Everyone I talk to is commenting what a busy summer this is! I understand. AGNR was certainly busy earlier this year when the Grand Challenges program was open for new proposals and now, AGNR is very well represented in the funded Grand Challenge projects. When I met with Provost Rice in early June, she shared with me the impressive return on investment the first round funded projects have had in terms of leveraging continuing funding. I am even more excited to see the long-term impact on addressing the societal challenges. Congratulations to all of the awardees – these important efforts will certainly keep you busy!
Last week was spent in a DayQuil/NyQuil fog made worse by travel disruptions. This week I am much better. Travel to visit with an important partner and donor went better this week as well. Now I am back in College Park for what is left of a short week. We continue to prepare for our upcoming strategic planning meeting with the provost’s team. I have a few more meetings with candidates interviewing for positions with different departments as part of our AI cluster hire. Something that is common across each of the conversations is how impressed the candidates are with the departments. One told me that they felt like they had interacted with the faculty for years and they were comfortably brainstorming ideas. Another commented that they weren’t sure they would see much in common with the faculty but immediately felt there would be endless opportunities for collaboration. And a third candidate told me they left the interview feeling that they could easily expand the view of their program as a result of what they saw and heard while visiting. The search committees clearly identified an impressive group of candidates for each department. I can’t wait to see how the cohort composition shapes up. As AGNR thinks about 1) a farm renovation targeted at improving our ability to develop and demonstrate technology in agriculture and natural resources, 2) student use of AI in learning and preparing students to be ready for AI in the workforce, and 3) we think about a graduate major in bioresource engineering this AI faculty cohort will help connect these pieces and serves as links across departments and even with other colleges.
Field day participation sounds to be strong this summer. I haven’t attended any events in the last few weeks but that will change as we move through July. Commodity Classic is definitely on my calendar. This will be my second time attending. The whole year has flown by, reminding me that I have a few projects I need to keep moving forward. Onward and upward!