February 2025 IANR All Hands Meeting

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02/11/2025 Added

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Michael Boehm, NU Vice President and IANR Harlan Vice Chancellor leads the IANR All Hands Meeting, recorded February 11, 2025

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[00:00:00.000]So we'll go ahead and get started on this chilly morning. I think the best is yet to
[00:00:07.000]come here with the weather in the next 24 hours. So those of you who are working outside
[00:00:15.600]across the state to take care of our livestock, our field operations, please stay safe and
[00:00:22.000]thanks for all the work that you do 24/7 to keep our animals and our crops where they
[00:00:29.220]need to be. We're going to invert the model here a little
[00:00:34.160]bit. It's hard to believe I was thinking about lots of stuff for prepping for today. I joined
[00:00:42.620]here on January 1st of '17 and that was, I don't know, 20 days, 19 days before President
[00:00:52.580]Trump's first inauguration. And here we are at the
[00:00:58.440]President Trump's second inauguration about a month into it. And candidly, there's a lot
[00:01:05.060]to go over. And almost every day we get questions and a lot of concerns, a lot of anxiety. So
[00:01:16.160]I'm going to be the optimist and we're going to talk about great stuff that's happening,
[00:01:22.180]but I just really want to go directly to what's coming out of Washington, D.C. these
[00:01:27.660]days, how it is impacting much of what we do in the institute. Definitely is impacting
[00:01:36.900]our research and innovation and innovation platform. It's impacting our reach around
[00:01:42.780]the world. It's impacting our reach to bring the world to us. And there's just a lot
[00:01:50.980]there. Why is it important and what am I hearing mostly from folks in the institute?
[00:01:56.880]It comes back to thinking about our research and innovation enterprise. If you take all
[00:02:04.800]of the funding that comes into the Institute of Ag and Natural Resources, starting with
[00:02:10.880]first our state appropriated dollars, state appropriated dollars, which is what the Unicameral
[00:02:18.420]awards to the University of Nebraska that then flow to UNL and then flows to us, and
[00:02:26.100]the state aided is the appropriation plus the tuition and fees.
[00:02:31.840]So since I've been here, I think I started, we were with the appropriated dollars and
[00:02:39.020]the tuition dollars, we were around $136 million a year that the state of Nebraska invests
[00:02:46.700]in the Institute.
[00:02:48.620]And we spent last year, we went a record high $270 million expenditure.
[00:02:55.320]So, that's about half.
[00:02:59.240]That's when I came here.
[00:03:01.100]I'm here to tell you today we're at about $124 million from the state and we're still
[00:03:07.800]doing the, last year we did $270, when I got here we were at about $215.
[00:03:13.860]So we've been pushing the envelope, we've been growing our resources, but it's been
[00:03:17.900]coming from, among other things, federal grants, federal programs.
[00:03:24.120]And this is a snapshot.
[00:03:25.200]I found out that Derek McLean, Dean of ARD, shared at the ARD conference last fall, which
[00:03:31.100]I thought was really illustrative.
[00:03:33.100]This is the FY24, if you take a look at last year's grants and the federal agencies from
[00:03:40.860]which we derive our funding, this is what that pie chart looks like.
[00:03:46.360]Not surprising, USDA, the large 53% of that pie, but as you take a look then over on the
[00:03:55.080]side, as you look at big pieces of the pie, Department of Commerce, for example, Department
[00:04:03.380]of Health and Human Services, that's where our NIH funding is nested in, USAID, for example,
[00:04:14.220]and we've heard a lot about the USAID Feed the Future Innovation Labs, and it was in,
[00:04:22.120]I think, gosh, Peter.
[00:04:24.960]Maybe 18 months ago, somewhere around there, that we were celebrating the fact that for
[00:04:31.260]the first time in nearly a quarter of a century, UNL leveraged securing a Feed the Future Innovation
[00:04:40.500]Lab, and it's around irrigation, smallholder irrigation and mechanization around the world
[00:04:47.960]with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa, it was a $19 million award with another $21 million
[00:04:54.840]at the discretion of the team to work with the global network of USAID and foreign ag
[00:05:01.980]service folks to bring information from the U.S. to those places.
[00:05:09.940]And of course, we've all heard a lot about USAID in the news, so I want to hit that one.
[00:05:15.880]I want to also say that everything I talk about today, at the end of the day while we
[00:05:21.240]might be talking about numbers of grants or percentages of this.
[00:05:24.720]Or dollar amounts, at the end of the day it's all about people.
[00:05:30.240]Absolutely all about people.
[00:05:32.080]So Tony and Jude and Nicole LaFleur who are leading our USAID program, for example.
[00:05:40.520]You can imagine personally the toll that this is taking.
[00:05:45.380]They're keeping a stiff upper lip, but it's pretty tough.
[00:05:50.560]I've heard from countless faculty.
[00:05:54.600]Across the institute about potential impacts that these executive orders, should they stick?
[00:06:02.800]Should they be implemented in some way?
[00:06:04.700]The impact that that has.
[00:06:06.760]And all the way back to we're in the spirit and the season of annual reviews.
[00:06:12.600]Thinking about the contracts that we're all running under, and I don't mean contracts
[00:06:16.800]with the government, but contracts with one another on how annual reviews are conducted.
[00:06:22.460]And how we're evaluated.
[00:06:24.480]Things that the academy takes and counts and moves into positives and areas for improvement.
[00:06:34.920]There's a long tail on how all of this could impact our community, our culture.
[00:06:42.140]And the last thing I'd say on the people front, it happens all the time.
[00:06:46.780]We're a big organization.
[00:06:48.600]2,000 people strong.
[00:06:51.820]But there are rough patches.
[00:06:54.360]Issues that many of us in the institute are going through.
[00:06:57.640]Personal loss, death of loved ones, passing of amazing colleagues and friends, diagnoses
[00:07:06.180]that are less than favorable, just serious medical issues, difficult interpersonal dynamics.
[00:07:14.480]I say it all the time and I'm going to say it today over and over, how important it is
[00:07:19.980]to really pick each other up and to hold each other.
[00:07:24.240]Hold each other in high regard and if you think about again what's happening around
[00:07:28.000]the world and thinking about the tough spots and tough situations, the budget can be dreary.
[00:07:37.000]But I would ask you to keep it in perspective.
[00:07:40.680]We'll get through it and I've even enlisted Tom Hanks this morning to help us out a little
[00:07:45.760]bit but I don't want to be the spoiler.
[00:07:48.960]So headwinds of change, I think you all know I spent time as a microbiologist in the
[00:07:54.120]Navy and I was invited to come to the aircraft carriers almost every single one in the fleet
[00:08:00.000]and deploy bioweapons testing capacity.
[00:08:03.820]What a journey that was.
[00:08:05.800]But I learned stuff when I was on the ships and you need headwind to launch a ship off
[00:08:11.080]the bow of an aircraft carrier.
[00:08:14.460]But you can have too much of a headwind and then you can't recover or launch aircraft
[00:08:21.880]very safely.
[00:08:24.000]It feels, and it only happened once when I was at sea on the old ship called the USS
[00:08:30.520]Kitty Hawk where they lost power in the middle of the night in the South Pacific and I get
[00:08:36.040]really car sick.
[00:08:37.600]There wasn't enough Dramamine that night.
[00:08:40.780]But it was a very scary feeling to be on such a big ship without any power and it's not
[00:08:49.820]a good feeling.
[00:08:50.820]And it feels a little bit like that.
[00:08:53.880]At least in my day-to-day and we try to steer out of the storm when the dust kicks up, grab
[00:09:03.500]a respirator or get out of the way or hunker down and let the dust settle.
[00:09:11.600]Every day, literally every day, there is a flurry of activity coming out of DC mainly
[00:09:21.620]through executive orders from President Trump.
[00:09:23.760]And then interpreted every which way you can imagine, oftentimes leading to a reversal
[00:09:33.580]of some of what was dropped.
[00:09:35.440]But the shock and the awe, it's almost overpowering on some days.
[00:09:42.940]You can't catch your breath, and that's when you're trying to do your normal day-to-day
[00:09:46.940]activity.
[00:09:48.700]I'm not going to go through these laundry lists, I've made it a point to even limit
[00:09:53.640]the amount of news that I'm watching, because I just don't have the capacity to sort through
[00:09:58.880]it all, and I have a lot of friends and colleagues in that same bit, same place.
[00:10:05.840]Lots of messages coming out of the president's office, or in combination between the senior
[00:10:11.120]leadership, the chancellors and the president.
[00:10:14.360]You see these memos.
[00:10:15.980]I typically don't resend them, but if there's something in there, I will.
[00:10:21.900]These memos are coming.
[00:10:23.520]At all hours, I will talk about the specifics around the NIH overhead rate going from 55
[00:10:32.280]-- our negotiated rate is 55.5%, taking it down to the proposal on the table, 15%, and
[00:10:41.540]just what impact that has.
[00:10:44.940]That message dropped on Friday afternoon, late, out of Washington.
[00:10:53.400]The Office of Research didn't waste any time, and I would put a huge plug, if you have concerns
[00:11:00.320]about what's going on, always you can pick up the phone and reach out to Derek or to
[00:11:05.180]me or to the team in ARD.
[00:11:08.920]But I would encourage you to go to the Office of Research and Innovations website.
[00:11:14.700]They have an active, updated, twice, three, four times a day update on what's going on
[00:11:21.680]with all of the
[00:11:23.280]administrative orders, all of the changes to grants, grant panels, anything around the
[00:11:30.100]things that we care about.
[00:11:32.040]It's a terrific site.
[00:11:33.420]I'd encourage you to visit.
[00:11:34.980]For those of you in the College of Education and Human Sciences, on Friday, Dr. Jen Nelson,
[00:11:41.660]the interim vice chancellor for ORI, will be at CHS's all-hands meeting.
[00:11:48.680]So I don't think Nick would mind if a group from the rest of
[00:11:53.160]IE&R showed up there to get some input.
[00:11:57.400]Derek is keeping close tabs and is in close contact not only with Jen,
[00:12:02.440]but also with the interim provost David Jackson,
[00:12:06.160]and with our colleagues like Ken Bales at the Med Center and the other campuses.
[00:12:11.660]So there's a really well-refined,
[00:12:16.260]well-worn path between folks.
[00:12:18.780]But just playing out on this a little bit,
[00:12:20.680]Saturday night at 11:35,
[00:12:23.040]President Gold put out a note on the NIH stuff.
[00:12:28.040]It was a late night, so I saw it then.
[00:12:32.380]It took me a little bit of time
[00:12:34.000]to figure out where my head was.
