It’s wonderful to see our campus bustling with students again, even masked and socially distanced! I enjoyed meeting many of our new students, as well as our dedicated club and organization representatives, at CAFNR Fall Round-up last week. I was also invited to participate in some of our CAFNR clubs and orgs’ first meetings this fall, including COMPASS (CAFNR’s Opportunity for Minorities: Promoting and Achieving Student Success) peer mentoring group and MANRRS (Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences). Virtual events have become the new norm, and I appreciated the very meaningful MU Remembers Ceremony memorializing students, faculty and staff we lost over the past year on Friday, Sept. 4. I look forward to participating in the Mizzou: Our Time to Lead Campaign Celebration Sept. 24 and the MU Promotion & Tenure virtual reception Sept. 29. I will be meeting with many of you through our Divisions’ fall faculty meetings. So far I have visited with Plant Sciences and Animal Sciences faculty, and will attend the Food Systems and Bioengineering fall faculty meeting before the end of the month. I will also meet virtually with our AES Research Center staff this fall. Thank you to CAFNR Staff Advisory Council for inviting me to speak at their kick-off of the Mizzou IDE curriculum “Race, Racism, and the American Experience.” I appreciate your participation, as well as Staff Council for organizing it. Thank you to DASS for hosting the webinar on “A Possible Path Forward for the Show-Me-State Food, Beverage and Forest Products Manufacturing Initiative in a COVID-19 World,” presented by Scott Brown, our CAFNR director for strategic partnerships, and the CAFNR Research Council for hosting the webinar with Dr. Parag Chitnis, acting director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. I also met with Missouri agriculture leaders to talk about how we can initiate the MO-5 (Missouri Food, Feed, Fiber, Fuel and Forests) Consortium as part of our Show-Me-State Food, Beverage and Forest Products Manufacturing Initiative. In the next week I look forward to attending the Agricultural Business Council of Kansas City’s Ag Outlook Forum and a special APLU webinar on “The Role of Public & Land-Grant Universities in Strengthening & Advancing U.S. Global Interests.” It was a pleasure earlier this month to meet our new MU Vice Chancellor for Advancement, Jackie Lewis. She brings a wealth of knowledge to this position, and I know she will enjoy working with our CAFNR Advancement team! Today I am pleased to serve as a judge for the Missouri Leopold Conservation Award Program, and tomorrow I look forward to meeting with our CAFNR Foundation. Last week Dr. Pat Market, interim director for the School of Natural Resources, interviewed for the permanent directorship, and today we bring the first of four finalists to campus to interview for the director position in the Division of Plant Sciences. I appreciate all of you who have participated or will participate in these interviews. Your attendance and feedback is very important to this process. The energy of the fall semester on a college campus is always something I look forward to. I know this fall semester has taken a lot of work and dedication from all of you, and I appreciate all of your efforts to serve our students and our partners around the state! CAFNR Proud, Christopher R. Daubert, Ph.D.
CAFNR Vice Chancellor & Dean |