The spring semester is always a busy time on a college campus! My favorite part might be the time we take to honor our outstanding faculty, staff and students. Our annual Celebration of Excellence will be Tuesday, April 11, at Bond Life Sciences Center. I hope you make plans to join us – but first, nominate your colleagues for the awards we’ll give that night – you can find information on awards and nomination instructions online. We are thrilled to share that we will honor recipients of two new awards this year – for work in cultivating inclusion and for safety leadership. The deadline for nominations is Wednesday, March 1.

Please remind our students that the Spring ’23 CAFNR/Arts & Science Career Fair is scheduled for Wednesday, March 8, in the MU Rec Center. This is a great opportunity for students to connect with potential employers – both for jobs and internships.

So far this month I have:

• Met with Chris Chinn, Director of the Missouri Department of Agriculture; Gary Wheeler, Executive Director/CEO, Missouri Soybean; and Blake Rollins, Chief Administrative Officer, Missouri Farm Bureau
• Attended the Institute of Food Technologists Finance Committee Meeting
• Traveled to Orlando, Florida, to attend a meeting with our GICL board – GICL is our Graduate Institute of Cooperative Leadership
• Participated as a committee member for a PhD student oral exam (so fun to be back in that arena!)
• Attended the Stamps Luncheon to recruit students to MU – the Stamps Scholars are part of the Honors College
• Participated in the Missouri Innovation Center Board meeting
• Met with Mizzou Strategic Communications and Marketing leadership for our annual strategy meeting
• Welcomed the first two candidates for the Food, Nutrition and Exercise Sciences Division Director search, and I will welcome the third candidate in a few weeks
• Attended the NTT & TT Faculty Promotion & Tenure Development Session
• Participated in the Council of Deans Meeting
• Met with new Associate Vice Chancellor for Campus Facilities and Director of Facility Operations Michael Graves
• Attended the Presidents Leadership Meeting

Coming up still in February, I will attend a dinner with the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association, co-hosted by President Choi; the Missouri Pork Leadership Breakfast; the Geyer Awards event at the Missouri Governor’s Mansion honoring Blaine Luetkemeyer and Pat Thomas; lunch with Sara Parker Pauley, director of the Missouri Department of Conservation; CAFNR Policy Committee meeting; CAFNR Unlimited dinner and auctions; Council of Deans meeting; and IFT Board of Directors meeting. It’s a busy month for being the shortest one!

Thanks to those of you who joined us for the first spring faculty/staff meeting for 2023. I appreciated the presentations by Associate Deans Shibu Jose and Rob Kallenbach – Dean Kallenbach had his education directors each share a quick update. The impact we’re having in research and extension is astounding! Our next meeting will feature Senior Associate Dean Bryan Garton as well as President Mun Choi, and will be held 3:30-5 p.m. Tuesday, April 4, in the Atkins Seminar Room of the NextGen Precision Health Building.

CAFNR Proud,

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

Join me on LinkedIn! I’m excited to post more on this platform and connect with all of you. Here I will showcase all of the great research, student achievements, program impact, awards and honors and much more!

Staff from CAFNR Academic Programs and Marketing & Communications gave three presentations at the National APLU Academic Programs Staff Development Workshop Feb. 8-10 in New Orleans. Presentations and presenters included:

• Implementation of an Early Alert System and Impact on Student Success, Shari Freyermuth and Katie Ogan
• Go Global!, Shanon Dickerson
• Recruitment and Communications, Reagan Brown and Kathleen Matz

Upcoming Professional Development Opportunities
Third Thursdays Learning & Leadership
The UM Learning & Organizational Development team has launched a new opportunity to learn with your peers across the university around a variety of topics related to your experience in the workplace. Topics include:

• Managing your energy during change
• Identifying burnout and developing resilience
• Cross cultural communication in the workplace
• Enhancing your meeting presentation and facilitation skills
• Tips for prioritizing and managing your time at work
• Resilience vs. endurance: Cultivating well being at work

Registration for these sessions is available in Percipio.

Leadercamp: The Kind Leader on Control is a live, online event on Feb. 23 from 11 a.m. to noon. Registration is open in Percipio. For many, the very word “control” feels uncomfortable, carrying the relics of old-school leadership from ages past. Yet the attempts to control others remain even today, so we have to be focused on how we view the term. The only person we can control 100% is ourselves, and the realization that it is down to us to manage ourselves first is quite a challenge to many. This kind and appreciative awareness can add to your capability to be your best for yourself, and to be the best you can be for your people too. Being kind to yourself is the first priority to be an outstanding leader and for you to feel great at the same time.

In this first of a series of four Leadercamps around kindness, ICF-accredited coach and trainer Martin Haworth shares insights into the control we have in the work we do, and the lives we lead. Martin presents some simple, kindness tools you can adopt right away to help your performance, well-being, and fulfilment in your everyday world.

CAFNR Headshots Spring Session
CAFNR faculty, staff and graduate students are invited to update or get a new professional headshot Wednesday, March 1, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event will be held at the Extension Communications studio. Parking is available. Directions: To get to the parking lot, take Rock Quarry Rd. south from Stadium Blvd., then take the first left onto Capen Park Dr. Next make two additional quick lefts and head toward the north end of the building, (Rock Quarry Center is a large, white-gray warehouse-style building). Enter through Door 4 and the MU Extension Communications and Marketing office is the first door on the right. Please contact Reagan Brown, reagan.brown@missouri.edu, 573-882-8832, for any questions.

Other options for professional headshots on campus include:

• CAFNR/A&S Career Fair Professional Portraits. Any faculty or staff who want a portrait taken can come to the Career Fair on Wednesday, March 8, anytime between 12 to 4 p.m. in Brewer Fieldhouse. Enter the MU Rec Center through the north entrance on Rollins Avenue. A photographer from Mizzou Visual Productions will be onsite to take the photos; it may take up to two weeks before the photos will be available. Cheryl Stevens will e-mail a link out to anyone whose photo is taken.
• The MU Career Center Selfie Studio. Take a professional-looking headshot for your LinkedIn profile and social media accounts with the studio’s professional lighting and equipment. The Selfie Studio is located on the lower level of the Student Success Center and is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Mizzou Visual Productions Open Studio Portrait Sessions. MVP is now offering monthly open studio portrait sessions for faculty and staff on the last Thursday of every month from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Reservations are not required. The cost for a professional headshot is $75 per person and will be billed to a MoCode. The first session is Thursday, Feb. 23. The studio is located in Room 18 in the basement of the Academic Support Center. Parking is limited in RC-11, but there are metered parking spots on Stewart Road and 5th Street.

CAFNR Staff Advisory Council March Events
Keep Stepping Into 2023. Lace up your sneakers, grab your water bottles and join us for “Keep Stepping into 2023”! This interactive exercise event will be Tuesday, March 7, at 2 p.m. in Eckles Event Center. Dean Daubert will join faculty and staff as the NEP department and Exercise is Medicine – CAFNR On Campus lead an exercise activity. Make plans to join your CAFNR colleagues as we get moving and “Keep Stepping into 2023”!

Mental Health Seminar. Will be held in March; keep an eye out for date to be announced soon.