[00:12:36.720]I am not prone to sending out and amplifying messages,
[00:12:41.720]but this was a message that I sent
[00:12:45.680]to all of the department heads,
[00:12:47.760]the REEC directors, limited number of directors,
[00:12:52.920]from our centers.
[00:12:54.620]But I also sent this to the president
[00:12:57.220]and the executive director of the Nebraska Farm Bureau,
[00:13:00.420]the executive directors of all of the commodity groups,
[00:13:03.980]LinkedIn, NSRI, LinkedIn, Kate Engle
[00:13:08.780]over at the Innovation Campus,
[00:13:11.340]and a whole group of other folks.
[00:13:14.740]And you can read for yourself,
[00:13:16.920]but really making the point that message after message
[00:13:22.800]we are monitoring the situation, that's terrific,
[00:13:26.260]but this is more of a call to action
[00:13:29.560]and in, I think, a smart manner.
[00:13:34.300]And it really is just trying to make the pitch
[00:13:36.880]that you can read your own articles on this,
[00:13:40.900]but cuts to F&A rate,
[00:13:43.280]when you go back and something look at like 1980
[00:13:46.800]at the percentage of funding
[00:13:48.920]that was coming in for federal research,
[00:13:52.680]compared to what it is today,
[00:13:55.720]a 17% swing less,
[00:13:57.060]and that means that institutions
[00:14:01.280]are picking up more of that burden.
[00:14:04.560]Same kind of a deal, 11 to 15% increase
[00:14:08.100]in institutional support for the work that we do,
[00:14:12.180]our science and our innovation,
[00:14:13.900]both translational science and foundational work.
[00:14:17.740]And of course, behind the scenes,
[00:14:19.920]well, when you put your budgets together,
[00:14:22.560]and I can probably say that I've dusted off
[00:14:26.260]the grant submission work in my own head
[00:14:32.360]and submitted a DARPA proposal a couple of weeks ago,
[00:14:35.680]and I'm happy to report we found out we made it to the next round.
[00:14:38.620]So that just feels good after eight years of being in the job
[00:14:42.940]and not having submitted a grant for a bit.
[00:14:45.180]So thanks to my colleagues who are co-PIs.
[00:14:47.600]But my point on this is that that F&A rate,
[00:14:51.320]when you build your budgets,
[00:14:52.440]you're putting in what you need to do the science
[00:14:55.500]to support your technical assistance team,
[00:15:01.640]your postdocs, your graduate students, summer salary,
[00:15:05.860]so forth.
[00:15:06.500]And then you're putting in an overhead.
[00:15:08.160]That overhead, Jen Nelson will tell you, and it's true,
[00:15:11.820]our overhead rate does not cover--
[00:15:15.380]in fact, we operate our research enterprise
[00:15:18.000]at universities across the country at a deficit.
[00:15:21.620]We're not--
[00:15:22.320]recouping, and we certainly aren't
[00:15:25.740]making a profit using an overhead.
[00:15:29.560]That's not what overhead's about,
[00:15:31.420]and we are running our programs in the red.
[00:15:36.320]It's an important thing that we do there,
[00:15:39.360]and so we make a strategic investment
[00:15:42.060]to do that as an institution.
[00:15:44.160]But the overhead that does come into the institution that
[00:15:49.100]filters its way, I think we get 26%.
[00:15:52.200]So there's a lot that gets pulled out here.
[00:15:55.680]Overhead helps run our library system, our data information
[00:16:00.220]platform.
[00:16:01.060]It supports initiatives that we all benefit from.
[00:16:06.940]It helps in a partnership with ARD, Extension, and CASNR
[00:16:12.480]when we build startup packages.
[00:16:15.540]Huge.
[00:16:16.680]So without that overhead flowing in or taking a big hit,
[00:16:22.080]and USDA grants, you all know, pay less overhead.
[00:16:25.380]Our negotiated rate is much lower
[00:16:27.240]than NSF and Department of Health and Human Services
[00:16:31.180]and DOE and DOD.
[00:16:34.200]But to go from 55%, a 40% reduction to 15%
[00:16:40.380]is going to have really very serious impact on what
[00:16:45.900]the university has to operate.
[00:16:47.760]And that definitely doesn't really attack the cost of--
[00:16:51.960]you doing the project, but everything else
[00:16:55.260]that gets us to get the grant, to get the funding,
[00:16:58.800]to actually keep us moving, to hire the next generation
[00:17:02.460]is all impacted.
[00:17:04.260]Now, that's a shot across the bow.
[00:17:06.780]And again, to be a bit of a spoiler,
[00:17:10.020]there is an injunction on that.
[00:17:12.780]And this will get sorted out in the court.
[00:17:17.280]But whether it stays at 55--
[00:17:21.840]I doubt it will-- or gets pruned somewhere,
[00:17:25.980]and how it gets pruned, and the NIH is just, I think,
[00:17:32.880]the first salvo, and then you start going down the list,
[00:17:37.680]I don't think it's a stretch to think
[00:17:39.520]that this is a complete adjustment of where we're going
[00:17:43.020]with overhead rates.
[00:17:45.240]And if you think in a draconian kind of way,
[00:17:48.080]15% on all of those alphabet agencies that
[00:17:51.720]we depend on, Houston, we have a big problem.
[00:17:55.760]And the president, in his memo, articulated the impact just
[00:18:00.680]of the NIH change.
[00:18:03.300]It changes the nature of the academy in incredible ways.
[00:18:11.100]I'll underscore, this is the beginning salvo,
[00:18:14.940]just like when we talk about the unicameral.
[00:18:17.640]There's a lot on the table.
[00:18:19.320]It's early, and so we'll
[00:18:21.600]see how this goes.
[00:18:23.660]The unnerving thing is that how it is happening
[00:18:27.600]in this administration is a new model
[00:18:31.200]that we're all learning.
[00:18:32.880]There's no experts in this room.
[00:18:34.880]We're all learning together on how this administration is
[00:18:40.380]going about transforming our government.
[00:18:44.720]Let me also say that, so that we don't feel too sorry
[00:18:48.920]for ourselves, is that the people that
[00:18:51.480]we serve, especially in the Institute,
[00:18:54.220]especially through Nebraska Extension,
[00:18:57.000]and our connected research, the people that we serve
[00:19:01.320]are also dealing with potential for transformative,
[00:19:06.800]radical disruption and change.
[00:19:09.780]And those are our producers.
[00:19:11.240]A lot of our producers that are benefiting
[00:19:14.120]from the last administration's investment in things
[00:19:18.660]like climate-smart agriculture.
[00:19:21.360]Digital and precision agriculture.
[00:19:24.860]There are promises and grants and contracts
[00:19:30.860]to which our farmers and our ranchers benefit directly.
[00:19:36.100]And we have a lot of that happening in Nebraska.
[00:19:39.300]So yesterday morning, the second email that I sent out,
[00:19:42.800]well, Sunday night, the second email was to the president,
[00:19:46.140]Mark McCarg of the Nebraska Farm Bureau,
[00:19:48.520]and Rob Robertson, the executive director.
[00:19:51.240]In which I shared with them a news article that essentially said,
[00:19:57.220]"Looks like the president has put out an executive order to
[00:20:00.880]withdraw payments to producers that they're perhaps already counting on.
[00:20:05.920]Help us help you.
[00:20:08.860]Let us know how the Farm Bureau is viewing this."
[00:20:12.480]So this is Zippy Duvall is the president of the American Farm Bureau.
[00:20:17.180]So every state's got a Farm Bureau.
[00:20:19.220]The Farm Bureaus all roll into
[00:20:21.120]national organization in Washington, DC.
[00:20:24.700]And this was the press release that came out just yesterday.
[00:20:29.980]Basically saying, you know,
[00:20:32.400]don't don't undercut our producers,
[00:20:34.920]pay him what we promised.
[00:20:36.620]So on the people that we serve and then our own internal operations are,
[00:20:43.180]are all in the same are all in the same boat, I guess.
[00:20:46.740]And again, I come back to this human dimension that the
[00:20:51.000]dynamics that we're navigating are absolutely serious.
[00:20:56.100]They're unprecedented.
[00:20:58.000]It's a new way of thinking about the world.
[00:21:00.900]I'm certain there will be evolution.
[00:21:02.760]I'm not, I don't worry about evolution.
[00:21:05.000]I think there's that saying, if you don't like change,
[00:21:07.160]you're going to really dislike being extinct.
[00:21:09.800]So I don't think we want to be extinct, but the, how the change is happening it
[00:21:15.840]leaves a lot of questions and curiosities and that brings a lot of anxiety.
[00:21:20.880]And we're all navigating that and that comes back to the human condition.
[00:21:24.900]So, don't get caught in that.
[00:21:29.760]One of the favorite places in the world, the Sandhills.
[00:21:32.780]I had to keep breathing, even though there was no reason to hope.
[00:21:40.260]And all my logic said that I would never see this place again.
[00:21:50.760]So that's what I did.
[00:21:55.820]I stayed alive.
[00:21:57.260]I kept breathing.
[00:21:58.700]And then one day that logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, gave me a
[00:22:13.660]sail.
[00:22:15.160]And now here I am.
[00:22:19.000]Thanks Chuck Nolan.
[00:22:20.640]Okay, maybe a little melodramatic and a little dark on this sunny Nebraska day, but you know,
[00:22:27.940]I've used this phrase from a colleague I learned 30 years ago, and that's when times get tough.
[00:22:34.260]Keep breathing, right?
[00:22:36.200]Remember to breathe.
[00:22:37.500]Somehow keep your feet moving.
[00:22:39.740]If you have to put your head down and keep forging ahead, that's really important advice.
[00:22:47.460]And I think the dust, like I said, has absolutely...
[00:22:50.520]Absolutely been kicked up.
[00:22:52.840]It is hard to breathe.
[00:22:55.000]We're all smart folks.
[00:22:56.840]Find a way.
[00:22:57.840]And at the end of the day, when I visited with Senate, both faculty and staff Senate
[00:23:02.220]last week, Derek and Tiffany, Rich and I had a chance to visit with them.
[00:23:07.860]We had a huge conversation.
[00:23:09.220]I said the same thing to that smaller group.
[00:23:11.780]This is critical and the dust is going to settle.
[00:23:16.840]Focus on the things that we do every day that impact and make
[00:23:20.400]the world better, helping learners learn, our students grow,
[00:23:25.120]thinking about advancing our research discovery innovation platforms,
[00:23:29.660]thinking about extending that knowledge to people who depend on us.
[00:23:34.520]Don't stop.
[00:23:35.520]I've said this from the beginning of the journey together.
[00:23:39.320]If we succumb to that point, then we're dead in the water.
[00:23:44.400]It really is not a good place.
[00:23:46.400]This group of people in the institute,
[00:23:50.280]in the last nine years, you have amazed me at working through your resilience.
