( applause ) >> Thanks to all of you for coming out on a Wednesday night to hear about science, and to
hear in particular about the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. It's really a treat for me to
have a chance to talk about our college in a venue like this. And that's exactly what Tom has asked me to do, is talk
about the college. I get to slip a slide in at the very end to tell you just a little bit about the science
that I've done. But really, I'm here to tell you about the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
and where we see our future lies.
So with that, as Tom said, I have the great personal honor and privilege to assume the deanship as the 12th dean
of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences on August 1st of last year. I follow in the footsteps of
another Cornelian, our first dean, who arrived here in 1880, at the age of 30, with a brand new PhD.
Nobody with experience apparently was willing to accept the job. And the very daunting task of
establishing a College of Agriculture here at the University of Wisconsin. The University of Wisconsin
had been declared the Land Grant University of the state of Wisconsin beating out Lawrence University and Red Pine College.
So Dean William Henry arrived in 1880, 20 years after University of Wisconsin had achieved the land grant status.
Now that land grant status obliged the university to provide an education for common people.
And an education needed to be practical. It was a real problem at this time, because those citizens,
and the vast majority at that time were in agriculture, who were in rural areas, were not able to obtain education
sufficient to meet the admission standards of the University of Wisconsin. So about the time that
Dean Henry arrived, some important changes were made. One of which was to allow for the possibility that as students
were recruited for this college they may, especially coming from rural backgrounds, be unable to meet the high school graduation
requirements. As a consequence of this situation, when Dean Henry arrived, he had, as he put it,
he faced a severe shortage of students. That is, he had none in 1880. And so, his first task was to
become a college and to recruit students, which he did by building a course that we still value very highly today called
the Farm and Industry Short Course. Today, our college has 19 academic departments.
We recently consolidated one, and another voted to merge. We have 19 academic departments, about 310 full-time faculty,
approximately 700 academic staff and 700 classified employees, 2,300 undergrads, about 1,000 in addition
to that 2,300 undergrads fall into the Biology major that Dave Nelson is involved with that is a joint major
across the university. Our college still has a very large number of graduate students.
And this is one of the reasons why I came here to take this job. Graduate education at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison and in our college has been a very important part of the fabric of our intellectual life.
It is among the most threatened of our enterprises, because of the cost and because graduate students don't have a political
constituency. Yet if you ask our leading principal investigators and faculty, you'll find that a
crucial part of our success and our ability to retain outstanding faculty is in fact the quality of our graduate
programs. Our undergraduates will also tell you that graduate mentors have been very important to them
as they've built their careers here. For a college of our size and type, we have literally
unparalleled excellence on our faculty. This is something I hear as a remark broadly across the
campus. We have a sort of inexplicable elegance. We're a medium-size state.
We face all the usual kinds of budgetary challenges. And yet, somehow we have achieved a faculty profile that
is unmatched in colleges of our type. One metric of that that is a very rigorous indicator is the
number of our faculty that are members of the National Academy of Sciences. This is the highest honor that a
scientist can achieve. We, as a college, have 23 living members of the National Academy of Science.
That is several-fold more than any other college of our type. And many colleges that we are comparing ourselves to have as
many as a hundred more faculty. So this is just a shocking evaluation, or a shocking achievement really.
We have had one college faculty member awarded the Nobel Prize, although Oliver Smithies who was just recognized this year
was 50% CALS, so I should've updated the slide. We have a number, again, an unmatched number of faculty
who've been awarded a designation with a Howard Hughes investigator or professor. And a number of faculty have
been recognized as Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. So our faculty really represent
an amazing resource. We find ourselves as a college embedded in a world class university.
We were pretty happy to trade in that designation, "Number One Party School" for the one you see listed at the top of this
slide. Newsweek just designated us the "Hottest Big State School" in 2007.
We are very proud of, again, some kind of interesting and almost paradoxical metrics about our students' achievements.
We have both produced more Peace Corps volunteers than any other university or college, and led the nation in Peace Corps
volunteers in 19 out of the last 20 years. But we rank only behind Harvard in the number of Standard and
Poor's 500 Company CEOs. That's an interesting juxtaposition. This slide also needs updating.
We just recently surpassed the number three position to be put into the number two position by the National Science
Foundation for federal research expenditures nationally. We are the only university that has occupied one of the top five
slots since about the 1950s in large research universities by these NSF criteria. And we are now ranked
only behind Johns Hopkins, which has a very large private Naval research lab funded by Department of Defense dollars.
