Bryce: Bryce Doeschot with the Rural Radio Network
and our weekly chat with the chancellor.
This week, we are joined by the chancellor
of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Dr.
Ronnie Green.
Dr. Green, students are returning to campus
in Lincoln for the spring semester.
I wanna look back on the fall and talk
about some of the things you learned amid the pandemic,
and how you're applying that to the second semester
of the school year.
Dr. Green: Well, Bryce, you know,
it's an exciting time for us.
On Monday, we have our classes start
for spring semester for this year.
And obviously, in the year we're in,
a year unlike any other
that we've experienced in our lifetime,
we're very excited to have our student body back in person,
on campus, for the start of spring semester.
You know, we did have a great fall semester last fall.
We were one of the leading institutions in the country,
both in terms of when we decided we would come back
in person or have our students together
on campus as much as possible for their fall semester.
And we were very pleased, under the conditions,
of needing to modify the way that the semester ran
and the need to practice social distancing,
in particular, to be able to conduct our classes.
We were very pleased with the way that the fall went.
We did learn some things, you know,
through that fall semester, by, you know,
having to really be careful, to protect our community
under COVID-19 and have the social distancing
in all of our classes.
We had the intent and the goal
to have as much in-person instruction as possible
under those conditions, so we really pushed every class
to have an in-person component as much as we could,
which meant for many of our classes, most of our classes,
they were hybrid in nature, where a part of the students
on a given day would be in the classroom,
and the rest of the students would be, synchronously,
in the class online for that day.
And we've learned from that.
That's worked really good in a lot of respects,
but it's not ideal, obviously.
And we decided for the spring semester
that we would remap all of our classes
across the institution.
And we're able to this semester
have all of our classes that are 75 or fewer students,
which is about 60% of our total instructional load
for the institution, be fully in-person,
where all of the students will be in the class every day.
So we're excited about launching into the semester
in that way, starting here just in a couple of days
and looking forward to a great semester.
We also have had the opportunity
to provide greater risk mitigation going
into the spring semester, realizing that, you know,
the end of January is different than the middle of August
in the season of the year that we're in,
and that we're largely confined in doors this time of year
and will be for, you know,
the period of time ahead in the semester.
And the fact that the pandemic, obviously,
has been peaked out, if you want to think of it that way,
here in this time of year, in the last few months.
So we've set up, and we're able
to develop an in-house testing system
with PCR-based saliva testing, rapid turnaround testing
on campus through our Veterinary Diagnostic Center,
for all of our community to provide re-entry testings.
So as our students and our faculty
and staff are returning to campus,
have been doing that for a best part
of the last week and a half now,
in preparing for this semester, they're being tested
to assure that we have a baseline level of information
for risk mitigation purposes.
And that's gone amazingly well.
We expect by the time classes start
that just upwards of 20,000 tests will have been done
over the last 10 days.
I had mine on Tuesday.
And it's just been amazing to watch
and see how that has developed to provide
that added level of safety for our campus community
coming back into the semester with greater in-person classes
in the winter time of the year.
So very excited to have our students back.
We're anticipating a great semester ahead.
Our enrollment is looking like it's actually up.
And we're very, very pleased about that as well
to continue delivering on our mission.
Byrce: We're visiting today with the chancellor
of the University of Nebraska Lincoln, Dr. Ronnie Green.
Dr. Green, let's look back to December a little bit quickly,
here is something that happened on the Innovation Campus,
was a visit from the Department of Homeland Security,
and that helps shine a light on some of the work being done
within the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources
to prevent bioweapons from being used
to bring down the country's food supply.
Can you bring our listeners up to speed
on what kind of research is being done within that area?
Dr. Green: Well, Bryce, we're very pleased
that back before the holidays in December
that we've had a visit from David Richardson,
who is the assistant secretary
of the Department of Homeland Security or DHS.
And he actually leads within DHS.