[00:23:57.360]Just keep doing it.
[00:23:58.880]It works for us.
[00:24:00.640]That's not a cop out that we're not going to address some of these difficult conversations.
[00:24:08.600]There's the quote from Chuck Nolan, "I want to just stop here and I want to turn the mic
[00:24:14.820]over to you to get what is on your minds out on the table.
[00:24:20.160]I promise you likely will not have any deep wisdom to solve the issue, but if you want
[00:24:28.340]to share, I think this would be a good time for us to get this on the table and hear what's
[00:24:33.980]on your mind.
[00:24:34.980]Would it be informative for the deans and for me, for Jeff and for Kara, for Rich as
[00:24:40.480]we're trying to navigate a very dynamic and fluid situation.
[00:24:46.320]There's a mic there.
[00:24:47.320]Jordan's got a mic and I can deliver this mic.
[00:24:50.040]Don't be shy.
[00:24:54.880]If you could introduce yourself so that everybody could hear, that'd be great.
[00:25:00.800]Thanks very much, Mike.
[00:25:01.800]My name is Jude Cobbing at the Innovation Lab in the Doherty Water for Food Institute.
[00:25:06.780]Thank you very much for your kind words.
[00:25:09.800]Just to say we're pivoting.
[00:25:11.520]We're doing our best to keep going and we've got some good opportunities, we're seeing
[00:25:19.920]some good findings, we're working hard to pivot on to other projects and thank you to
[00:25:26.200]everybody here for the support that you've given us and we're looking for the opportunities
[00:25:32.280]in this.
[00:25:33.280]Thank you.
[00:25:34.280]Thanks, Jude.
[00:25:36.280]John, Carol, meet me halfway.
[00:25:46.100]And maybe go up there so the folks online can see your mug.
[00:25:48.800]They don't need to see me.
[00:25:49.800]They can just hear me.
[00:25:50.800]People write all the time.
[00:25:51.800]They want to see you, John.
[00:25:52.800]I'm John.
[00:25:53.800]School of Natural Resources.
[00:25:54.800]Mike, you sort of touched on this a tiny bit, but there's an elephant in the room here.
[00:26:00.760]And when I was an undergraduate, which was long before most of the people in here, including
[00:26:07.800]you, my first semester tuition, the whole bill at a large R1 university was $150.
[00:26:19.680]State university was more than 50% funded by the state.
[00:26:25.700]The elephant in the room here is we've spent 40 years, well, states have spent 40 years
[00:26:31.840]reneging on their education promise to our kids as a public good.
[00:26:39.780]And we managed to substitute federal funding, lots of other things for that, and that's
[00:26:48.340]now coming back.
[00:26:49.560]In short phrase, to bite us.
[00:26:53.980]How are we going to do with the state of Nebraska on this, especially being a flyover state?
[00:26:58.600]For our students who want to leave us.
[00:27:03.220]Thanks, Brian.
[00:27:04.220]Thanks, John.
[00:27:05.220]I will engage a little on this one.
[00:27:09.660]So where I started, right, there's no question that the cost of total attendance at American
[00:27:16.440]institutions has increased.
[00:27:19.440]I remember, my daughter would kill me for saying this, but when she was thinking about
[00:27:24.060]college, I don't know where Connie and Kirby were, a baseball tournament or something.
[00:27:29.600]So it was just dad and Carly and we're going to have this great, you know, watch movies,
[00:27:33.820]have popcorn, that kind of stuff.
[00:27:36.120]She's in her bedroom crying and I'm like, what's going -- oh, no, where's Connie, right?
[00:27:42.420]So I go in and she's weighing the cost of college education.
[00:27:49.320]Wow, we raised our kids pretty well if this is where they're at.
[00:27:53.640]And she was just really concerned how her choices were going
[00:27:57.700]to impact our family's finances.
[00:27:59.800]So anyway, we got to the movies and the popcorn and everything was good there,
[00:28:04.560]but I was doing the math.
[00:28:06.760]It was like by the time I went to school, college, and the time she went to,
[00:28:11.540]it was a four-fold increase in the cost.
[00:28:15.360]And I think by the time, you know, their kids are going, it's going to be
[00:28:19.200]at least another four-fold.
[00:28:20.760]So to the point, the cost of total attendance, not just for what happens in the classroom,
[00:28:26.940]but all of the room and board, and the scary thing there too, right, in about 2006 to 2008,
[00:28:35.560]when you started looking at places like UNL and the cost of -- cost for your academic
[00:28:42.320]programs was eclipsed, actually, by the cost for your room and your board.
[00:28:49.080]And anybody in here with kids or grandkids, you know that's the case.
[00:28:55.020]So you can't just think about keeping tuition down.
[00:28:58.960]You've got to also think about total cost of attendance.
[00:29:02.720]And it's really expensive.
[00:29:04.260]And I think land grant universities are great bargains in every state, great values.
[00:29:09.780]When you think about the small liberal arts colleges and you look at their sticker prices,
[00:29:14.600]or you think about the Ivies, I mean, it's just like out of reach.
[00:29:18.960]It's true to our land grant mission of being accessible to folks.
[00:29:24.520]And programs like the Nebraska Promise that look at the median income, and if you make
[00:29:30.940]less than that as a family, then you can attend your land grant university and then really
[00:29:37.260]only have to navigate the room and the board.
[00:29:39.720]I think these are great programs.
[00:29:41.460]So I do think there are investments that the state and that the university are making.
[00:29:48.840]I'll also say that Hatch dollars are terrific and Smith-Lever dollars are terrific.
[00:29:56.600]McIntyre Stennis, these are formula funds that were part of the package.
[00:30:02.180]Those formulas for those formula funds are over 100 years old.
[00:30:08.020]So the 6,000 bucks that we get in Hatch dollars or the 6,000 bucks that we get for Smith-Lever
[00:30:14.460]-- did I say thousand?
[00:30:17.500]I mean million.
[00:30:18.720]That's a plant pathologist coming out.
[00:30:21.160]The six million or the six million, you know, that's crazy.
[00:30:25.600]It's great.
[00:30:26.600]It gives us discretion.
[00:30:28.400]But I want to come back to John's point and where I started today.
[00:30:32.380]The largest grant that we receive actually is from the state of Nebraska.
[00:30:36.620]You can think about it as a return and investment in us.
[00:30:40.960]A hundred million dollars of state appropriated funds in our FY biennial budget.
[00:30:48.600]That is now sitting in front of the unicameral, 48 million dollars is included in that budget
[00:30:54.520]for ARD.
[00:30:56.240]29 million is in there for extension.
[00:31:01.040]So while we wrestle with the complexities, while I wrestle with the complexities of total
[00:31:08.600]cost of attendance, at the same time, half of IANR's budget is coming from state appropriated
[00:31:16.260]dollars.
[00:31:18.480]About an eighth of our budget is coming from families who are paying tuition and fees.
[00:31:24.920]And the rest, you are doing through our team with Nebraska Foundation, through philanthropy,
[00:31:32.800]and then through grants and contracts.
[00:31:35.660]And we have been doing a terrific job.
[00:31:37.520]So that total package, it's all important.
[00:31:40.920]The investment of the feds in what we do, the investment of our state, the investment
[00:31:46.780]of the cities in which we operate.
[00:31:48.360]The counties in which we operate, John, I couldn't agree with you more, are absolutely
[00:31:52.540]essential.
[00:31:54.040]And different states view the investment in public education differently.
[00:32:00.240]And I'm absolutely convinced that great universities make great states and great cities.
[00:32:08.980]And everybody wants one, but we're going to have to figure out a different funding model.
[00:32:14.400]And higher education is in the crosshairs big time.
[00:32:18.240]Especially for the last 40 years.
[00:32:21.540]But it is at a new heightened place of really thinking about how do we fund this public
[00:32:27.300]good.
[00:32:29.520]And yeah, I'll stop there and we'll get some more questions.
[00:32:33.580]Thanks, John.
[00:32:38.020]Anybody just want to share?
[00:32:39.020]John?
[00:32:40.020]Yeah.
[00:32:41.020]John Erickson with the Nebraska Forest Service.
[00:32:48.120]Mike, one of the proposals I've heard tossed around is the idea of having block grants
[00:32:54.180]go to the state rather than going through the Department of Ag to the wherever it goes.
[00:33:01.360]And I guess one of my personal concerns that keeps me up at night is the idea of that money
[00:33:07.940]have been previously been set aside for certain purposes, then it comes to the state.
[00:33:14.100]And then I say, well, property tax relief or something.
[00:33:18.000]Have you thought about that at all?
[00:33:21.520]And can you share anything related to that?
[00:33:24.120]I think about it every day.
[00:33:25.680]In fact, yesterday Jeff Basford, Mike Zeleny, and Tiffany Hang-Moss and I were sitting with
[00:33:31.420]Ann Barnes, the current University of Nebraska interim CFO.
[00:33:37.540]And we were having this very conversation in a microscopic way.
[00:33:41.900]We were talking specifically about the state aided budget that comes to IANR.
[00:33:47.880]Back when IANR was formed, it was pretty straightforward.
[00:33:51.560]There was a line in the state budget, a coded line that said this is how much the state
[00:33:57.500]was going to invest in the Institute of Ag and Natural Resources.
[00:34:00.700]It came to the vice chancellor directly and it was the vice chancellor's responsibility.
[00:34:06.720]Dennis Smith, when he was president of the University of Nebraska, said exactly what
[00:34:12.080]you said, it would be easier for the Board of Regents and the president's office, unit
[00:34:17.760]cameral gave us a block grant, we will distribute it, but that gives us local control.
[00:34:23.900]So from 1991 kind of going forward, IANR's budget came as part of a larger 700 now what
[00:34:31.180]is close to $740 million a year block grant from the people of the state through the unit
[00:34:37.320]cameral to the university.
[00:34:39.680]About half of that finds its way to the University of Nebraska Lincoln chancellor's office and
[00:34:45.280]of what goes to the chancellor's office.
[00:34:47.640]27% finds its way to my office and then that funds in part what we are doing.
[00:34:55.040]All of that works really well when everybody between me and the unit cameral is aligned
[00:35:00.260]with what we think is important.
[00:35:03.040]The more people that your funds pass through, the more opportunity for creative thinking
[00:35:10.100]and diverse uses and that is a constant battle.
[00:35:14.240]That's one that the institute right here, right now.
[00:35:17.520]Is real.
[00:35:19.520]And what you're talking about, John, is on a massive, a massive scale.
[00:35:25.360]And then we're getting into really complex issues about the three divisions of government
[00:35:31.600]and the executive branch is flexing right now like every administration does.