If you take that research lab away from Johns Hopkins, the University of Wisconsin-Madison leads the nation in
research expenditures. We're also one of the top ten national U.S. biomedical research centers, according to
various objective and reliable rankings. So our investment in research and in the training of future
researchers is really enormous, and again achieves a profile that is really very distinctive. We excel nationally, but we
also, in the College of Ag, retain our focus on the state of Wisconsin. A little known fact about our
college is in addition to our presence here at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, we manage 12 research stations, we call
them Ag Research Stations, but actually they're research stations around the state, for a total of about 6,500 acres that
are managed to promote a variety of missions, not only agricultures, but natural resources.
The station up at Kemp is a natural resources station. Rhinelander does seed potatoes. Lancaster, down in the
southwest, does our grazing and animal operation. O.J. Noor is turf. So we have a whole array of
these stations that allow us to take the work we're doing and extend it to the state. >> Can I ask a question?
Sure. >> If you look at the demographics, it does a pretty good job, except for the
southeast part of Wisconsin. Is there any outlook for being able to get like a horticultural experiment station over near the
largest concentration of population, people in Wisconsin? >> It's interesting that you'd ask that question.
We have the offer of a small piece of land in the vicinity of Milwaukee that has been sustainably managed for
agriculture for 40 years. So we're looking at the possibility of accepting that gift.
It's always important in looking at a gift like this to ensure that we also will have the resources to take care of that
gift through time. So there is a focus on, in fact, there's a strong focus in the college on agriculture, sort of
peri-urban, smaller-scale agriculture. Clearly, this discussion would be a potentially important
advance toward that objective. So about the college itself. The college is now always ranked in the top three ag schools, and
often ranked number one when all different parameters of activity are evaluated. We're especially proud of a
number one ranking that came out in 2005 that reflects research productivity and impact of that research.
When a research article is published, it goes into the scientific literature. That article is then cited by
other researchers. And the number of times that article is cited, and the way that article is cited can be
measured. So our college was ranked top among land grant colleges of ag in scientific impact,
according to this type of a metric. Again, paralleling UW-Madison's overall performance, our college
is always first among our land grant peers in total research expenditures. And first in research awards
from the National Institute of Health, which really is an indicator of our phenomenal strength and balance strength in
the life sciences, as well as in agricultural science. So we typically lead the nation, always in NSF, and often in some
of the other agencies. So in addition to this research profile, from very early on in the college's history, there was
a commitment to ensuring that that innovation, that discovery, that investment in research, translated into improved lives.
So there are a number of wonderful stories. I could give you a seminar completely focused on these
wonderful stories that relate to early work that has had just a phenomenal impact on human health and on agriculture.
A couple of important ones focus on the discovery of vitamins and the understanding of that discovery with respect to its
implications for human health. Another very important discovery occurred when a farmer appeared holding a bucket of blood and a
dead calf. And the analysis of the blood and the feed of the calf indicated that spoiled silage
had resulted in the formation of a compound we now call coumerin. So coumerin has had enormous implications.
It's still a very widely used pharmaceutical. But it's also the basis of, or one of the early products of the
Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, WARF, because of its deployment as rat poison, also known as Warfarin.
Even today, our college accounts for 70% of WARF's annual income. WARF was founded and led by the second dean of this college,
Harry Russell. And Walt Goodman, here in the audience, was kind enough to give me a biography of this
remarkable man, who went from the college to found WARF. WARF was really the first of a couple of very big activities
that have benefited, not only the university tremendously, but the community. The University Research Park
being another. CALS partnered with UW-Madison. We donated land that now houses 114 companies, with a very
significant economic impact on the state of Wisconsin. We're very proud to have, as Tom said, opened a new building that
really represents a statement about the way our future can unfold. But I especially love this
photograph, because this is a photograph taken looking at the glass wall of our Microbial Sciences Building.
And in that wall is reflected one of our earliest college buildings, Hiram Smith, also newly renovated, to be re-opened
we hope at the end of this year, or early next year, to house our Life Sciences Communications Department.
If you haven't had a chance to walk through Microbial Sciences, I invite you to do so. It's a stunning building.
