I missed the Aurora Borealis this past weekend, though I was looking for it each night. Perhaps we sometimes miss what’s right in front of us. Thanks to Kim Davenport, our newest animal sciences faculty member, for sharing her photo from Pullman on Friday night!
Last weekend, the Washington FFA held its annual convention on the Pullman campus. It was great to see so many groups of FFA high school students walking around our campus and participating in the various workshops. We hope that many will return soon as CAHNRS Cougs!
Congratulations to Carol Miles, who was nominated and elected as a new fellow of the American Society for Horticultural Science “in recognition of outstanding contributions to the science, profession, or industry of horticulture.”
Please also join me in congratulating Michelle Moyer for receiving the Excellence in Extension Award from the American Phytopathological Society. This prestigious award is given to “individuals who have made outstanding contributions by creating, developing, or implementing extension-related programs or materials or who have provided significant leadership in an area of extension plant pathology.”
College leadership (the chairs, directors, associate deans, and I) spent some time Monday planning for the future, thinking about where we want to be programmatically, and considering what we could do now with what we have. It was a long day, but worthy of the time. I have long recognized that success does not just happen; you have to plan for it.
Just last week, I read an article in the new issue of “Wheat Life” entitled “Opportunities for Growth Come from Planning.” The article was written by a professor who taught a business management course I took at Cornell University; one of the few courses I remember attending. He was a great speaker who was on leave from Virginia Tech. In the article he talked about key attributes of the “five percenters” or “extra milers” who are “just a little bit better in many areas of their businesses” compared to their peers. They plan and strategize, then execute and monitor the results. That is where we want to see CAHNRS — filtering out the noise around us and focusing on what we can do, now and in the future, to be a better place for our students and partners.
I spent Tuesday in Olympia with the Board of Natural Resources. Things are lively these days, with many, many form letters hitting my email throughout the month. Everyone is eager to see what is proposed in the next sustainable harvest calculation.
I head to Wenatchee at the end of the week to meet with the Department of Horticulture during their retreat. It sounds like they will have two full days of brainstorming and planning. Add in Monday’s chairs and directors retreat, and I bet Stephen Ficklin will be ready for a weekend in his camper.
I need to do some catching up on tasks over the weekend but am hoping for some nice weather to get out and enjoy. Wishing the same for each of you!