[00:35:36.520]We're just seeing a different version of that and really looking at this dynamic dance between
[00:35:42.140]the executive legislative and the judicial branch weighing in.
[00:35:46.460]I think we're a long way off.
[00:35:47.400]We're a long way.
[00:35:48.500]There's so much disruption right now.
[00:35:51.620]We're a long way from where we're going to land and there's layer upon layer upon layer
[00:35:56.820]upon layer of legality and so forth and again, I'm going to claim I'm just a plant pathologist
[00:36:02.500]on that one.
[00:36:03.500]But I think about it every day and right in front of us when it comes to IANR's funding.
[00:36:17.280]Who gets to him first?
[00:36:20.200]Brian, you lose.
[00:36:23.200]School and Natural Resources.
[00:36:29.660]Maybe a short opinion statement and then a question for you.
[00:36:34.980]The work that we've been doing in inclusiveness, belonging, creating opportunities has taken
[00:36:43.160]a big hit and I think sometimes I can feel like a.
[00:36:47.160]Punch in the gut to something that for the last.
[00:36:51.260]Several decades.
[00:36:53.680]Our colleagues around the country, but even especially here, I think we've had special
[00:37:00.280]attention in that area.
[00:37:03.140]I'm grateful for the places that you've let us, whether it's our just, you know, training
[00:37:09.280]of international grad students that go back and make their places a better place.
[00:37:14.880]The pathway programs that we have.
[00:37:17.040]The attention to rural Nebraska and socioeconomic areas of the state that are disadvantaged
[00:37:24.040]that need to make sure the university is there.
[00:37:27.260]And so I just, I guess I want to say, I think, and I think many in the room agree, if not
[00:37:34.540]most, that that's an important thing that we continue to do no matter what the labels
[00:37:39.880]are that we put on it.
[00:37:42.860]I think that's one of the most critical things that we're doing is providing those opportunities
[00:37:46.920]to students, employees, potential employees to join us.
[00:37:53.960]So I guess I'm just, that's maybe a long way to say, I think all that's important stuff
[00:38:00.200]in the face of maybe some national words that go the other direction.
[00:38:08.720]But any thoughts you have on how we continue to work together as a group in that space
[00:38:13.580]would be great.
[00:38:14.580]Yeah, you bet.
[00:38:15.580]It's an important topic.
[00:38:16.800]I'm kind of like anticipated that would come up, right?
[00:38:22.580]But my Tuesday morning is rough.
[00:38:24.840]It's rough.
[00:38:26.420]Obviously we're flying in a very complex national environment, different states, different legislative
[00:38:35.860]bodies are interpreting things differently.
[00:38:41.260]What I will say unwavering is that the institute and I will say the moniker of every person,
[00:38:46.680]every interaction matters.
[00:38:49.220]When we launched the N2025 plan, I believe that.
[00:38:53.800]Every person and every interaction absolutely matters.
[00:38:58.120]You've heard my sense in the use of the word accessible.
[00:39:02.980]We're a land grant university.
[00:39:04.480]We were based on being accessible.
[00:39:07.720]Nebraska was a place where every citizen was invited to be a participant at the University
[00:39:13.800]of Nebraska from its start.
[00:39:16.560]This is who we are.
[00:39:19.780]Whether you were an indigenous or are an indigenous person, whether you're a woman, a man, now
[00:39:27.600]we have the whole conversation and the reality of are we using binomial gender or a more
[00:39:37.220]open interpretation.
[00:39:39.700]These are all really difficult conversations that touch on personal beliefs.
[00:39:46.440]And we're seeing all of this play out in real time.
[00:39:50.160]And we're seeing different administrations who are on opposite ends of the spectrum.
[00:39:56.500]And we're right caught in the middle on this.
[00:39:59.760]So definitely watching this, the conversation, it really bothers me and some people tell
[00:40:06.840]me I've drunk the Kool-Aid and it never was a thing, but I bought into the idea that if
[00:40:14.140]we could all be together.
[00:40:16.320]Same page, not necessarily have to agree or think the same way.
[00:40:19.600]That would be kind of boring.
[00:40:21.420]But if we could all be Nebraskans first, then we could do anything.
[00:40:25.820]And it's not a surprise I say this, 2 million people.
[00:40:33.340]Our strength, our superpower is in the fact that we know each other and that we can develop
[00:40:39.500]shared vision of the future and we could be nimble to be Nebraskans first and not be
[00:40:45.120]shy about large numbers.
[00:40:46.200]We are doing what is distinctively unique and Nebraskan to move it forward.
[00:40:51.800]I say it all the time, the fact that we have an institute of agriculture and natural resources.
[00:40:57.140]Only Florida has an institute of food and ag sciences.
[00:41:00.340]There's only two in the whole U.S. that are like us.
[00:41:04.400]The unicameral, the only one in the U.S. that has a unicameral.
[00:41:07.820]The natural resource districts.
[00:41:11.200]What a novel concept of breaking up our landscape.
[00:41:16.080]We need to break up our landscape by natural watersheds rather than surveyors lines.
[00:41:22.000]Nebraskans don't seem to be too shy about doing what's distinctly Nebraskan.
[00:41:27.240]I think the harsh reality in the 8 1/2 years that we've lived here is that the political
[00:41:33.520]divide and the ideological divide that is pervasive at the federal level has come home
[00:41:39.460]to Nebraska to roost.
[00:41:41.680]And we are in the midst of sorting that out.
[00:41:45.960]And look at all levels, including some of our own Board of Regents discussions.
[00:41:55.940]4-4, 4-4, 4-4, 4-4, dead break tie.
[00:42:00.400]Well, we're going to have to figure out how to be Nebraskans first if we're going to
[00:42:04.780]really leverage what we have in a way.
[00:42:09.100]And that's going to take every single one of us to move the needle forward.
[00:42:14.640]Lots of thorny issues.
[00:42:15.840]Immigration, legal immigration.
[00:42:20.080]All of that's a hard place.
[00:42:22.680]And I'm not going to stand here with opinions and I'm not going to force opinions.
[00:42:27.660]Everybody should make their own opinion on this.
[00:42:30.480]But what I will say as the leader of the Institute of Ag and Natural Resources, that we are committed
[00:42:35.780]again to every person, every interaction.
[00:42:38.920]That we are accessible to every Nebraskan and the people around the world and that we
[00:42:45.240]have a resource.
[00:42:45.720]We have a responsibility to leverage our collaborative gifts, collective gifts to make the world
[00:42:51.720]a better place.
[00:42:53.400]And it all comes back down to treating each other with all the golden rules, mutual respect,
[00:43:00.260]caring for each other, and yes, using our voices.
[00:43:03.300]And I think that's a really tricky thing.
[00:43:06.480]That's a really tricky thing.
[00:43:07.660]It's a really tricky thing at a time when words are being taken off the grid by leaders
[00:43:14.120]that are saying you can't.
[00:43:15.600]Use these words.
[00:43:17.960]You can't talk this way.
[00:43:20.980]By citizens and leaders who spend their days surfing websites looking for triggering language,
[00:43:29.720]and when they find the triggering language, there's a hail storm, like a Nebraska hail
[00:43:35.200]storm of epic proportion.
[00:43:38.220]So what have we done?
[00:43:39.620]We have absolutely listened to our leadership.
[00:43:43.280]We've removed, quote unquote, "triggering language."
[00:43:45.480]Staying true, however, in everything that we do to make sure that every person and every
[00:43:54.280]interaction matters, that everyone here feels that you can belong, that you can contribute,
[00:44:01.720]and that you're doing your job.
[00:44:04.420]I would also go maybe a little bit out there and say, I say this all the time, so I'll
[00:44:08.300]say it here, you know, stay in our lanes.
[00:44:11.700]Stay in our lanes.
[00:44:13.100]I'm a plant pathologist.
[00:44:14.360]There are certain things I think I know something about.
[00:44:18.220]And there's a whole bunch that I have, whether it's faith-based or personal opinions, that
[00:44:23.140]have no business in our classrooms.
[00:44:26.580]No business in an annual review evaluation.
[00:44:30.560]No business in an extension program.
[00:44:33.440]Stay in your lane.
[00:44:35.600]The academy has always been a place for ideas to be pushed and pulled on, and things happen
[00:44:43.600]outside of the classroom on personal time.
[00:44:46.880]Two different situations.
[00:44:49.020]But I think there is some fairness to be said that if we all stay in our lane, then maybe
[00:44:55.700]in some ways we wouldn't candidly be in this situation.
[00:45:00.360]And I don't mean that in a punitive way, but if we would stay in our lane and express our
[00:45:06.840]opinions in appropriate venues, I think that would go a long way.
[00:45:12.840]And I think the culture, whether you like it or you don't like it, we live in a red state.
[00:45:19.180]And the culture of the place can change. It may change.
[00:45:24.180]But, you know, honor and respect the culture that we're living in and navigate that.
[00:45:30.180]But the commitment to every person and every interaction in IANR,
[00:45:36.180]and I'm not counting days, but for the time I've been here from the start, I made it.
[00:45:42.080]I made it something that we talk about, and it's important.
[00:45:47.080]But the times are pretty tough, and we're going to have to figure out where our lines are.
[00:45:54.080]And maybe the toughest thing I would say is we're all making compromises.
[00:45:59.080]And you've got to figure out where those lines are, and you've got to do what's right for you.
[00:46:05.080]Just be aware that your actions can invoke a responsibility
[00:46:11.320]and invoke a response. And I think that's the trickiest thing about being a leader at this time,
[00:46:16.560]is trying not to compromise your principles, not to compromise your values,
[00:46:21.560]and find a way that allows us to keep doing the work that we're built to do.
[00:46:26.560]An imperfect answer from an imperfect human.
[00:46:31.560]Okay.
[00:46:36.560]Let's move along here. Legislative update.
[00:46:40.560]I've asked Jesse to come and visit with you a little bit.
[00:46:44.560]You can take a look. It's the 90-day session, so our biannual budget is being discussed.
[00:46:51.560]But there are also other big thorny issues, like DEI, like tenure, that have been proposed in bills.
[00:46:59.560]Won't go into those great details, but your thoughts would be great, Jesse.
[00:47:03.560]Yeah, absolutely. Jesse Brophy with the INR Vice Chancellor's Office. I serve as the Director of External Relations.
[00:47:09.800]And part of my role also includes being a member of the NU State Relations team, so focusing on everything going on at the state legislature.
[00:47:16.800]I've been doing this now for seven, eight legislative sessions, so it's been kind of a crazy ride.
[00:47:23.800]Today is day 24 of this legislative session. An odd number of years we have a long session.