And as you enter into the atrium that lies behind that glass wall, you see Hiram Smith framed in a way that honors our past, I
think, but also creates a space in Microbial Sciences that is all about crossing disciplines, crossing administrative
boundaries, creating conversations between scientists who have a great deal in common. We've, for much of the 20th
century, lived in departments that didn't connect very well. My colleague Paul Peercy, in the College of Engineering says that
this 20th century in science was the century of disaggregation, disintegration of science. And the appearance of a number
of labeled disciplines, separate from each other. He says, and I agree completely, that the 21st century will be
the century we put those disciplines back together. I would suggest also that the original land grant missions,
now captured by the words: research, instruction and outreach, that we are seeing again an integration of those
missions as well. And Microbial Sciences represents that, too. We have sort of a boutique
museum in the lobby that has some very interesting exhibits. And we hope will be a space that is welcoming to the public, in
terms of highlighting the impact that Microbial Sciences has, not only on this campus, but across science and across the state.
Of course, Microbial Sciences underlies some of the most important industries we have in this state.
Cheese is a product of fermentation. Beer is a product of fermentation.
And in fact, we're looking at-- Miller Brewery was pretty excited to see this, and plans to donate a micro brewery.
It's been the subject of some discussion about how to exactly manage the products of those experiments.
( laughter ) It looks like we have a volunteer! And so we're seeing, I think, a
re-engagement of a number of the industries in Wisconsin and across the nation that rely on Microbial Sciences.
Not the least of which is bioenergy. So we have two departments in this building.
One is the CALS Department of Bacteriology. And the other is the School of Medicine and Public Health's
Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology. It's a building designed, and the scientists in it say, very
easy when you come out of your lab, you're in a very exposed space. And apparently, it's very easy
for one colleague to say, "Come on over here, I've got something to tell you." We're hearing about
collaborations already that have started just in the matter of weeks that this building has been occupied.
The Microbial Sciences Building, and I sort of mentioned, it is now the largest academic building on campus, sits in this
neighborhood that Tom was describing. The Microbial Sciences Building, on this map, is shown in the
upper right hand corner. My office, right here, is in Ag Hall, one of our beautiful original buildings.
In fact, I sit in the very room that the 11 deans before me have sat in. Here's the area where
Biochemistry is located. Here's where we sit right now, in Genetics and Biotechnology. Many of our projects now in
these areas of advanced science involve interactions with the College of Engineering. In fact, this partnership, down
Henry Mall, is a very old one, resulting in the formation of a group that still meets, called the West End Club.
Apparently, an engineering dean's wife in the early 1890s suggested that we should bridge that space.
And even today, that club meets. We have this site, as Tom mentioned, soon to undergo demolition for the creation of a
really interesting experiment with respect to the university's engagement in cutting edge science.
And then we have disciplines housed around there that we know will be crucial. Medical Sciences, the State Lab
of Hygiene, Physics, Chemistry and Computer Sciences, all located in a section of this university that we hope
will foster that re-integration and synergy that we know to be crucial for our success in this century.
So, as we think about where we are now, one of my tasks as an incoming dean was also to work with our faculty and be a part
of dialogues that are about finding our way forward. One of the processes we went through early on was to define
our scope. This is essentially a scope statement, to clarify what we do and who we work for.
So this is a statement that we have offered to the community and had considerable discussion about.
We serve the citizens of Wisconsin, we are still a 20% state-supported institution, and obviously, far beyond our
citizens here in the state, by finding solutions and promoting opportunities in the areas of agriculture, life sciences,
natural resources and social science. These four areas really represent, in my experience,
four neighborhoods in our college community, depicted on this next slide. Each one of these neighborhoods
is occupied by typically, several departments. A number of those departments were the first of their type,
and are ranked still number one in the nation. And interestingly, that excellence is also distributed
across these neighborhoods. In the center, we've listed our traditional land grant missions. There's a famous metaphor that
deans like me like to highlight, called the three-legged stool, where the three different missions are portrayed as all
integral parts of our operation. And in fact, that very metaphor was developed here at the University of Wisconsin in
challenge to the Wisconsin Idea, that early commitment from the 1890s, that this university and certainly our college is a part
of it, would serve the state. And our borders would extend to the borders of the state. So as I have had the opportunity
to get to know my college better, I could define these four neighborhoods. And like neighborhoods, in some
cases, the boundaries are quite clear. And in other cases, the boundaries are not clear.
That is a strength. And like neighborhoods, sometimes the most interesting action is actually at the
interfaces. And those interfaces are defined in this portrayal as actually very crucial, crucial places.
