Board Annual Meeting, March 2

The annual meeting of the board of directors will take place in the morning on Friday, March 2. The meeting will be held in Arlington, Virginia, at the Key Bridge Marriott Hotel. Each institution's board representative is encouraged to attend. Tentative agenda items include the Lead Institution report, financial report, approval of the 2012-13 budget, Executive Committee election, and program reports. The meeting will follow the APS/AASCARR business meeting. A meeting agenda and supporting documents will be sent on February 23.

New Member Institutions

Last fall, AG*IDEA welcomed the University of Kentucky and The Ohio State University into membership, bringing the total number of member institutions to twenty. Dr. Larry Grabau represents University of Kentucky on the board of directors, and he serves as the assistant dean for academic programs in the College of Agriculture. Dr. Linda Martin, associate dean in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, is The Ohio State University's board of directors representative, and she currently serves on the AG*IDEA Executive Committee. Welcome to these institutions!

New Program Spotlight: Agricultural and Environmental Law

The Agricultural and Environmental Law program planning team submitted a business plan to the Executive Committee in November, and it received committee approval. The program will begin offering courses in the Fall 2012 semester.

The 15 credit-hour undergraduate certificate program combines the expertise and knowledge of attorneys and other faculty into a unique opportunity for students to obtain a deeper understanding of the legal framework as it affects agribusiness, energy, natural resources, the environment, food safety, and rural health.

Faculty co-chairs for this program are David Saxowsky, North Dakota State University, and Ted Feitshans, North Carolina State University. Joe Broder, University of Georgia, is the program's administrative liaison. Institutions involved in this program include Auburn University, Colorado State University, North Carolina State University, North Dakota State University, South Dakota State University, The Ohio State University, University of Arkansas, University of Florida, University of Georgia, and Virginia Tech.

AG*IDEA Briefs

• This February the AG*IDEA website will undergo a major change when the redesigned site is opened. The new look will be cleaner and more user-friendly. The web address will remain the same, and announcement will be made when the new site is live.
• Last fall, the Bioenergy and Sustainable Technology program and the Soil, Water, and Environmental Science program offered courses for the first time.
• A special issue of Resource Magazine, titled Resource Engineering and Technology for a Sustainable World, featured an article on the Agricultural Systems Management Technology course share program. The November/December 2011 issue of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) publication was focused on careers.
• The December 2011 edition of HortTechnology featured a manuscript drafted by the Horticulture program's faculty planning team. The manuscript, titled "Development of the AG*IDEA Alliance's Horticulture Graduate Certificates Program and Inter-institutional Course Share," resulted from a presentation at the 2011 National Floriculture Forum last May.
• Great Plains IDEA is on your social media favorites. Like Great Plains IDEA on Facebook and follow us on Twitter, @GreatPlainsIDEA.