Spring cleaning (in winter)

January 30

Photo by Christopher Gannon.

Groundskeeper Paul Poblete reaches to prune a juniper shrub on central campus in Monday's sunshine.

"It's a beautiful day. It's refreshing to be out doing this," he said.

He and fellow campus services employees are taking advantage of this week's mild temperatures to tend to annual shrub pruning and other winter care of the campus landscape, such as leaf removal from underneath the shrubs. Pruning promotes healthy, dense growth. Poblete said removing leaves from under the shrubs keeps animals from nesting there, which can lead to damage to the shrubs. It's all part of the regular tasks that keep campus beautiful and thriving.

Register for civics education conference by Monday

By Anne Krapfl
January 30

Registration is open through Monday, Feb. 3, for Iowa State's inaugural professional development conference on civics instruction. "Civics Across the Curriculum and Co-curriculum" will be held Wednesday, Feb. 19 (noon-4:30 p.m., Memorial Union), and the intent is that participants learn more about ways to narrow the gaps among Iowa State students in civic literacy, skills and disposition -- a willingness to influence government policy. Registration is free and the online form is short.

Faculty and staff who can't clear their calendar for the whole afternoon may attend as their schedule permits. They're still asked to register and email the Catt Center staff about when they'll attend.

Catt Center and Cyclone Civics director and professor of political science Karen Kedrowski reiterated that all interested faculty and staff are welcome.

"We especially encourage staff in student-facing positions and faculty in the STEM fields to participate, given that STEM students appear to be less engaged in civics than students in other fields," she said.

Conference details

The conference begins with lunch and the keynote talk by Frederick Lawrence, secretary and CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and a distinguished lecturer at Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C.

Much of the afternoon has been carved into two 45-minute breakout sessions. In the first, participants will choose from three workshops on civic education co-curriculum led by professional facilitators:

• Abbey Vogel, Science Rising, a partner in the Union of Concerned Scientists, an organization that advocates for using science to solve the world's challenges
• Nathan Beacom, founder and executive director of the Lyceum Movement, a Des Moines-based organization that advocates for public conversations that lead to understanding and building community
• Matthew Pollard, partnerships manager for Unify America, which aims to "replace political fighting with collaborative problem-solving"

In the second, participants will choose from five workshops led by ISU faculty and staff teams on strategies and methods for teaching civic skills in the classroom:

• Ethics Bowl model: Teaching skills of respect and dialogue
• Service learning and community partnerships (2)
• Immersive history and art for civic engagement at the Farm House museum
• Sociocultural consciousness in teacher preparation: Facing history and ourselves

The last hour of the conference includes a 30-minute roundtable when participants can exchange ideas and strategize around a specific theme in small groups and a wrap-up time with observations from Kedrowski, Liberal Arts and Sciences dean Ben Withers and provost Jason Keith.

The conference is part of a new multi-year effort, Cyclone Civics, which addresses the Iowa Board of Regents' 2023 directive #9 that each university establish a "widespread initiative that includes opportunities for education and research on free speech and civic education." The board approved the directives following its six-month review of diversity, equity and inclusion programming and efforts at Iowa's three public universities.

Related stories

• All disciplines belong at campus civics conference, Dec. 12, 2024
• Cyclone Civics initiative will touch students and employees, Nov. 14, 2024

Preservation Lab keeps past alive for future generations

By Jeff Budlong
January 30

Interim head of preservation Lisa Muccigrosso works with a brush on a project in the Preservation Lab. Photos by Melea Licht, university library communications.

Lisa Muccigrosso leads a dedicated team that straddles a line between the past and future in the preservation lab on the fourth floor of Parks Library. On the same day, her staff might work on a centuries-old sword in special collections and transfer brittle newspaper pages into the latest digital technology.

Students doing a research project, professors assigning readings from a rare text and library visitors viewing Jack Trice's "I Will" letter all benefit from the lab's work.

"At a basic level, we are making the past available to the future," said Muccigrosso, interim head of preservation. "We serve as stewards, not owners."

The lab, which serves the library, covers more than 3,000 square feet, housing workspace and storage areas in addition to tools of the trade. Large shears from the 19th and 20th centuries mix with a variety of book presses. Book preservation requires precise hand-eye coordination and a steady hand to wield scalpels, rulers and other tools. Another area is dedicated to audio visual and digital preservation.

Staff also monitor storage spaces at Parks and other library storage locations across campus for temperature and humidity.

Caring for the collection

Muccigrosso and senior conservation assistant Mindy Moeller are two of four full-time employees in the lab. Gone are the shelves of numerous books needing repair, replaced by a smaller number. Lab staff rely on librarians and curators to flag books and other items in need of repair. 