For example, the interface of agriculture and the environment is now understood to be one of the most important places our
college operates. Similarly, with respect to the life sciences. Clearly we have a vibrant
biotechnology industry here in Madison. Those life sciences contribute broadly across the campus and
across the world, to agriculture, to medicine. And in fact, many of the technologies pioneered here have
gone on to facilitate discoveries in a whole array of other disciplines. As I listen to our faculty,
staff and students, and listen to our stakeholders, four words really emerged as the focus of the college: food, health,
environment and energy. I'm going to take just a second to comment on this last word. Energy, historically, has not
been understood to be extremely crucial, or an integrated issue in all of these three areas. But we now know that one of the
major challenges in the 21st century will be an environmentally sensible, energy economy.
It'll be important in agriculture. It'll be important in our society.
And how that develops, in fact, calls forward our social scientists in some very interesting and important ways.
So energy represents a topic that has historically has not been understood to fall in this college's province.
In partnership with engineering and others on campus, we recognize that the dialogue about our energy future will
certainly include considerable discussion on the creation of fuels, the creation of sources of energy, and the creation of
energy itself. But as I arrived on campus, a Department of Energy opportunity opened up.
And Tom mentioned, it was really a very large grants program, the first five-year chapter in a 15-year road map that
the Department of Energy has sketched out. And a number of our scientists were part of creating that road
map. We brought forward a proposal that was awarded at the end of June.
It is certainly the largest proposal in our college's history to be funded. And on an annual basis, equal to
the other large award this campus has, which is IceCube, the Antarctic observatory. So on an annual basis, it is a
budget of that size. That's a ten-year award. And we're pretty determined to renew this for that length of
time ourselves. To house this activity, we have coined something called the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative.
We can't do colleges. We can't do departments, even, very quickly at the University of Wisconsin.
We have this very, very powerful tradition of shared faculty governance. I'm convinced that at least part
of our excellence is an immediate consequence of that tradition. But we can do initiatives.
So we sat at our table in my office and decided we would call this future the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative.
That allowed us, not only to bring forward, this successful award, which is called the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center.
That center is the award itself. It is housed for now in the Microbial Sciences Building. And Tim Donahue, whom you'll
hear from, it sounds like, in the future, is getting that off the ground. We just recently successfully
concluded some fairly harrowing contract negotiations. And I think have found some good balance with that.
We also know, though, that as a college and as a university, in order to be responsible, we need to reserve space for
conversations that are about energy conservation. Simply plugging in renewable fuels is not going to make the
kind of difference we hope, and the Department of Energy hopes, without a focus on the way we use that energy.
And without recognition of the fact that we'll have lots of choices, regardless of the technology.
We'll have new technologies. The issues and questions that will, in the long run, probably be certainly as important as how
we create energy from other than fossil fuels will be the ways we deploy those strategies. So, interestingly, we were the
only finalist proposal that brought forward any discussion of the sustainability of the enterprise.
I would attribute that directly to our land grant status and our awareness of the importance of bringing forward comprehensive
discussions on topics. Again, I need to highlight the crucial partnerships that went into this award, not only with
our College of Engineering, but with Michigan State University and a number of other entities, including some private sector
start-ups right here in Madison. So the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative we hope some day will grow into the Wisconsin
Bioenergy Institute. Our state has promised a physical home for this institute, which will not be
large enough by any means to house the faculty involved. But we hope will allow a focal point for the discussions
outlined on this slide. Not only the creation of energy, but disruptive technology focused on energy conservation
and discussions about the implications in the shifts in the way we use energy in the near future.
I mentioned food is another major theme. I want to just highlight some of the interesting things that are
happening on campus. Clearly, agriculture has been about food for a long, long time, a millennia.
But we're seeing some interesting, new opportunities that relate to food and awarenesses of the connectedness
of food production with environment, with health, and with local economies. So we have, I just thought I'd
highlight some interesting things happening in the area of food. A lot of interdisciplinary
discussion. We have a food science group. We have a Food Research Institute, which has
historically focused on food safety. And we have a Nutritional Sciences Department, focused on
public health. Historically, those three entities had operated quite separately, really very
separately. We know that in fact they have a great deal to do with each other.
