Greenhouse grateful

March 13

Photo by Christopher Gannon.

Having a Horticulture Hall greenhouse as a laboratory is especially nice as winter wanes and the days lengthen. An ag education and studies first-year trio (l-r) of Gabi Robertson, Layne Putnam and Kaya Knipper said they have enjoyed their spring semester project inside. Late last week, they met to discuss outcomes of the research in their Principles of Horticulture Science class: monitoring the growth of basil, corn, impatiens and tomato plants under different conditions to learn what can cause growth deficiencies.

Business dean finalists to visit campus in coming weeks

By Rob Schweers, office of the senior vice president and provost
March 13

Four finalists have been identified in the search for the next Raisbeck Endowed Dean of the Ivy College of Business. The successful candidate will succeed David Spalding, who will retire from the position this summer.

The finalists will visit campus on these dates:

• Candidate 1, March 24-25
• Candidate 2, March 31-April 1
• Candidate 3, April 2-3
• Candidate 4, April 14-15

The names of candidates will be made public one business day before their visit. Each will meet with students, faculty and staff, and hold an open forum on the first day of their visit. The forums will begin at 2 p.m. in the Gerdin Business Building's Kingland Hub (room 1450) on these dates:

• Candidate 1, Monday, March 24
• Candidate 2, Monday, March 31
• Candidate 3, Wednesday, April 2
• Candidate 4, Monday, April 14

Recordings of the open forums will be made available on the provost office's search page after all finalist visits have been completed.

Related stories

• Spalding will continue as VP for economic development, industry relations, Oct. 31, 2024
• Search begins for next Business dean, Sept. 19, 2024
• Spalding to retire in 2025, May 9, 2024

Mueller named director of Ames National Laboratory

By Megan Landolt, office of the president
March 13

Karl Mueller has been named the new director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames National Laboratory. His tenure begins June 1.

Karl Mueller

Since 2021, Mueller has served as director of the program development office for the Physical and Computational Sciences Directorate at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington. Previously, he served for six years as chief science and technology officer for the same directorate. Mueller moved to the Pacific Northwest lab in 2010 after rising to the rank of full professor in the department of chemistry at Pennsylvania State University.

"For more than 75 years, Iowa State University has operated the Ames National Laboratory, producing scientific breakthroughs that have shaped history and addressed society's most pressing challenges," said President Wendy Wintersteen. "I am confident Dr. Mueller is the right person to advance this legacy of excellence."

Mueller's scholarly record includes more than 195 peer-reviewed papers detailing the development of magnetic resonance methods and applied studies in natural and engineered systems. In addition to serving as director of the Ames National Laboratory, Mueller will hold the rank of tenured professor in the department of chemistry.

"Dr. Mueller has outstanding scientific credentials and a clear vision for the future," said senior vice president and provost Jason Keith. "He will provide strong leadership in fulfilling the lab's mission to deliver critical materials solutions and support national energy security."

Mueller earned two degrees in chemistry: a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.S. from the University of Rochester, New York. In between, he completed a post-graduate studies certificate at Cambridge University while supported as a Churchill Scholar by the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States.

"I am honored to join Ames National Laboratory, an institution renowned for its pioneering work in rare earth elements, quantum materials and sustainable energy technologies," Mueller said. "The laboratory's excellence in materials discovery and characterization, combined with its deep integration with Iowa State University, creates unique opportunities to address our nation's critical science and technology challenges.

"I look forward to building on Ames' distinguished legacy of scientific innovation to advance both fundamental research and strategic technologies."

Mueller succeeds Adam Schwartz, who has led the Ames National Laboratory since June 2014 and previously announced his plans to step down as director. Schwartz will transition to a part-time role helping support business development for critical materials research at the lab and with its partners.

Consultant makes communication, engagement recommendations

By Brian Meyer, strategic relations and communications
March 13

A consultant this week delivered a set of key findings and recommendations after conducting a months-long communications and constituent engagement assessment for the university.

In announcing The Segal Group to campus leaders last September, President Wendy Wintersteen said, "To strengthen and sustain the relationships we have, and to forge new ones, requires us to tell our story in the most compelling, convincing and consistent way possible. To do this, we must present ourselves as 'one university.' Communications and relationship-building are a critically important part of what all of us do each and every day. I believe there are better ways for us to work together as 'one university' to strengthen our efforts. We are going to take this opportunity to explore how we may achieve that goal for the benefit of us all."

Segal's Key Findings and Recommendations report provides a summary of the assessment, including university strengths of tremendous brand loyalty among faculty, staff, alumni and donors; deep relationships with alumni and donors; and sophisticated communication and marketing expertise in some areas of the university.