Many preservation projects require special housing for books that are falling apart. Moeller uses a custom-made portfolio or a larger rigid box to encase damaged books. A machine also can put a CoLibrí -- plastic cover -- around a book. Muccigrosso and Moeller also straighten and clean individual pages and secure loose pages back to the binding.

"I do full repairs, page repairs, rebacks when the cover back has been torn by someone grabbing it off the shelf and re-cases when the pages fall completely from the case," said Moller, who estimates most repairs take minutes to hours. "One thing we are seeing less of now that people have gone more digital is repairs needed after someone cuts out a picture or chart directly from a book."

Pamphlets, newspapers, model airplanes and Christian Petersen's sculpting tools are examples of other items repaired in the lab. All repairs are done to be as reversible as possible so future advancements can be implemented without damaging the item, something not always practiced many decades ago.

Preservation services coordinator Mindy McCoy preserves newspapers that will be digitized. 

A/V and digitization

The lab's audiovisual (AV) preservation librarian is responsible for the film, video and audio media in special collections.

"I take steps to conserve the original media and also transfer it to a digital file to make it accessible to as many people as possible," Amber Bertin said.

Most video and audio tapes were designed to have a 50-year lifespan, a mark passed decades ago, Bertin said. Digital copies create ease and wider distribution, but there are storage and cost considerations for every project.

"In the field, we call it the magnetic media crisis because these materials are rotting so quickly," she said. "To do the transfer, you are likely only getting one chance, and we have to take increasingly more extreme methods to prep the materials to have the one try."

Preservation services coordinator Mindy McCoy oversees the digitization of paper material and photographs. McCoy said she values the ability to make information available worldwide, but the volume is a constant challenge.

"We have a large list of projects that people want to do, but that requires we develop priorities and determine the impact to the public," she said.

Other projects

Preservation staff often do special projects and help in recovery efforts. Muccigrosso consulted on and wrote a condition report of the state constitution for the Iowa Secretary of State office. A new archivally sound display case was commissioned and will be unveiled on Feb. 12 in the first floor rotunda of the Capitol.

In 2010, campus flooding damaged a building where blueprints were stored. Six hundred blueprints were transferred to the lab.

"They had to be cleaned, dried and repaired, which allowed them to eventually be digitized," Moeller said.

The team also has dealt with items damaged by smoke from fires.

The origin of that yellow bucket in your lab

By Anne Krapfl
January 30

Its size, built-in handle, snap-on lid and color that coordinates with the city's glass recycling program promoted the Tidy Cats cat litter bucket to the container of choice for the university's lab glass recycling initiative, now 12 years old. Photo by Christopher Gannon.

A student intern's idea to repurpose yellow cat litter buckets for a laboratory glass recycling pilot has endured for more than a decade. In fact, the project has expanded from its initial 10 campus buildings to "every lab where they recycle glass," said Jason Terry, an environmental engineer with environmental health and safety (EHS) who works on hazardous waste disposal in the estimated 1,800 labs across the university.

"They're part of all our lab training; we reference the 'yellow buckets' and people know what we're talking about," he said.

The use of Tidy Cats cat litter buckets for lab glass recycling began in February 2013 in response to a city of Ames request to the university to help it keep glass out of the Ames waste stream. Glass can damage the trash sorting equipment in the Ames Resource Recovery Plan and the boilers at the city power plant, where trash is burned as fuel to generate electricity.

In Iowa State's most recent annual tally (2022), the university recycled 17.5 tons of lab glass, according to recycling coordinator Steve Kohtz.

That clever intern suggested the Tidy Cats 35-pound square buckets because they were durable, came with a handle and snap-on lid, color-coordinated with the city's glass recycling bins on building docks and -- if the donation request caught on -- free. Printing services produces a large sticker with recycling instructions that goes on each bucket.

The plastic buckets have replaced a Fisher Scientific cardboard box, which was designed for glass recycling but susceptible to leaks and tears as it fills.

The pilot jump started with a 1,000-bucket donation from the parent company, Nestle Purina, to central Iowa animal shelters, who agreed to forward the containers to Iowa State when they were empty. Cat owning employees, alumni and Ames community members also have provided empty buckets from the very beginning.

Terry said the need for more buckets ebbs and flows. Currently, he has about 100 in storage, and the need isn't great. Buckets most commonly are needed when additional labs open, for example in a new building, or when a bucket (or lid) is cracked or contaminated by improper disposal of other lab waste and needs to be replaced.

Donations can go to EHS or director of sustainability Merry Rankin, 108 General Services Building. She said she receives 75-100 at her office every year and delivers them to the EH&S Building.

Rankin said she loves the participation piece of the lab glass recycling.

"Individuals may wonder 'how can I support a university initiative?' This is a perfect example."