And if we are going to go on and compete for other large awards like the Department of Energy award, we need to present these
activities in a more integrated way. So the Food Research Institute also housed in our Microbial
Sciences Building has just undergone a kind of a process where it's adopted new bylaws, more flexible bylaws, bylaws
that present some guidelines for expanded interaction with the private sector. It is already, though, the
oldest consortium we have on campus. It moved here from the University of Chicago in the
1960s, and it was set up at the University of Chicago in the 1940s. Again, a very strong link
between our researchers and the private sector. Our newest institute in the area is the Wisconsin Institute for
Sustainable Agriculture, approved by the University governance process just this last summer, to be lead by Brent
McCown. This brings together activities that really expand campus from agricultural production, to the
environment, to the social sciences, focused on, again, sustainable agriculture systems. No longer does this institute
just focus on sort of boutique agricultural production. We're very excited about a Kellogg award that is about
scaling up locally sourced food. Now, as an Ag dean, I like this, because I deal with groups interested in agricultural
production and the agricultural economy from across the spectrum. So from large-scale commodity
agricultural producers to all kinds of people interested in very small-scale production. But buy local, grow local is
something everyone can get behind. Our Farm Bureau loves it. Our non-profits enjoy it.
Yeah? >> Is it a conflict that Buy Local in Wisconsin exports 85% of its milk, and cheese, all
over the nation? >> We want them to buy our cheese there. >> I have some struggle with
this Buy Local. It's a nice idea, but you know, Wisconsin's a small state. But it's our largest industry,
after all. >> Well it is. And it's actually-- ( inaudible )
That's right. We're also very close to some major metro areas that are not in our state, but represent
enormous markets. So one of the really, really interesting issues in this Kellogg grant is to figure out
what we mean my local. What do we mean by regional. How do we measure it. Because actually, metrics are
not available for most of the dynamics that need to be examined. >> Maybe the definition for
cheese, local means where it's best produced. We've proved that our bacteria's actually better.
It's our happy cows. So, the other thing that's extremely interesting and very challenging for this community
is many people are interested in this concept. Because they feel that it is really good for small-scale
producers. But to have the kinds of positive environmental impacts that people, for example, would
like to see from organic agriculture, guess what? You have to do it on large-scale.
And so that has big impacts for how you aggregate products, how you distribute products. And it's really a fascinating
call. So I had a group in my office yesterday discussing this. And in fact, there is one
philanthropist that is very interested in this. It's Wal-Mart. So the question is, to the
people who are working here, well how do you feel about Wal-Mart supporting your work? It's an interesting time.
Yes? >> I have one more question. Is anything being done about, or thought about basically
emissions from animals? >> Oh, absolutely. >> Is that something that the university--
Because I was shocked to hear that that was one of the largest sources of air pollution, of greenhouse gases.
Without a doubt. The question is, is anything being done about animal agriculture and its relationship
to damaging environmental issues. The answer is yes. Or really, about emission,
especially air emissions, but water is a big deal. The answer is yes. One of the reasons we're so
interested here in Wisconsin about bioenergy, is it could turn manure, one of our biggest environmental liabilities in
this state, one of the most challenging issues for our ag producers, into an asset. We are the number one state for
manure digesters. These are very impressive things, and represent, I think, a really interesting way to turn
something that right now is a big problem into potentially an asset. The material that comes out of
an ag digester is peat moss, essentially. I have a wonderful photograph. I didn't show you, actually, of
our chair of Animal Sciences proving that this material is something you wouldn't mind putting in your garden.
This last point on this slide represents a recognition that in addition to traditional research science as we've done it, these
very large awards, like the Department of Energy award, represent an important option for universities and colleges,
because they do provide a substantial, typically more substantial and longer-term resource.
But it is going to be very important for us as a research institution to maintain a balance of single investigator
awards and these very large, we call it, big science awards. Health has always been a big focus in our college, and
continues to be a big focus in our college. This is one of our very articulate junior faculty
members, Gabby Cesar, who is working in doing stem cell research, focused on both animal and human health.
In fact, our School of Medicine and Public Health is transforming, or has become the School of Medicine and Public
Health quite recently. There's a committee charged with ensuring that transition happens.
That committee looked at me when I met with them and said, actually you're the School of Public Health, aren't you?
And in many respects, our college has historically had a very strong effort in this area. We are launching a new
institute, jointly with the Med School, the Wisconsin Institute for the Prevention of Obesity and Diabetes.