[00:47:30.800]Every other year we have a 60-day session and a 90-day session. This is the 90-day session, and this is the session for which we appropriate our budget,
[00:47:39.040]our state budget. In Nebraska, it's the law that we have to pass a balanced budget. Right now in Nebraska, from what I understand, we have a $435 million budget deficit.
[00:47:50.040]So the way that this works in Nebraska is that in the fall, state agencies all have the opportunity to submit their budget request to the Office of the Governor
[00:47:59.040]and to the Legislative Fiscal Office. So we being a state agency, we put in our budget request. It was 3% operational and salaries,
[00:48:08.280]plus a 5% increase on health care expenses, which equals about a 3.5% budget increase is what we requested.
[00:48:15.820]With the approval of the Board of Regents and in collaboration actually with the Governor's Office, that's what we requested.
[00:48:21.480]By day 20 of the legislative session, the Governor then gives the legislature his budget proposal. He did this actually on day 6 this year.
[00:48:32.920]year, which was January 15th, in his state of the state address, he announced the 2.07%
[00:48:39.090]cut to the university budget, along with some cut to the healthcare cash funds and the amount
[00:48:45.830]of about $11 million.
[00:48:47.750]So with the 2.07% cut and the cut to the healthcare cash fund, that equals about a $24 million
[00:48:54.330]cut to our appropriation.
[00:48:56.550]So the next step then is that the appropriation committee, and I listed the members of the
[00:49:02.490]appropriation committee for everybody to review.
[00:49:05.810]It's their responsibility then, nine people in Nebraska decide on the budget.
[00:49:09.670]They'll take all of the state agency requests, they'll take the governor's proposal, they'll
[00:49:13.730]figure out how we're going to have a balanced budget.
[00:49:17.050]They have to do that by day 70.
[00:49:19.490]So that is April 29th this year.
[00:49:21.470]So by day 70, the appropriations committee has to have the budget to the legislature,
[00:49:27.050]to the whole Senate, and then the Senate will have three rounds of floor debate.
[00:49:32.070]Three rounds of floor debate.
[00:49:35.630]They have to then, it'll go through general file, select file, final read.
[00:49:39.310]That has to be done by day 80, where it's on the president's office by day 80, which
[00:49:45.150]I believe is May 15th this year.
[00:49:47.590]So then the governor has three options.
[00:49:50.250]He can veto it, he can sign it into law, or he can line item veto it.
[00:49:56.390]So in Nebraska, then it goes back to the Senate, and then the Senate has to debate on it again.
[00:50:01.650]In Nebraska, it takes three-fifths of the Senators to override the governor's veto,
[00:50:06.790]so that's 30 out of our 49 Senators.
[00:50:09.710]Quickly, when you look at the Appropriations Committee this year, we have a pretty balanced
[00:50:14.770]committee with maybe one swing voter that we're working on, very hard to build relationships.
[00:50:20.490]You might also recognize, or not recognize several names, so we have three brand new
[00:50:24.510]Senators on the Appropriations Committee this year, in fact we have 17 new freshman Senators
[00:50:30.770]who were elected.
[00:50:31.230]This year we have 49 Senators total, if you add also the 13 Senators that were elected
[00:50:37.550]two years ago, there's 31 out of 49 Senators who have two years or less experience.
[00:50:44.410]So we're looking at that with a lot of, Justin's shaking his head, I know, it's a lot, right?
[00:50:49.470]But I think there's also a lot of opportunities there too then to educate, to build relationships,
[00:50:55.070]to get them to understand what's going on outside of the budget, there was over 700
[00:51:00.810]bills that were introduced this legislative session, there's about 35 that I've tagged
[00:51:04.910]that could have direct or indirect impact on the Institute of Ag and Natural Resources,
[00:51:10.550]the two bills that Mike referred to, LB 551 and 552 are both bills that were introduced
[00:51:16.930]by Senator Lauren Lippincott, 552 is a bill that would prohibit state-funded public education
[00:51:25.010]institutes from having DEI offices, and it would also prohibit state
[00:51:30.390]funds being used for DEI programming. LB 551 would prohibit the Board of Regents
[00:51:38.790]from granting tenure for post-secondary education institutes in Nebraska, and
[00:51:42.870]then also set up terms of employment such as performance evaluations, ways of
[00:51:48.630]dismissal, those kinds of things. So the anti-tenure bill, the University of
[00:51:54.930]Nebraska System President Jeff Gold has already made the announcement that he
[00:51:58.350]will, we will come out in opposition
[00:51:59.970]of that bill. You know we're working with Senator Lippincott to help try to
[00:52:04.530]educate him about what the impact of eliminating tenure at the University
[00:52:08.070]would mean to the state of Nebraska. Working on really hard on building those
[00:52:12.750]relationships and and sharing sharing the good news that we're doing here. Was
[00:52:18.290]I within three minutes? Yep. Any questions for me? That was good. We'll have them
[00:52:23.370]catch you after the, afterward. Those two bills and the other 700 and
[00:52:29.550]whatever 68 bills. This is just again the beginning. There are rules as to how
[00:52:34.950]many bills will actually make it to the floor. Each senator gets to prioritize a
[00:52:40.170]bill. Each committee give or take gets to prioritize ten bills and then the
[00:52:44.910]speaker gets to prioritize twenty something like that. So which bills get
[00:52:49.830]to the floor? Again what I would say is there's a lot going on. I tell people all
[00:52:56.490]the time don't take the bait.
[00:52:59.130]Don't take the bait. Keep your focus on the things that you are moving forward. A
[00:53:05.030]lot of advocacy, a lot of smart people working on these complex issues. The dust
[00:53:12.130]will settle. We will with that sale will come. We will get off the island. So just
[00:53:20.250]again keep breathing and and keep the feet moving. Economic report
[00:53:28.710]for the state of Nebraska. There's an economic forecasting board. In fact
[00:53:33.090]there's a report we expect today. Maybe it helps us out on where the state's
[00:53:38.110]budget is. Maybe it's not 435. I hope it's not 475. Maybe it's 330. I don't
[00:53:46.830]know but it's important that will help guide conversations. There will be an
[00:53:52.290]announcement later this afternoon. In fact at one o'clock at Huddle
[00:53:55.670]headquarters on the impact, the economic
[00:53:58.290]impact of our University writ large on the state of Nebraska. You can see some
[00:54:04.170]of the highlights. One in 20 jobs for us. One in four jobs is related to
[00:54:08.810]agriculture so that's right in our wheelhouse. 6.4 million dollars annual
[00:54:13.710]economic impact. They've looked at campuses contributions. In fact later
[00:54:18.330]today we're talking with the same company to do an economic impact or at
[00:54:22.230]least explore the impact of IANR across the state. The last time that that was done was
[00:54:27.870]2006. So probably time to take a look at this. So pretty important
[00:54:34.770]impact. I shared this at every meeting almost since I've been been here with
[00:54:39.450]you. The most important thing is is not the quote, it's Sarah really thinking
[00:54:46.270]about as we work through these complex issues, the sadness and the anger that
[00:54:53.050]come, the shock, the resistance to ideas, and then some getting to
[00:54:57.450]that point of acceptance, whatever that is, and then moving forward again, picking
[00:55:03.330]each other up, holding each other in high regard. We can talk about what happens at
[00:55:09.750]the federal level, we can talk about what happens at the Unicameral or the Board
[00:55:13.330]of Regents or in Canfield Hall or in Ag Hall, it really is the people that you
[00:55:18.290]work with, you have a huge impact at helping move them forward and vice versa.
[00:55:27.030]Some really feel-good moments, I think the partnership that we have through
[00:55:32.970]CASNR with the Omaha Public Schools, some 2,000 first-year students from all of
[00:55:39.030]their high schools could visit anywhere in Nebraska, they're coming to East
[00:55:43.650]Campus and I think we hit the thousand student mark last week, so this is pretty
[00:55:50.210]incredible. Everybody on East Campus is aware when our students are coming to visit
[00:55:56.610]from Omaha Public Schools. The Omaha Ag business community along with the Ag
[00:56:03.370]Builders of Nebraska and others have helped make meals available so they've
[00:56:09.870]all pitched in so that students can eat at the in our dining facility. Omaha
[00:56:15.810]Public Schools is paying for all the buses to get the students the hundred
[00:56:20.550]and hundred miles back and forth, so pretty cool. Lincoln Public
[00:56:26.190]Schools, we have a great program at Bailey Fite and Tammy Middlestead have
[00:56:32.250]been working on with Tiffany and others around the food, energy, water, and
[00:56:37.170]societal systems platform. This was an idea that launched with Lincoln Northeast
[00:56:42.630]High School. They became a magnet school like Lincoln High School is the
[00:56:46.950]international has the International Baccalaureate program. So we started this
[00:56:50.990]FUSE program. The coolest thing about this is that the teachers at Lincoln
[00:56:55.770]Northeast High School through the generosity of the Nebraska Soybean Board
[00:57:00.330]and the Nebraska Corn Growers Association were able to use seven days
[00:57:06.750]of paid professional time to develop a curriculum for high school students from
[00:57:12.510]ninth grade through twelfth grade to infuse what we are all about into that
[00:57:20.430]curriculum and so Northeast became this magnet platform. The demand signal was so
[00:57:25.350]high that Lincoln Public Schools has decided to take that fuse programming to
[00:57:30.270]all of its high schools. So that we're still working out all those details I
[00:57:35.250]think that's safe to say but again two examples that sit on top of our rural
[00:57:40.950]partnerships that are really pretty cool.
[00:57:44.910]We had on campus, I wasn't able to participate in this, but we had over with
[00:57:51.390]Larkin and colleagues in the School of Natural Resources, we
[00:57:54.930]had the Unicameral's Committee on Natural Resources that Tom Brandt is
[00:58:02.170]chair of, so they came on campus. We had the Ag Committee all set to come on
[00:58:07.190]campus. They're quite curious about what we do. The Ag Committee wasn't able to
[00:58:12.810]get here in mass but this was great so thanks to everybody to help that helped
[00:58:18.870]with that. Lots of curiosities and lots of good goodwill there.
[00:58:24.510]Ruben Benke, I saw him somewhere there. Where you at Ruben? So shout out to the
[00:58:30.750]momentum of the MisoNet. The MisoNet is really an important platform for
[00:58:35.130]collecting high quality weather data and then pull that in. You can see a map of
[00:58:41.670]our stations I think. Is this animated? Nope not not for me to animate. Oh it
[00:58:48.630]animated, did its own thing I guess. I'll leave Kara
[00:58:54.090]who's split. Kara's got two jobs now, the president's office and our office, so
[00:59:00.090]sometimes the president takes priority. But you saw the dots on the map, they I've
[00:59:06.870]made them disappear and I can't get them back, but the point here is that our
[00:59:11.370]Mesonet station, when you think about the appropriate coverage of weather
[00:59:16.850]collecting, weather monitoring, this is the foundational data that Razul and the
[00:59:23.670]High Plains Regional Climate Center, the National Drought Mitigation Center, the
[00:59:30.950]Drought Monitor uses this data from all over the the country to build models and
[00:59:37.430]we have a new interface which is really user-friendly, a lot of transparency.
