We made it to the end of the semester! I enjoyed celebrating with our graduating seniors Friday at our December commencement. Congratulations to our new alumni – and all who helped them reach this exciting milestone.

We were also thrilled to bestow a big honor on a wonderful alumnus of our college, Joe Dillard (pictured above). Joe received an honorary doctoral degree at commencement – the highest honor awarded by Mizzou – and we celebrated all week, including teatime with SNR students and dinner with Joe’s family and friends. Joe is a world-famous fisheries research biologist, and an incredibly kind and well-loved alumnus and friend of CAFNR and SNR. Celebrating him was a wonderful honor and one of the highlights of our year!

In addition to celebrating our graduates and Dr. Joe Dillard, December has been a packed month. I enjoyed seeing many of you at holiday celebrations and other events, including:

• Visit with MU alumni and donors in Kansas City
• Meeting with the CAFNR Foundation
• Missouri Farm Bureau Annual Meeting and Partners in Agriculture Luncheon
• Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Finance Committee meeting
• Traveling office hours in Eckles Hall for seasonal Buck’s ice cream
• Taste test of BBQ sauces created by our food science students
• REEC annual meeting with Research, Extension and Education Center directors and Missouri agriculture leaders
• Dean’s Council meeting and holiday lunch
• President’s holiday reception
• IFT Task Force meeting
• CARET delegate orientation
• Local Legislative Delegation Luncheon
• Northern Missouri REEC Advisory Board Meeting
• IPG Holiday Gathering

We shared promotion and tenure recommendation letters with the Provost’s Office last week and continue to interview faculty candidates for positions across the college. Today I meet with CAFNR Policy Committee Chair, Vicki Vieira-Potter, as well as Provost Latha Ramchand, and tomorrow I attend the Missouri Food Entrepreneur Network (MO-FEN) meeting.

I wish my friend and colleague, Marshall Stewart, the very best as he embarks on a new journey at Kansas State University. Dr. Stewart served well as the Chief Engagement Officer for the University of Missouri System and Vice Chancellor, Extension & Engagement for Mizzou, and brought recognition to the tremendous work done in MU Extension every day. I am incredibly proud of the advancements and investments we made in serving the agriculture industry in our state. In fact, last month we compiled and shared a few of those accomplishments in honor of Ag Day. Thanks for the great partnership, Dr. Stewart!

I look forward to the holiday break with my family, and wish you a wonderful and relaxing break, too. Thanks for all you do for our great college, and we’ll see you in the New Year!

CAFNR Proud,

Christopher R. Daubert, Ph.D.
CAFNR Vice Chancellor & Dean

The National Academy of Inventors has named Randy Prather, Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Animal Sciences, to its 2022 Fellows Program. Dr. Prather is one of only 169 academic inventors to receive the prestigious honor this year. The NAI Fellows Program highlights academic inventors who have demonstrated a spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.

Instructions for New & Existing MATLAB Users
New users need to create a new account at MU MATLAB Portal using only an email account ending in @missouri.edu. Once that process is complete, ask your IT professional to grant you access to the software and then visit your Software Center on your University device to download the software and toolkits.

Existing users are required to update their current MATLAB account with their email address ending in @missouri.edu by Dec. 30, 2022. Once that process is complete, all existing files and data will be transferred automatically to your new license. All licenses are valid Dec. 1, 2022 – Nov. 30, 2023. For more information, visit Division of IT Software Sales.

MATLAB is a programming and numeric computing platform used by millions of engineers and scientists to analyze data, develop algorithms and create models. Simulink is a block diagram environment used to design systems with multidomain models, simulate before moving to hardware and deploy without writing code.