Obesity is now not only a problem in the developed world, but increasingly, a very significant nutritional issue in
the developing world. So this focus is very well placed, for both Wisconsin, our stats aren't anything to be too
proud of, as well as globally. We are bringing forward a concept of a college that is really relevant to efforts
around the campus, focused on poverty. This is led by Michael Carter, one of our outstanding
economists. We are energizing a number of different partnerships, focused primarily on farm safety, food
safety, and personalized medicine with the Marshfield Clinic. And finally, we are taking a
comprehensive look with a group called the Life Sciences Task Force, chaired by Hector DeLuca, a very eminent biochemist, and
Mark Bugher, chair of our Research Park. And this is really taking a look at our future in the area of
Life Sciences, and how to keep Wisconsin at a very high profile, and able to contribute. With respect to the neighborhood
we call environment, we have a new department. This department represents a merged department between
Aldo Leopold's Department of Wildlife Ecology and our Department of Forestry, Ecology and Management.
We're very excited about this new community. It's larger. We've placed two new faculty
positions there. And as a consequence of this energy, we're also looking toward re-energized discussions
on campus. This is not just a CALS issue, but on campus, towards an environmental science major,
which we still lack. Those discussions are occurring in earnest all across campus, but especially with the Gaylord
Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. So when we ask ourselves why this matters so much.
In the College of Ag and Life Sciences, we understand that that mission, that land grant mission, is every bit as
important, if not more important for us in this century, than it was in the 19th or 20th century. But we can't do what we did in
the 20th century and get where we want to be now. We know that science is moving incredibly fast.
Science is moving incredibly quickly. The integration, the power of information, the transformation
and the challenges are on scales that really are unprecedented. So we know that it's going to be about partnerships of all type,
recognizing the relationships between these different entities on campus. And I'm going to close with just
highlighting some important pieces of biology that are contributing to all of this. As Tom said, I was a plant
breeder. I worked in plant genetics at a time when we all worked on our own favorite little crop.
Well, I happen to work on vegetables, because vegetables were important nutritionally and vegetables are a very important
source of income in the developing world. But we were always sort of the orphans, because they're not
corn. We don't have a big presence in Congress. What has happened to the science
in the 15 or 20 years that I have studied this, is that genetic information in plants has collapsed to a very, sort
of, simple set of-- To really almost, not one genome, so-called genome, but where I can take information in
my favorite crop, which one of them happened to be the pepper. I can pull information from across all biology to learn
things that I never would have been able to discover otherwise. This collapsing of information is one of the reasons why this
re-integration is so important. I studied a gene for virus resistance in pepper. And I was interested in it
because these viral diseases have just devastated crop production in West Africa and some other parts of the world.
I was interested in the gene. There was a gene I knew about that controlled that viral disease.
That virus, it's a pepper virus, looks a whole lot like Polio. So I looked to Polio for candidates that might account
for the identity of that gene. It turns out this system, Polio and mouse, yielded some suggestions that I could test in
my favorite pepper plant as to the identity of my gene, and I guessed right. It turns out it's a protein
that's involved in the genetic system of the plant that the virus has pirated, and uses, except when a mutation is
introduced, it means the virus can't infect anymore. We've had a chance to take a look at that molecule up close
and personal, and then to use that information in both crop breeding and in crop genetic engineering.
This story probably wouldn't have happened. It would've taken a career. And in my case, it happened so
fast that I got to where I wanted to be about 20 years too soon, which meant when the phone rang and it was UW-Madison,
I said, well, hmm, that's an interesting possibility. And I recognized that as a consequence of my personal
story, how important communities are, how important scientific communities are, how important for me the integration of the
mission is. For me, it was like that calf blood. It was a wrecked crop that
caught my attention. But it was work going on in medicine that led me to an answer that is now actually in
trials in West Africa, back to where we started, with a novel strategy that we think is now broadly applicable well beyond
pepper. So with that, I'm going to close, with a favorite quote from a very eminent scholar,
part of that early land grant movement. I admit, he was at Cornell. But I like this idea.
I like this quote because in field that is moving as rapidly as our science is, it's not the facts that we can transmit.
We can teach our students facts. Clearly, facts are very important. But in this college, we are
striving, in addition to disciplinary excellence, and in addition to the facts, to create a vision that is communicated
and shared, developed in dialogue, and to encourage our students to acquire the tools necessary to create and
challenge their visions as they move forward. So with that, I'll close and I'll be glad to continue any of
the discussions we've begun or answer any other questions. And I thank you very much for your attention.
( applause ) >> To see the furthest, farthest, you have to stand on the shoulder of giants.
