.
In Motherhood, The Elephant in the Laboratory: Women Scientists Speak Out, recently published by Cornell University Press, McIntosh and 33 other women tell stories of their struggles to combine motherhood with scientific careers.
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Middle class at risk
 Gain insight into and hear solutions for personal financial difficulties endemic today. Friday, May 16, Harvard Law School's Elizabeth Warren, Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, is delivering a presentation, "Middle Class at Risk: Finding Our Way in Dangerous Times." Warren will speak at 9:30 a.m. at the Doubletree Hotel Annapolis at the 20th Annual Personal Finance Seminar for Professionals sponsored by University of Maryland Cooperative Extension. And the campus community is invited.
Warren is author of All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan and The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke. RSVP Jinhee Kim at 301-405-3500 or jinkim@umd.edu. For directions, visit http://money.umd.edu/location.html.
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Spring, and a young man's fancy turns to--
--lawn care. If you're waiting till mid-May to fertilize that lawn, you're on the right track says Peter Dernoeden, professor in plant sciences and landscape architecture. "Fertilizing in early spring, when it's usually cool and wet," notes Dernoeden, also a turfgrass specialist for University of Maryland Cooperative Extension, "only makes you have to mow more often."
Grass seems mundane. Till you think about playgrounds, parks and other open gathering places, sports fields, golf courses, and of course college campuses. And greenhouse and nursery products, which include turfgrass, are Maryland's top agricultural crop. UM's Paint Branch Turfgrass Research and Education Facility, one of the largest in the country and located on Greenmead Drive, serves a lawn-care industry that adds $1.5 billion to the state's economy each year.
And the best time to fertilize is? "Late September or October," Dernoeden says, "when it's about to rain." He also recommends tall fescue as "the best grass for the mid-Atlantic region. It requires less fertilizer and water than other grasses and has fewer pest problems."
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Environmental Science & Technology's
Brian McGrath discusses test plots that measure agricultural runoff, during this recent broadcast of U.S. Farm Report TV about the quality of the Chesapeake Bay.
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Wei's Way
I take pride in announcing that Dr. Sanford A. Miller, an international expert in nutritional biochemistry, has joined the Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (JIFSAN) as a senior fellow of nutrition and food safety. Administered by UM and the US Food and Drug Administration, JIFSAN conducts multidisciplinary research and education.Dr. Miller will be taking advantage of UM's resources to build interdisciplinary and multi-institutional research teams for addressing emerging food safety issues. These research teams will in turn enhance the college's goal of providing information, training, and service for protecting, defending, and safeguarding food and water globally.I'm excited to have this opportunity to work with Dr. Miller. His 22 years at MIT as professor of nutritional biochemistry and his distinguished service as director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition are a real asset to JIFSAN. We believe he has the knowledge and leadership experience to build thriving, effective programs.My congratulations go to the following:
Iqbal Hamza, assistant professor, Department of Animal and Avian Sciences. As an April UM Newsdesk article
reported, he and his research team "discovered an important clue to how
iron carried in human blood is absorbed and transported into the body.
The finding could lead to developing new ways to reduce iron
deficiency, the world's number one nutritional disorder." Dr. Hamza's research appears in the April 16 issue of "Nature."
Dr. David Lei, Department of Nutrition and Food Science. Dr. Abdullah Al-Othman, president of King Saud University (KSU), recently appointed David to the board of consultants for the KSU Center of Excellence in Biotechnology Research in Riyadh. Dr. Lei is charged with helping to build and lead a cutting-edge biotech/biomed laboratory.Jennifer Becker and Brian Needelman, Department of Environmental Science & Technology; Brian Bequette, Department of Animal & Avian Sciences; and Ziaoping Zhu, Department of Veterinary Medicine, all recently promoted to associate professor and awarded tenure. |
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