The findings revealed five key themes:

• Distributed approach. The university's organizational structure and decentralized staffing approach are limiting the effectiveness of communication and constituent engagement efforts.
• Alumni and donor engagement. The ISU Alumni Association and ISU Foundation are not aligned in their efforts to support university goals.
• Brand awareness. The university is missing opportunities to showcase its achievements and attributes that make it distinctive.
• Brand consistency. The university's goal of achieving a cohesive, unified identity is undermined by the use of inconsistent brand elements.
• Message fatigue. A lack of strategy for relevant, targeted constituent communications results in message fatigue and difficulty capturing stakeholders' attention.

Based on the assessment findings, Segal offered five recommendations:

• Optimize the organizational structure. Adopt an organizational and staffing model that supports brand integrity and enhances the university's ability to connect with current and potential stakeholders.
• Combine the alumni association and the foundation. Create a unified organization to streamline operations, leverage resources and strengthen engagement with alumni and donors.
• Increase awareness of the university's assets. Develop a bold, cohesive institutional narrative as part of the university's master brand strategy.
• Harmonize brand elements. Unify branding efforts across the university to strengthen brand identity.
• Implement a more cohesive communication strategy. Increase message coordination, clarity, personalization and impact.

What's next

For the first recommendation, the university will organize a working group to explore approaches to increase collaboration, consistency and accountability across campus units.

For the second recommendation, Wintersteen is naming a review committee made up of representatives chosen by the university, the alumni association and the foundation to consider the combination of both organizations. Her charge to the review committee will be to deliver a decision by April 30 or sooner on whether to move forward with the recommendation.

For the other three recommendations, the Strategic Relations and Communications staff will lead ongoing efforts to strengthen and unify university branding, marketing and messaging across campus.

The process

Last summer, at Wintersteen's request, a request for proposals was developed to hire a consultant that would evaluate current approaches and organizational structures across the university, the Iowa State University Alumni Association and the Iowa State University Foundation. The consultant would be tasked to recommend how the university could become more strategic and unified in communicating and engaging with its many audiences.

The request for proposals was issued July 30. In September, The Segal Group was hired. Segal has extensive experience working with universities and colleges on similar projects.

Between October and December, Segal representatives conducted interviews and focus groups with nearly 270 people, including faculty, staff, administrators, students, alumni association and foundation staff, and current or former board members of both organizations. The consultant reviewed more than 500 documents and data provided by the university and conducted a peer benchmarking study with 10 of Iowa State's academic and Big 12 peers -- Colorado State, Kansas State, Michigan State, North Carolina State, Oregon State, Purdue, Missouri, Nebraska, Cincinnati and Baylor.

Kisch updates P&S Council on facility service teams

By Anne Krapfl
March 13

The Professional and Scientific (P&S) Council is still recruiting P&S employees to fill vacant seats when council terms expire this spring. The nomination deadline was extended to 5 p.m. Friday, March 14; the self-nomination form is online.

Governance committee chair Paul Easker, Virtual Reality Applications Center, reported at the council's March 6 meeting that he's received 14 nominations for this spring's 19 council vacancies across the four representative divisions:

• Academic affairs: 13 vacancies
• Student affairs: 1
• Operations and finance: 3
• President's division: 2

The president's division is the only area with enough nominations to hold the election, he said. Between one and three council nominees are needed in each of the other three divisions. The goal is to hold the online election yet this month.

Facility service teams update

Associate vice president Wendy Kisch, facilities planning and management (FPM), said FPM's development of a new service team structure should be complete by fall semester. In it, multifunctional teams are assigned to campus neighborhoods, and each team has the capacity and expertise to provide the full range of FPM services: new construction and renovation projects, custodial and grounds services, building maintenance, building systems repairs and maintenance, and overall service coordination. A team director will coordinate across the services in that neighborhood. Team members will become specialists for the buildings and building systems in their neighborhood, rather than the all-campus generalists they are now.

The goal is a more agile and customer-centric organization that serves the university effectively and meets customer needs, she said.

"The current FPM structure, which has existed for decades, is functionally siloed. It no longer works for our customers -- or our FPM employees," she said. The expectation that any FPM employee can answer any question about FPM service doesn't hold up, and FPM's campus clients have expressed dissatisfaction with inefficient processes, poor collaboration, lack of accountability, poor communication and high service costs, she said.

Directors for the six teams in the new structure are hired, as are some of the managers for specific service areas within each team. Leaders currently are hiring the remaining managers and supervisor-level positions. The final step, this summer, is to fill in and right-size the service teams for the neighborhoods they'll work in, she said. By fall, Kisch said she expects to introduce the full teams to the campus community.