[00:59:42.150]Ruben, thank you to you and the team. Yep, those stations just don't come out of
[00:59:48.930]the ground, you have to pour concrete, you have to in pretty
[00:59:53.250]tough weather, you have to do soil testing, you get to work with the
[00:59:57.270]Army Corps of Engineers, a shout out to our colleagues there. Yeah, it's
[01:00:02.490]really pretty amazing. Master Irrigator Program, this is a relatively
[01:00:07.930]new program. Nebraska is taking the lead on this, so a shout out to Nebraska
[01:00:12.530]Extension, the Ag Research Division, and with a number of partners. This is really
[01:00:18.490]designed like the Master Gardener Program or the Master Naturalist
[01:00:22.830]Program. This is really taking people who know a lot about irrigation technology
[01:00:29.250]and providing them with the tools to take it to the next level. It's a neat
[01:00:34.350]partnership that has come come around through our on-farm research platform,
[01:00:40.530]but also the TAPS program that really takes it to the next level. And the first
[01:00:46.830]the first class session is in North Platte tomorrow.
[01:00:52.410]Goodmanson, I'm sure John and and the team are watching, but Goodmanson
[01:00:59.250]received a grant, not a grant, an award from our IACUC, our animal health team,
[01:01:04.890]for superior performance in taking care of the animals up there at Goodmanson
[01:01:11.490]Sandhills Laboratory. When I am having a tough day and I'm cold here in Lincoln,
[01:01:17.890]Nebraska, I often think about the crew up there at Goodmanson in the middle of the
[01:01:21.990]Sandhills that depend on the art of neighboring to keep themselves and the
[01:01:27.630]animals safe during all kinds of weather. Campus projects, I'll run through these
[01:01:34.230]pretty quick. I won't talk about all of them. For those of you in plant science
[01:01:39.150]or chyme or animal science, we're all thankful that the road there was was put
[01:01:46.710]back together. That took a little longer than I think anybody expected. I learned
[01:01:51.570]the back way and passed the old greenhouses to the parking lot. That was
[01:01:55.510]a slick, slick way back and forth. It was fun to watch even when folks put up
[01:02:01.170]barriers to keep us from using that. People were very creative at getting
[01:02:05.430]around the cones. I just followed. I promise I didn't move any cones. I don't
[01:02:11.970]even know they were there. Second part is thinking about Legacy
[01:02:17.170]Plaza. Those of you who came over from Philly, for
[01:02:21.150]example, we've been navigating construction. Think about contractors. I
[01:02:25.590]love to see them. I love to see when projects kick off. I can't wait. About two
[01:02:29.770]days goes by and I can't wait for them to get out of my home, get
[01:02:34.210]off my campus. Let's go. But it is coming along nicely. I'm very excited about the
[01:02:40.810]safety improvements. I'm very excited about the mobility opportunities. It's
[01:02:45.930]now possible for a person with mobility challenges to
[01:02:50.730]navigate safely from the East Campus Union, well not quite from the East
[01:02:55.530]Campus Union, to the front door of Dinsdale or over to the dairy store. I'm
[01:02:59.970]really excited this summer we'll have our outdoor patio for the dairy store so
[01:03:04.650]that families can enjoy their ice cream outside. I'm excited about the
[01:03:10.590]idea of concerts. I'm excited about discovery days and being able to use
[01:03:15.610]that space. We're getting closer and closer. The fence is getting smaller and
[01:03:19.550]smaller.
[01:03:20.310]So Dan Trotter, thanks. You've been a saint on this one. Equine Center, the top
[01:03:27.150]map or top picture, we're getting very close to orient you. That's Dead Man's
[01:03:32.670]Run on the left and on the right you've got the Vet Diagnostic Center. So that
[01:03:39.630]green space that's just east of our greenhouse complex on East Campus will
[01:03:44.490]be a state-of-the-art rodeo and equine center.
[01:03:47.310]This is really pretty cool. There'll be opportunities
[01:03:49.890]for our athletes to actually board their horses. Right now our students have
[01:03:56.430]to figure out, go out and live on the economy. They're spending hours of moving
[01:04:02.150]their horses around so to have horses back on campus is pretty exciting. There
[01:04:09.030]will be off to the east on the other side of Morrison just before you get to
[01:04:14.450]the floodplain between the parking lot and the floodplain that'll be a pasture
[01:04:18.290]area.
[01:04:19.470]So pretty cool I think to have animals grazing again on East Campus. It's been a
[01:04:26.010]long time since since we had that. I want to talk a little bit about Dead Man's
[01:04:32.430]Run and there is animation and I won't press any buttons but over on the east
[01:04:38.190]side of East Campus we've been talking about this since I came here. There's a
[01:04:42.090]waterway that comes actually underneath by the little tobacco shop at Holdridge
[01:04:49.050]comes on to campus where the bees are the bee pollinator garden goes through
[01:04:54.930]the the pecans and flows all the way to Dead Man's Run and this is known
[01:05:05.070]somebody coined the the name Pecan Creek so that's what I'm going with Pecan Creek
[01:05:12.030]so Pecan Creek is an intermittent waterway it supplies like 10% of
[01:05:18.630]the water that actually dumps into Dead Man's Run it is really a big catchment
[01:05:26.430]basin so we think about Holdridge and 48th Street but Pecan Creek actually
[01:05:31.170]drains all the watershed all the way to O Street all the way to 33rd so I think
[01:05:38.550]Waiuka Cemetery that that part of the concrete jungle flows through our campus
[01:05:44.050]if you ever walk that Creek you'll see it's loaded with
[01:05:48.210]bottles and trash and and so that's what we can see but we're very interested in
[01:05:53.830]students in the School of Natural Resources and in biosystems engineering
[01:05:57.630]have been using this as a as a experiential learning platform looking
[01:06:02.550]at among other things water quality flow rates and so forth the flood the flood
[01:06:09.150]map that you see actually we learned that the culverts under Holdridge are
[01:06:14.790]undersized so when you think about
[01:06:17.790]a one-year flood event five-year 25-year flood event actually the flooding is
[01:06:24.270]quite severe overflows the bank of Pecan Creek and actually moves into the
[01:06:29.030]neighborhood dead man's run has also got its own set of flood control issues
[01:06:34.550]everything between Leighton Huntington all the way up to Adams between 33rd and
[01:06:41.110]48th four hundred and fifty four hundred and seventy housing units are all in the
[01:06:47.370]floodplain and as such those folks many of whom are the newest community members
[01:06:54.450]newest Nebraskans having to pay things like flood insurance so dead man's run
[01:07:00.210]is a project that they are talking about have been for the last couple decades of
[01:07:05.470]actually getting all of that out of the floodplain the original plan was to come
[01:07:10.490]in and widen dead man's run and deepen dead man's run we were going to lose 22
[01:07:15.330]acres of farm ground
[01:07:16.950]on East Campus we were going to get a new bridge on the north entrance that
[01:07:22.310]was the positive side the Army Corps is now out of the project the city and
[01:07:28.130]lower platts out long story short have a plan to achieve the same outcomes with a
[01:07:35.710]third of the funding and part of that is you can't quite see it but it says
[01:07:41.390]proposed detention basin they are going to actually take about eight
[01:07:46.530]acres of land and put in a detention cell that allows when dead man's run
[01:07:51.970]hits capacity it'll flow in there as part of that we changed out getting a
[01:07:58.110]bridge where we've now worked with folks they are going to build a series it's
[01:08:05.030]shown here is to detention cells are to experimental wetlands we're going to
[01:08:09.430]have a series of experimental wetlands that our students and faculty staff can
[01:08:15.650]use
[01:08:16.110]to think about water quality quality and conservation in urban settings and
[01:08:23.550]that will be part of this project it'll be it'll be right along that flood plain
[01:08:29.130]the class there Tom Riley is teaching an environmental ecological engineering
[01:08:35.730]class I went out with them and this is one of the classes that's that use this
[01:08:40.230]area for those who are anxious or nervous about that that road
[01:08:45.690]our master plan the 2013 master plan had all always had an East entrance to
[01:08:52.950]East campus always has been on there originally it was real simple they were
[01:08:58.770]just going to bring Fair Street right across and tap into 48 at about Martin
[01:09:03.570]Street so there is a a map there is a road that's painted that's that's that's
[01:09:10.350]not where the roads going so nobody should like be excited I think the
[01:09:15.270]idea here is probably where Martin Street is if you take a look at 48th and
[01:09:22.510]Martin and you look at agronomy and Hort the access road there there is kind of a
[01:09:28.230]natural road that fits in that space we have a meeting on Friday with all
[01:09:32.130]interested parties that are going to talk through this why am i sharing this
[01:09:36.750]with you it's because the east side of East Campus is getting some pretty
[01:09:41.490]significant upgrades when it comes to experiential learning
[01:09:44.850]and I couldn't be more excited about it but change can be difficult we're trying
[01:09:50.390]to bring everybody into the mix so that everybody has a voice as we look around
[01:09:55.650]the the state some great stuff going on still up at NREC things happening over
[01:10:01.770]at the innovation campus if you've driven by the neck you see a lot of
[01:10:06.330]construction going on so phase one of the USDA greenhouses is about ready to
[01:10:11.250]pop out of the ground and farms continues
[01:10:14.430]up at at Mead West Central occupancy Kelly Bruns I hope is listening and
[01:10:20.610]watching but we will have a new student visiting science housing unit there
[01:10:25.290]that's exciting and John's in the back John Westra we have had two storm events
[01:10:32.130]in the last decade where 30-plus vehicles were so damaged by epic hail
[01:10:37.310]storms that they had to be trailered back to Lincoln so to think about
[01:10:42.050]protecting our investment
[01:10:44.010]as you see at some of the some of the car lots around Lincoln or out in
[01:10:49.830]Scottsbluff we actually are putting a new parking structure out there to
[01:10:53.790]protect our investment so that's pretty exciting as well
[01:10:57.450]NCTA Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture a lot of changes out there
[01:11:02.790]if you visit the the campus in Curtis new welding facilities upgrades to
[01:11:09.090]upgrades to electrical service
[01:11:13.590]for AG mechanics and then their roads are being replaced they also are
[01:11:18.030]finally getting a facelift on their signs that haven't been replaced for
[01:11:23.130]almost four decades so new faculty
[01:11:27.030]lots of new faculty I'll flip through here we have three slides last slide no
[01:11:33.250]pictures
[01:11:34.470]welcome to our new faculty we still are hiring we have a lot of active searches
[01:11:39.090]so very positive on that side and with that
[01:11:43.170]Derek I just a spoiler today you bet
[01:11:51.070]grab this okay very good so thanks Mike and I really want to thank Mike for
[01:12:01.590]highlighting research this morning the first part that and also want to say
[01:12:05.670]that if you're tired of watching the news and reading all that information