They're countering weapons of mass destruction effort,
and Office is part of the department, where their mission is
to prevent, predict and deter biological
and chemical nuclear threat
to American health and economic security.
And as we well know, in agriculture,
we well know in Nebraska, the safety and protection
of our food supply and our food supply system
is a potential or vulnerable target to bioterrorism.
We've been on top of that, as your listeners will know,
for now well over 20 years, as a concern
because of just the concentration of how disease,
in particular, could be a threat to our food supply.
So when David visited the Institute
of Ag and Natural Resources back in December,
he was here, primarily, to learn about our capacity
in this arena and what we're doing to help,
to kind of continue to think about the future
of protecting food production
and plant and animal agriculture, what he refers to,
and we often refer to as food agvet,
over the next 10, 15 years ahead.
We have a tremendous amount of expertise
in the institution that works around this area,
where we work on food safety, in particular,
and the safety of the food system,
and everything from plant pathology to veterinary science,
animal science, entomology, agronomy,
across disciplines in that way.
17 different research centers
in our Institute of Ag and Natural Resources
work in the space, in everything from,
you know, food safety, particularly, right at the end
of the food chain, to even slight changes
in how the environment changes would affect the safety
of our food supply and the growing part of that sector.
We also are, I think your listeners will know,
are well known in the area of drought
and mitigation of drought, an area of concern, obviously,
to us at the moment, where we're experiencing drought.
That is a concern.
So, you know, you can think of it this way,
you know, I'm an old cattle guy, as your listeners know,
if we're worried about pathogens getting into, for example,
our feed yard system in the end
of the beef production chain,
it has to be of a critical concern to us.
So this area is a area of emphasis and importance
at the university.
And it was great to have the visit from David,
from DHS back in December.
Bryce: Dr. Green, as we begin
to wrap up our conversation, the Nebraska Innovation Campus,
where we're proud to call one of our homes here
at the Nebraska Rural Radio Association, was in the news
because there was a major announcement toward the,
I don't know if that was jammed in between the holidays,
but late in December, a proposed USDA Center, this is
something that Congressman Jeff Fortenberry was working on,
and I know, it has a potential to be a big deal
out here in Nebraska Innovation Campus
and for the university.
Dr. Green: Well, Bryce, it sure does.
And we are in the stages of planning and discussion
with the US Department of Agriculture and Research Service
as we speak about this.
You know, as you've mentioned, that we were very pleased
that in the appropriations bill in Congress,
just here about a month ago, that there is initial funding
for the planning for a new USDA Center
to be constructed on the Nebraska Innovation Campus.
We are working in scoping that now
with the Agricultural Research Service.
I'm very, very, very pleased about that.
This, we think, will ultimately end up being
something over a $200 million effort when it's brought
into fruition for a new USDA National Center
for Ag Innovation.
We will be talking a lot about it
in the coming time ahead as it develops,
but it's anticipated that there will be a new,
completely new, federal lab in this area
within the AgResearch Service.
So we already have some AgResearch Service scientists
co-located with the University of Nebraska
on the campus in Lincoln in the area
of grass breeding, basically.
And then, of course,
the National US Meat Animal Research Center,
the largest livestock research center in the world
is co-partnered with us here at Clay Center
and has been since the 1960s.
So very excited about this,
and we'll be hearing and talking a lot more
about it as it develops in the time to come.
Byrce: It's a big deal for the university,
for the City of Lincoln,
and certainly the State of Nebraska.
Dr. Green, we appreciate your time today joining us
on this week's chat with the chancellor.
Dr. Green: Well, Bryce, appreciate it.
Like I said, we're excited to be back in school and
have the opportunity for our students to be back
in their learning laboratory
at the University of Nebraska Lincoln,
and we're looking forward to a great semester ahead.
Byrce: Dr. Ronnie Green, the chancellor of the University
of Nebraska in Lincoln joining us,
and I'm Brian Doeschot reporting on the Rural Radio Network.