Susan A. Henry
The Ronald P. Lynch
Dean of Agriculture
and Life Sciences
eCALSconnect - Vol. 14-3 / March 2008
Message from the Dean
This February, Professor Stephen Kresovich and I spent ten days in India meeting with alumni and agribusiness leaders. An important reason for the trip was to visit Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) in Coimbatore, where I signed a memorandum of understanding with Dr. C. Ramasamy, TNAU's vice chancellor, to form a dual master's degree program between our institutions that will encompass food science, technology, and marketing. Read more about this exciting new program.
TNAU traces its roots to an agricultural school established in Saidapet, Chennai, Tamil Nadu in 1868 and relocated to Coimbatore in 1906. It is therefore the oldest agricultural university in India, and nearly as old as Cornell University. Like Cornell, TNAU embraced the land-grant model of complementary teaching, research, and extension education, and today it is a leader in Indian agricultural technology.
We already partner with TNAU in the flagship international agriculture course Agriculture in the Developing Nations (INTAG 602); the Agri/Food Business Management Program, a highly successful annual executive development program that brings together high-level policy planners, food industry CEOs, academic faculty, and leaders from nongovernmental organizations from India and neighboring countries; and the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project II (ABSPII), a collaborative research project involving public-private-public partnerships to address constraints to food crop production in the Indian region.
Read the rest of the Dean's Message.
Featured photo
Linda McCandless
Kristina Park (Cornell), Chhaya Bhopal Patole (India), and Kawin Punyokun (Thailand) display the henna art on their hands drawn by Indian artisans during a special cultural reception at the International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics in Hyderabad, India, involving traditional art, music and dance.
Features
- New York beginner farmer education at Cornell
- New York farmers can start turning their dreams into reality with the help of a new online course
- Construction begins on biofuels research laboratory
- The old power and machinery lab at the back of Riley Robb Hall is going state-of-the-art with a $10 million grant.
- Local governments receive CaRDI training
- A CaRDI certification program is helping county and municipal leaders learn how to collaborate and consolidate to keep costs in check.
- One millionth eBird checklist registered
- Birders have been flocking to eBird, a free, year-round, online checklist of bird observations from all over North America, Central America, and the Caribbean.
- Hortus Forum travels to the Netherlands
- Thirteen lucky students experienced Dutch and German horticulture and people culture over semester break.
- Hands across Asia
- From marker-assisted plant breeding to microcredit to biofuels to goat husbandry, a new world opened up for the students who traveled to India and Thailand.
- New York Farm Viability Institute grants
- The New York Farm Viability Institute awarded a record $3.7 million in new grants to CALS faculty and Cornell Cooperative Extension experts.
- Cornell partners with Indian university to offer innovative degree in food science
- Cornell and Tamil Nadu Agricultural University will offer dual master's degree program in food science.