And we here at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are extremely fortunate in that is exactly where we're standing.
Without a doubt. And you're one of them. >> How are we doing on the switchgrass?
Well, fortunately, switchgrass is a perennial grass that is the object of some considerable interest with
respect to bioenergy. It's a crop that does not have to be planted on an annual basis.
It does not have to be fertilized. And we're lucky in that we have about the only switchgrass
breeding program in the U.S. right here. That actually highlights something that I didn't mention
that's really a very important asset of this campus, which is our partnerships with federal agencies, such as the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. Because that switchgrass geneticist is actually a USDA employee, who happens to be
based here. We also have the Forest Products Lab. So that is a very large federal
laboratory with a huge interest in cellulosic ethanol, as well as many other things that have to do with wood.
So as an asset moving forward, especially focused on energy, these federal partnerships are also going to be very, very
crucial in all respects, really, as we find our way forward. >> Change the whole face of everything.
Absolutely. >> How far do we have to go now? Is it a real long shot? >> Well let me sketch out where
we are and reorient. The question is how far do we have to go before we're really in a very different energy
economy. I would say we're already there with corn-based ethanol. And there's a lot of very
interesting discussion about how we got here. Some will say that this focus on corn-based ethanol is in fact
not about national security, but is actually about high corn prices. And in fact, there's some
evidence for that. I don't have time to explain, but of course, one of the ways that, for example, this DOE
program has been essentially sold to Congress, is because of national security issues. The challenge that the DOE made
to us when we accepted that award is that we are to be contributing to a shift in that energy economy from grain to
cellulose sourced ethanol. So cellulose is a sugar, just like the starches we now use in grain.
But it is a crystalline sugar that occurs in plants. It's the most abundant material on the planet.
It's very difficult to access, though. Unlike the sugars in corn kernels, it's very difficult to
access. It requires harsh chemical pre-treatments and then complicated conversions to
ethanol. It can be done now. It can not be done very efficiently.
And it can not be done on very large scale. So our challenge with this DOE award is literally, specifically
to remove the bottlenecks in the creation of ethanol and other fuels from cellulose. How long will that take?
I don't know. But I can say that this grant will pull on disciplines and will take a focus that moves
away from chemical pre-treatments to enzymatic treatments, and to the integration of various enzymatic
reactions in one environment so that the reactions can occur in one container, as the material is moved out of its original
source, the plant, to a form that's accessible for conversion to energy to energy. >> One of the challenges there
is switchgrass, getting it through the process. >> That's right. We have a Biological Systems
Engineering Department in the college. I just met with them as a department this afternoon.
They, clearly, are going to be a very integral part in these discussions. That observation, though, is one
of the reasons why there's so much interest in this possibility in Wisconsin, because biomass is bulky.
And it's unwise and not economical to transport it very far. So there's considerable hope in
the state, in rural communities that are surrounded by either the forest source biomass or production ag source biomass
that conversion processes will have to happen in those communities. >> There's a lot of land in
southwest Wisconsin that's un-glaciated, and would be ideal for this scenario. It's a matter of reducing
erosion. >> That's right. And there's a lot of land in the northern part of the state, the
number one paper pulp state in this nation, where that even after the use of those forests for paper and pulp, there's a
lot of residual biomass in the north. So there's considerable interest in the section of the state that
depends on forest based resources, that this may be a real boon in areas where forests are very prevalent.
Wisconsin really represents a microcosm of a number of opportunities nationally, put into a very small geography.
And this was one of the other features that the Department of Energy recognized when our grant was funded.
That we were able to bring forward economic positioning arguments about why Wisconsin, why the Midwest that were really
very powerful. We have this northern forest based economy. We have the production ag,
prairie based economy. We also have a very strong manufacturing sector that stands to benefit from the deployment
of technologies that are created here. And we're a metro state. We export $18 billion a year in
energy costs. So there were a lot of reasons why changing some of those dynamics could be extremely good
for Wisconsin. >> We're a net exporter of energy? >> We're a next exporter of
energy dollars. We send dollars out of the state. So we're an importer of energy,
because we buy it from outside the state. >> When you have cellulose, which is wood, what's the best
way to get the energy out of it? Burn it, or to ferment it, or to change it to nitrocellulose and blow it up?