While cat owners have learned the buckets are handy for lots of uses around the house, "at some point you probably have repurposed enough of them for your own needs," she said. "Purina helped us get started, but our community has really supported it and kept it going."

Faculty Senate approves two Degrees of the Future

By Jeff Budlong
January 30

The Faculty Senate approved two more Degrees of the Future during its Jan. 28 meeting. Senators have now approved five of six proposed Degrees of the Future as a funded initiative of the 2022-2031 strategic plan. Degrees of the Future address student and workplace demands and spur innovation in the curriculum.

Senators approved an interdisciplinary bachelor's degree from the agronomy and agricultural and biosystems engineering departments in digital and precision agriculture (PDF), and a master's degree in financial technology (PDF) offered by the colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Business. Precision agriculture relies on data to improve the economic, environmental and social sustainability of agriculture. Financial technology focuses on financial analysis, computational methods and business analytics.

An online master's degree in digital health (PDF) launched in 2024 and a bachelor's degree in game design (PDF) have been approved by the Iowa Board of Regents. A bachelor's in integrated health sciences (PDF) is on the regents' docket for approval in February. The final degree, a bachelor's degree in digital storytelling, led by the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication and the music and theatre department, is expected to reach the senate for review yet this semester.

Cyclone Civics

Catt Center and Cyclone Civics director and professor of political science Karen Kedrowski shared with senators what Cyclone Civics is and reminded them of the upcoming professional development conference for all faculty and staff.

"The goal of Cyclone Civics is to ensure our students progress through different levels of understanding about civics," she said. "We want them to have civic literacy, civic skills and a civic disposition."

Kedrowski said civic literacy will give students a basic understanding of the functions of government, skills to help them fully participate in a democracy and a commitment to democratic processes. In March, Iowa State seniors will be asked to complete a civic literacy test.

"This will give us information on what our students know as they are about to depart the university," she said.

New focus areas

Senators will vote next month on a pair of proposed new graduate focus areas:

• The College of Health and Human Sciences would add a family and community services (PDF) focus area to the master of family and consumer sciences degree. The online coursework-only program would broaden a focus area already part of the Innovation Digital Education Alliance (IDEA), a consortium of universities that offer online, affordable programs. 
• The College of Veterinary Medicine would add five focus areas to the master of veterinary preventive medicine (PDF). Students still could choose to follow the core program. The focus area will be noted on a student's transcript and confirm training consistency. Thirty credits would be required for a thesis master's degree and 36 for a creative component degree. The five areas are:

o Diagnostic pathology

o Food animal toxicology

o Veterinary epidemiology

o Swine population medicine

o Animal welfare

President-elect

Michael Olsen, professor in mechanical engineering, was chosen as the senate's next president-elect. He'll take office in May, when president Rahul Parsa (finance) passes the gavel to president-elect Meghan Gillette (human development and family studies).

Joint meeting

Student Government invited the Faculty Senate to conduct a joint meeting on Monday, Feb. 17 (5-6 p.m., MU Sun Room). Students and senators will discuss issues that impact both groups. An agenda for the meeting is in development.

Other business

The Faculty Senate approved:

• A certificate program in real estate (PDF) focused on legal, economic and financial aspects. It is open to all students and prepares them for jobs in real estate sales, property management, mortgage lending and asset management. It was approved after previous discussion delayed a second vote.

• An online master's in supply chain management (PDF). The coursework-only program provides practical training to develop supply chain professionals with advanced managerial and analytical tools and skills that will help address the significant supply chain manager shortage in the state and across the nation.

• An amendment to the degree planning policy that allows students to pursue a minor or certificate before earning a major of the same name if it does not occur in the same semester.

• Removing guidelines from the Faculty Handbook regarding the percentage of term faculty instructors in a department or at the university. In their place is an annual review of the breakdown of tenured, tenure-eligible and term faculty to assure an appropriate balance for teaching, research and extension responsibilities.

• A name change to the animal ecology undergraduate major, to wildlife and fisheries conservation and ecology (PDF).

Senators will vote in February on:

• A proposed undergraduate minor (PDF) in sports media communication to complement the major the senate approved last spring from the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication. Students will gain an understanding of the processes that shape how sports are portrayed, promoted and analyzed. The minor allows students to try some of the new courses and help generate interest from students majoring in kinesiology, event management and others.
• Proposed changes to the academic progress policy (PDF) to mirror recent changes on academic dismissal, clarify how academic standing is determined and discontinue combining summer session GPA with previous semesters to determine academic standing, unless it results in a cumulative GPA below 2.0.
• The  interdisciplinary minor (PDF) in user experience design in the graphic design and industrial design departments. More time was requested to review the electives for the minor.