[01:12:09.750]don't worry we're watching it if you were keeping track
[01:12:12.750]we're trying to understand what's happening and we want to encourage you
[01:12:16.650]that if you have any questions please call us ask us you know we we also will
[01:12:21.130]direct over we're working closely with Office of Research Innovation and they
[01:12:25.530]have a website where we can go and try to get information now I may not be able
[01:12:28.830]to answer all of your questions but I'll certainly try and I'll certainly go out
[01:12:31.930]and try to find some information and I really want to emphasize AG research
[01:12:35.430]division our mission is not changing we're about impact we're about
[01:12:39.350]supporting basic and applied research
[01:12:42.330]and we're about convening groups and catalyzing that energy and supporting
[01:12:48.390]that collaboration because we really want to continue to emphasize our
[01:12:51.870]impacts and emphasize how research is about the future and research is the
[01:12:57.030]engine that's driving economic prosperity and growth in the state of
[01:13:00.370]Nebraska especially the research we do here in the Institute so thank you for
[01:13:04.650]that and also we're part of the system with
[01:13:07.450]Kassner and extension for workforce development and developing the new
[01:13:10.770]leaders so that's really important for us but this is about celebrating it's
[01:13:14.870]about celebrating two people that so we have a tradition here in the winter
[01:13:19.530]all-hands meeting that we give out the early career scientists award two of
[01:13:24.390]them every year and you already saw the first one which is good
[01:13:29.310]EG shong so EG come on up Tal is gonna give out give the award yeah
[01:13:37.010]so as you can see EG is a dual threat she's a assistant professor in both
[01:13:47.070]animal science and biological systems engineering and is doing some amazing
[01:13:51.570]research and what I want to point to you if you have a chance do an internet
[01:13:56.390]search on Nebraska Public Media they talk a little bit about there's a about
[01:14:00.930]a two-year-old video where they went out to Goodman's in Sandhills Mike mentioned
[01:14:04.010]Goodman's and and they highlight the research that EG
[01:14:06.830]and
[01:14:06.990]some of the collaborators are doing out there it's a great story it's a great
[01:14:09.730]piece EG was one of the first faculty members I started interacting with when
[01:14:13.770]I got here a couple about two years ago and through those interactions I realized
[01:14:18.690]how much EG cares about people and cares about what she's doing and that's just
[01:14:23.070]really it's really rewarding to see this you know your continued success and how
[01:14:27.990]you're moving forward in your career so congratulations and thank you
[01:14:36.810]now our second award is Dr. Amy Desaulniere come on up so Amy is assistant professor
[01:14:46.950]over in the School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences and now Amy I met
[01:14:52.890]very early on also that actually Archie was kind enough when I first took the
[01:14:57.490]job that he invited me to come out to the ARD research day and there was a
[01:15:01.470]poster session that day and I was moving around the posters talking to everybody
[01:15:05.290]and then I got to Amy
[01:15:06.630]and all of the most of you in here probably don't know much about what a
[01:15:10.110]Sertoli cell does or what a Leydig cell does but I do and Amy does so we we
[01:15:14.970]really connected on kind of my research that I used to do and but Amy's doing
[01:15:20.130]out and just watching Amy and her trajectory here professionally has been
[01:15:24.610]really fun for me to see the grants to see the impact to see the research
[01:15:28.830]that's going on it's been really excellent and also Amy is and I bring up
[01:15:33.330]Kasner here as well she's also a Douth red and that she's doing some really
[01:15:36.450]really innovative industries interesting things and teaching as well so
[01:15:40.590]congratulations so real brief these awards they they get $3,000 for the
[01:15:49.170]program for professional development it's it's funded out of the generosity
[01:15:52.410]of the Ruth Branham Foundation account and so we're really preset pleased on
[01:15:56.910]that and I want to thank the ARD Research Council for also helping us
[01:16:00.830]review the applicants so thanks everyone thanks Mike yeah thanks Derek
[01:16:06.270]thanks I'll take this congratulations Ichi and Amy that's awesome staff award
[01:16:13.650]winners we had the opportunity to celebrate our staff award winners at our
[01:16:17.730]banquet I think it was December 4th in this very room it was standing room only
[01:16:23.290]just a fantastic group of amazing staff I say all the time right without our
[01:16:30.370]staff 1,200 strong INR wouldn't be what it what it is today so congratulations
[01:16:36.090]to our staff award winners Ed Cahoon special recognition was named a fellow
[01:16:41.670]of the National Academy of Inventors really great award there for Ed we asked
[01:16:50.550]the department heads and and school directors to share some information on
[01:16:54.990]some awards that maybe we wouldn't have some visibility in and John Ruberson
[01:16:59.590]from entomology shared with us Luis and Andrea and Jody
[01:17:05.910]with some amazing awards from the entomology help me out Society of
[01:17:15.570]America I just don't know why I knew about ESA I always say ESA there we go
[01:17:20.550]so this was great at our north-central region and then I wanted to invite Aaron
[01:17:27.030]up to talk about an amazing also an award-winner
[01:17:31.910]but in an amazing innovation in our teaching and learning
[01:17:35.730]space that took like an army to put together entitled the death of Danny B
[01:17:44.150]Aaron all right so I have been teaching forensic entomology for several years
[01:17:54.270]and I've always wanted to get some more gamification and more creativeness into
[01:18:01.290]my courses to help with engagement and better collaboration among
[01:18:05.550]students so as part of my PhD studies that I'm doing now is I have created a
[01:18:12.510]what's called an alternate reality game called the death of Danny B an alternate
[01:18:17.850]reality game is basically a very complex immersive game that students or the
[01:18:25.890]players and involved in and it crosses over transmedia so it uses it goes into
[01:18:35.370]social media websites videos all these different things to help tell the story
[01:18:41.550]to help tell the narrative and the students basically they're directing
[01:18:46.590]that narrative because they are solving puzzles they're gathering information
[01:18:50.130]and they're collaborating together to formulate what exactly happened so in
[01:18:56.610]this particular game we have a set of three different case studies forensic
[01:19:03.270]entomology case studies
[01:19:05.190]where the three different fictional homicides where they have some sort of
[01:19:10.710]insect evidence that is involved in that case and so the students are basically
[01:19:15.850]helping our two our two main characters who there's a fictional forensic
[01:19:21.850]entomologist and then a forensic or a fictional homicide detective so they
[01:19:27.510]help the two of them they actually can interact with those characters as well
[01:19:31.710]so I have like a whatsapp chat set up
[01:19:35.010]so they can actually literally talk to the characters and then they look at a
[01:19:40.690]number of different videos they they have to actually now these two posters
[01:19:44.550]that are listed up here are actual physical posters that I have up in
[01:19:48.090]entomology hall so the students have to come over this is an online course but
[01:19:53.130]is an undergrad grad course so some of the undergrads are here on campus and
[01:19:58.110]some of the grads are online students but some of the undergrads are have been
[01:20:04.830]responsible to come and look and find these physical posters because they
[01:20:08.970]actually have clues on them that they have to apply so this runs for a whole
[01:20:15.610]semester so they will be learning about forensic entomology from my normal
[01:20:21.890]lecture materials and their textbooks that sort of thing while they're also
[01:20:26.890]simultaneously playing this game and applying what they learn about forensic
[01:20:32.510]entomology to the game
[01:20:34.650]and eventually we'll have forensic reports that they will turn in as their
[01:20:39.290]final assessment and so so that is just a little a little bit and we did win an
[01:20:44.910]award also through ESA educational project award for creating a little
[01:20:50.670]introductory video that kind of introduces the forensic entomologist
[01:20:55.710]character who is also one of our entomology colleagues Josh Villanzana so
[01:21:01.530]anyway I want to thank everybody who has been
[01:21:04.470]been involved in this and this is going to be going on every spring and then I
[01:21:09.630]also hope to do a non-credit version of it this fall offer that for anybody who
[01:21:16.890]would like to take it and then we'll be doing this for PhD research so awesome
[01:21:21.570]thanks Erin let's give Erin a round of applause I thought this was fascinating
[01:21:28.230]when John told me Erin and I'm excited to sign up for the course so
[01:21:34.290]yeah and you know just kind of a jump Judy Wu smart I think about Judy here
[01:21:40.910]Judy really was a real-life detective looking at what happened up at at Mead
[01:21:48.210]with Alt-N so really pretty cool stuff leadership transitions Peter left and
[01:21:55.710]came back Peter McCornick our executive director of the Doherty Water for Food
[01:22:00.090]Global Institute will be transitioning in August
[01:22:04.110]out of that role and we're working Tiffany and I are working along with
[01:22:09.270]Derek McLean and President Gold's office to move that search along Larry Gosen
[01:22:15.390]Dean at NCTA is as will be transitioning on May 31st after five years in the role
[01:22:22.930]Larry got NCTA through kovat led one of the largest philanthropic campaigns and
[01:22:31.350]really overhauled the physical environment
[01:22:33.930]there so excited about that and then maybe new Scott McVeigh has announced
[01:22:41.550]that he will be transitioning stepping up to the faculty sometime late in
[01:22:47.370]August early September and right now the plan is I have the request in for a
[01:22:54.330]mission-critical filth to do a national search for a new school director that's
[01:22:59.850]making its way up through the Chancellor and the president
[01:23:03.750]I have high confidence or I wouldn't be up here talking about it in this way
[01:23:07.950]that will get the green light to move forward with that national search yours
[01:23:12.970]truly I think you all saw the announcement I said when I interviewed
[01:23:18.270]here that I would not do more than two terms ten years is a long time to do
[01:23:23.670]these jobs and and so I am so blessed and feel so good about what we've
[01:23:29.230]accomplished I still I still have a three and a half months
[01:23:33.570]but I will be transitioning back to the faculty in plant pathology hence the
[01:23:39.870]grant writing that I mentioned earlier and I'm working with my department head
[01:23:44.070]on what life looks like there but I want to say thank you I really mean it from
[01:23:50.610]day one it's a team effort and it's been just a
[01:23:54.930]opportunity of a lifetime to play that role so I don't want to spend a lot of
[01:23:58.810]time on this this isn't about me I am so super excited that Dean Tiffany
[01:24:03.390]hang-moss my longest one of my longest serving partners Jeff Basford would be