FPM service teams

*To be defined

Officer elections

In unanimous consent ballots, the council elected Christine Reinders, Ames National Laboratory, to serve as president-elect beginning July 1, and re-elected council secretary-treasurer Sara Everson, public safety department, to another year of service. This year's president-elect, Jennifer Schroeder, finance service delivery, will move into the president's role next year, and president Jason Follett, software engineering department, moves into the past-president slot on July 1.

Follett announced that the council's diversity, equity and inclusion committee was dissolved on Feb. 28. Approved with other bylaw changes in December, the change had been scheduled to take effect July 1. The council's previously approved new community relations and advocacy committee will exist in ad hoc mode until July 1, when it becomes a standing committee.

Peer advocacy committee chair Rachel Faircloth, Ivy College of Business, announced ISU ombuds Laura Smythe has developed a training session on a new topic, "How Reflection Supports and Builds Professional Development," on Wednesday, March 26 (9-10 a.m., Coover Hall). Register in Workday Learn.

Related story

• Reorganization in facilities unit will enhance efficiency and service, June 20, 2024

Judge impressed by students' pitch evolution

By Jeff Budlong
March 13

Engineering student Tommy Lehr demonstrates his prototype to judges during the March 4 pitch-off finale in the Student Innovation Center. Lehr took the top spot in the new idea category. Photos by Timothy Scheve/Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship.

Dylan Kline, business development director for the Ames Regional Economic Alliance, is no stranger to Iowa State's pitch-off finale, where students from every college compete for cash prizes for new and existing business ideas. Kline judged the past three finales and has seen the impact of Iowa State's commitment to innovation.

"It's great to see the innovation that is happening and the creativity that the students bring to it," Kline said. "Being impressed with what I see, I focus on how we can keep them in our region after they graduate from Iowa State."

Kline's job at the alliance entails attracting large industrial and commercial projects to the area to create capital investment in the region. He likes students' ability to turn ideas on paper into strong businesses.

"Given that students [in the contest] are coming from all over the university, I can see how entrepreneurship and innovation are being integrated into the landscape at Iowa State," he said. "It's evident to me that in their classes they are talking through what it means for a business to be legitimate and viable."

Kline said the quality of pitches improves each year. How students prepare to stand up in front of a group of judges will serve them well no matter what field they go into. With only 90 seconds to talk, students need a clear message on a subject the judges may not have a lot of knowledge about. The most obvious improvement comes from students who have taken part in the competition for multiple years, Kline said.

"One student talked about how it had gone from a very small business to having $100,000 in monthly sales," he said. "That is a legitimate revenue-producing business."

College of Health and Human Sciences' Elli Allen pitches her idea during the finale in the Student Innovation Center.

A successful pitch

Kline said for students with new ideas, one of the best ways to stand out is to show understanding of the strengths and areas for improvement of their idea. Differentiating from competitors is important.

"A judge inevitably is going to ask the question about viability, and if they can respond that they have done the market research and know what their idea is up against, that goes a long way," he said.

For existing businesses, Kline said students able to show a plan beyond a prototype and a few sales and who can articulate how they would scale up the business leave a strong impression. He said judging the winners and placers in each category has never been easy.

"Each judge puts up their favorite pitches and then we start talking about who gets first, second and third and it is a very challenging discussion," he said. "It really is razor-thin margins."

The finale

The eighth annual competition wrapped up March 4 with the finale in the Student Innovation Center. The top two placers from each college in each category -- new idea and existing business -- competed, and the winners in each category took home $5,000. Second-place finishers received $2,500 awards, third took $1,500 and five students received $500 honorable mention awards.

Finale placers:

New Idea

• First place: Tommy Lehr, College of Engineering, Big Dawg Cargo Kits
• Second place: Bradley Swan and Adam Rutecki, College of Engineering, Cygnet Scientific
• Third place: Spenser Leise, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Ashii
• Honorable mention (3): Becca Parker and Abigail Klauer, College of Health and Human Sciences, Vella Swim; Melika Ziba, College of Health and Human Sciences, Pill Ease; and Kyle Durst, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, C&D Beef Co.

Existing business

• First place: Boluwarin Ojo, College of Design, No-sparc
• Second place: Anders Otness, College of Engineering, North Star Scientific
• Third place: Jonathan Duron, College of Engineering, Tag Link
• Honorable mention (2): Ella Janssen, College of Design, GreenHouse; and Henry Shires, College of Engineering, Casmium LLC