What's the best way to get energy? >> So the Department of Energy's strategy is focused on
essentially fermentation style reactions. But we know, in fact our generating plant here burns
biomass with coal. And there are a number of interesting strategies focused on gasification strategies that
are being explored. So that's why we think it's so important in the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative to have a
capacity built into the conversation that assesses what's the best way forward. What are the efficiencies; what
are the economic implications; what are the environmental implications of a particular production system or a
particular harvest practice, and a particular set of technologies used to create the energy.
Do you create a fuel like ethanol, or do you create electricity as is the case for our manure digesters.
There's lots of different ways this can work. Other waste streams, other sources of biomass besides
production ag source biomass and forestry, clearly manure is a terrific asset in this state. Or a terrific factor in this
state. Also, domestic waste is potentially really interesting. >> I'd like to shift from energy
to synergy, especially the idea of interactions between the College of Ag and Life Sciences and the School of Medicine and
Public Health. We've all heard a lot about the $150 million building. We haven't heard so much about
this $158 million Wisconsin Institute for Medical Research that's almost finished near the UW Hospital, at the new Medical
School building. There's a footprint already built for another tower of equal size that would mean about a
$300 million complex. It's going to shift, I believe an awful lot of the researchers in the Medical School building
here, which is in our neighborhood, a mile west. What effect do you think that might have on synergy between
the Medical School and the College of Ag and Life Sciences, and are there any ways that you can keep the interactions high
as we get a mile apart? >> I think there is a commitment to keeping scientists, regardless of their college
affiliations, who are working primarily on fundamental biology in this section of town. So much of what's discussed,
much of what will move is primarily focused on more clinical applications, research oriented toward that.
We actually think that if we are able to create a building focused on bioenergy, much of the technology that will need,
that those researchers will need, is actually related to biomedical science. And the favorite site, our
chancellor's favorite site for that building right now is actually in between the Med School and where we are right
now. So I expect we will have people moving around. I know one think we're trying to
do, particularly near Nutritional Science, where we have a tremendous overlap with the Med School, is we're
creating things like seminar series that pull people back and forth. You know, it's still a mile
apart. But if you know exactly where you're going, you know where your friend lives, you have a
reason to go there. It becomes much easier. And of course, bus service in absence of some of this
construction will really help. >> A people mover system on this campus. It'd be the perfect place for
it. It's almost ideal. We've got a whole backbone here, like West Virginia.
As you've talked about these exciting ideas and changes, I'm thinking about the technical on a middle-aged Wisconsin dairy
farmer and his family, can maybe handle 50-60 dairy cows. And wondering how the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
information and activities will continue to relate to and help them in the future. >> It's a really good question.
For a typical Wisconsin dairy farmer, actually now has about 85 or so cows. ( inaudible )
That's right. And that number is increasing, although the rate of that increase is way behind the rest
of the nation, which is really, really interesting. We have a very diverse dairy industry in this state.
I think it's really without parallel in terms of its diversity. I find our dairy farmers to be
incredibly entrepreneurial. We've had some very exciting initiatives in the last five to ten years that focus on
incremental modernization of our dairy operations. And what that has done is allow your typical Wisconsin
dairy farmer, who lives three hours away from here, access to all kinds of innovations that can be
implemented in a reasonable manner. So I find, just like on campus, there is an energy among our ag
producers and a commitment to staying ag producers, and making strong businesses for the next generation.
It's really very exciting and very strong. So I view our ag producers as actually crucial informants.
We still partner very extensively with the University of Wisconsin-Extension System. Extension is a deeply integrated
partner. And our Extension specialists, who are our faculty on campus, connect with Extension faculty
out in the county. So we still maintain here in Wisconsin, a very strong kind of traditionally structured
Extension service. But in addition to that, there is a good example. We have a whole host of producer
organized groups that get onto campus on a regular basis. They tell us what they need. They ask us for what we have.
I'll tell you one very exciting thing that was typical, dairy producers are doing for us right now, is helping us build a barn
that we simply couldn't have done any other way. We have a research barn going up in Arlington.
It's going up for, I think, 20% of the price of one that recently went up at River Falls that houses five time the cows.
That's because those typical Wisconsin dairy farmers keep in close touch with us, and partner with us where there's research.
So we keep in very close touch through a whole host of mechanisms, both fairly traditional and some pretty
innovative partnerships. These guys are excellent business people. They get what they need.
They ask for what they need and insist that we are accountable for delivering it, which is the best thing they could do for us.
Thank you. >> Thank you. I notice the hour is late. I don't want to keep you too
late. Good, I want to thank you all. ( applause )