[01:24:10.630]the other one right from the interview stage all the way on Tiffany is an
[01:24:16.090]incredible leader and is a graciously agreed to step into the interim role
[01:24:22.150]effective June 1 so we'll talk more about this later in the semester I want
[01:24:29.310]to give you a quick budget update honest-to-goodness your
[01:24:33.210]watching the federal stuff but you're watching the state things as well and
[01:24:39.150]Jesse did a nice overview on this I want to do come back though to I think our
[01:24:45.450]October message where I was very straight with you and went over some
[01:24:49.970]budget numbers I'll do that again here but UNL since I've been here for
[01:24:55.470]whatever reason typically carries a chronic 10 to 15 million dollar debt
[01:25:03.030]from one year to the next and we have had to deal with that our share of that
[01:25:09.070]has been a reduction in I in ours budget of 18 million dollars hence when we go
[01:25:15.790]back our actual state aided budget is 14 million dollars less today give or take
[01:25:22.170]than it was when I came and as you'll see in one of the next slides we have
[01:25:27.810]about 40 less fewer staff and we have 40 fewer tenure-track
[01:25:32.850]faculty that's the result of trying to cannibalize positions to be competitive
[01:25:38.970]in our salary and benefits packages it's not a sustainable model it's not a
[01:25:45.030]resilient model it needs to be addressed I am waiting still waiting and I expect
[01:25:53.770]to hear something from Chancellor Bennett on how he intends to address the
[01:25:58.710]14 million dollar carry forward debt that
[01:26:02.670]we carried from FY 24 to FY 25 the tricky thing with this is it's just
[01:26:10.090]rough and we've tried to be fiscally smart by holding and withholding some to
[01:26:16.530]have a reduction of a significant magnitude that goes back to July 1 of
[01:26:23.510]2024 when everybody spent the money is really extra tough this is a very
[01:26:30.270]dynamic very fluid very
[01:26:32.490]difficult situation so I appreciate Chancellor Bennett's leadership I
[01:26:36.610]appreciate President Gold's leadership but the truth of the matter is as I've
[01:26:41.630]been saying to you we're going to likely have to deal with yet another round of
[01:26:47.510]budget reductions on my watch at least get that initiated on my watch I'm not
[01:26:55.430]excited by that but I've shared these numbers with you before 50% and 27%
[01:27:02.310]50% of the state-aided budget at the University of Nebraska flows to UNL of
[01:27:10.370]that 27% flows to IANR the little math down on the bottom so you know I'll just
[01:27:20.310]keep the math real simple if it's a 10 million dollar cut we take 2.7 million
[01:27:26.410]of that if the state budget increases by 10 million we get an extra
[01:27:32.130]2.7 million so you can do the math I think I showed this at 12 million so if
[01:27:40.110]you take that up to 14 million 27% of 14 million puts us somewhere around 3.5 3.6
[01:27:48.150]now that's assuming we do 14 million if we do 7 million then you kind of do that
[01:27:55.170]math that is a horizontal peanut butter approach it is not a vertical approach
[01:28:01.950]it is a vertical approach and the vertical cuts are really easy to talk
[01:28:06.270]about they resonate with folks but upstairs they're very hard to implement
[01:28:12.210]down in the bowels of the organization they're difficult to implement we will
[01:28:17.010]as we've done previously I've shared this slide since I've been here 18
[01:28:22.110]million dollar reduction this is how we have taken the reduction previously
[01:28:27.570]first and foremost on the back of the administrative platform of IANR
[01:28:31.770]this has included things like 10% reductions to all of the Dean's and the
[01:28:36.510]vice-chancellor's operating offices you can only keep cutting those services the
[01:28:43.350]behind-the-scenes services so much made a point of the units we rebased the
[01:28:50.490]units we went into the units and decreased just across the board a flat
[01:28:54.690]and gave it gave the onus of how you do that to the unit leaders to make sure
[01:29:00.930]that staff
[01:29:01.590]and faculty know that we're not doing this on the back of staff which I hear
[01:29:06.450]often times and it wasn't it happens to be 41 and 41 trust me we weren't like
[01:29:13.170]one staff one faculty one staff one faculty that literally is is the luck of
[01:29:18.510]the draw but it is there's parity in the in the staff and the faculty reductions
[01:29:24.690]I'm not proud to claim that when I got here we were sitting at roughly 307
[01:29:30.750]tenure-track
[01:29:31.410]lines and today we're around 275 the last time we were at 275 is when a guy
[01:29:38.730]named Ronnie green in 2010 came here as the new vice chancellor and said we're
[01:29:43.430]going to grow we're going to grow our staff and that was a great plan and then
[01:29:49.050]by the time I got here something changed with the budget because it has been
[01:29:55.050]going the other way I say this and all sincerity thank you for what you do the
[01:30:01.230]staff that we have are breaking records and enrollment they're breaking you are
[01:30:06.330]breaking records in almost a 40% increase in federal research
[01:30:12.210]expenditures the diversity of grants that we're going after just really
[01:30:16.590]incredible but I will say that we're at a point where unless we get strategic
[01:30:23.610]investments we are going to level off at best and and if we don't get an infusion
[01:30:31.050]we're going to see a decrease and I have made this very clear that it's not
[01:30:36.630]because of us it's the budget reality and so I have been advocating that
[01:30:41.910]agriculture natural resources and rural prosperity be amongst the thematic foci
[01:30:47.930]for both the University of Nebraska and the Lincoln campus so hopefully we see
[01:30:53.290]some movement on that front some good news this spring our spring enrollment
[01:30:58.590]is is up
[01:31:00.870]almost 2% on our undergraduate and about 0.3 on graduate retention this is
[01:31:07.690]incredible retention of first-time freshmen 95% this spring so everybody
[01:31:15.690]thank you thank you thank you thank you on behalf of the CASNR team really
[01:31:20.510]important four of the 18 Chancellor scholars scholars who graduated in
[01:31:24.990]December were from CASNR and we have 30 30 faculty colleagues who are going up
[01:31:30.690]for promotion and/or tenure and the good news is those files are sitting
[01:31:36.470]with me and I'm just about ready to finalize them and move my recommendations
[01:31:42.030]forward we'll have a party we'll have a party later this spring and after that
[01:31:47.070]party I just want to call your attention to discovery days I'm really quite
[01:31:51.670]excited about this I want to thank Jesse Brophy who took an idea that a crazy
[01:31:59.570]idea that
[01:32:00.510]a group of us had and she took it and breathed life into it Jordan Slagle is
[01:32:06.090]now our point person for the discovery days they happen on the second Saturday
[01:32:10.130]of every month in June July and August it is a family-friendly event I can't
[01:32:17.110]wait till we not only have the main mall but the area that goes from the mall up
[01:32:22.830]to Dinsdale once we get our contractors out of here goes from ten o'clock in the
[01:32:27.830]morning to one o'clock pet-friendly
[01:32:30.330]as long as your pet behaves and is on a leash absolutely a terrific time and a
[01:32:37.470]high spot for our summer our lab looks at factors within the ovary that affect
[01:32:49.890]the timing at which cattle attain puberty and that's important because the
[01:32:54.390]timing at which cattle attain puberty can indicate their reproductive
[01:32:57.750]longevity and how long they may last in a producer's
[01:33:00.150]herd as a producing animal our lab has identified environmental bacteria which
[01:33:06.190]produces a compound which inhibits the growth of the growth of bacteria so it's
[01:33:13.030]very important because identifying those compounds and mode of action would
[01:33:17.430]actually help in control of the control and management of the disease pathogens
[01:33:22.170]especially to the crops that we are growing in the field what we are trying
[01:33:27.390]to do is making the plants use all the
[01:33:29.970]nitrogen that farmers use to it and gets the more yield basically evaluation a
[01:33:36.630]new herbicide called methametron in a in the control of we specifically palmer
[01:33:40.810]amaranth in sugar beet finding a potent herbicide to control palmer amaranth will
[01:33:47.810]save sugar beet will raise the stress and it will help in sugar beets
[01:33:51.770]exploitation worldwide USA has the biggest meat consumption in the world
[01:33:57.190]and poultry being one of the major
[01:33:59.790]it's very important that we keep track on the poultry well-being and also the
[01:34:04.850]farmers who are rearing this bird and through my work I want to make sure that
[01:34:09.390]all these infectious diseases outbreaks especially antimicrobial resistance can
[01:34:13.650]be kept in check so that the farmers and the birds can have a healthy life so my
[01:34:19.190]research is on plant insect interactions and specifically we are looking at how
[01:34:24.410]lignin modification impact sorghum resistance and its defense response
[01:34:29.610]to sugarcane aphid so it's very important to bring sustainable solutions
[01:34:34.530]to manage this pest and we are looking at resistance mechanisms and how we can
[01:34:39.990]not how we can enhance the natural defense system of sorghum my work is
[01:34:45.570]important because in this work we highlight the importance of nutrients
[01:34:51.050]especially the proper nutrient for farmers because we all know that the
[01:34:55.850]farmers in Indonesia most of them they have
[01:34:59.430]lack of education and financial constraint that's why they have the
[01:35:02.910]nutrient imbalance so that's why I want to improve their production by
[01:35:07.490]leveraging our research so my research goal is to find the relationship between
[01:35:12.710]the genotype and rice quality so we can develop better rice crops
[01:35:29.250]asking graduate students to give a little pitch about their work for many
[01:35:34.090]this was the first time they were ever on film so I wish we would have had the
[01:35:38.430]outtake video because way more fun but you know our future is bright we are a
[01:35:44.550]destination global destination and we impact the world and and we do that as a
[01:35:49.870]team so thanks to everybody here and then kind of the outtake Martin Luther
[01:35:55.650]King jr. day I
[01:35:59.070]out what is my final Martin Luther King Day address that's probably one of my
[01:36:04.950]favorite things to do outside of delivering promotion tenure letters to
[01:36:09.810]folks but you know this quote from Martin Luther King life's most
[01:36:15.090]persistent and urgent question is what are we doing for others and that's a
[01:36:22.050]shot I took off the bluff after a rainstorm
[01:36:25.590]not a Michael Forsberg although Mike said I should make it folks
[01:36:28.890]stir of it so with that thanks for everything you do I'm sorry we ran a
[01:36:33.270]little bit late I know we started in a you know a harsh reality check but the
[01:36:39.890]future is bright remember to keep breathing keep your feet moving hold
[01:36:44.670]each other up give somebody you love or like a lot a hug and you know let's just
[01:36:51.570]keep doing what I and R does and that's making a difference in the world thanks
[01:36:55.510]very much
[01:36:57.910]you
[01:36:59.970]you
[01:37:02.030]Thank you.

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February 2025 IANR All Hands Meeting

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