Education and Training of Plant Breeders
NAPB/PBCC Education/Communication Joint Subcommittee Meeting
April 19, 2011 Minutes
Next meeting: May 10, 2011 (2pm CST)
Mission Statements:
Education and Training of Plant Breeders Subcommittee Mission Statement:
Our goal is to develop strategies promoting and enhancing plant breeding education and training opportunities and experiences, fostering future workforce development for public and private global plant breeding, and securing sustained, long-term funds supporting plant breeder development through mentoring. Actions are taken to improve recruitment into plant breeding careers, and to enhance public awareness of issues heavily impacted through plant breeding including, impacts on food security, improved nutrition, healthy landscapes, managing climate change, and sustainable bioenergy.
Communications Subcommittee Mission Statement:
To frame and communicate the messages of the Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee
- 2010-11 Education Subcommittee Officers and Grad Student Liaisons:
- Mitch Tuinstra, Past chair (drmitch@purdue.edu)
- Donn Cummings, Chair (donn.cummings@monsanto.com)
- Jamie Sherman, Vice chair (jsherman@montana.edu)
- Patrick Brown, Secretary (pjb34@illinois.edu) (newly elected)
- John Hart, Grad Student Liaison, (jph248@cornell.edu)
- Xiangye Xian, Grad Student Liaison, (xiao12@purdue.edu)
- 2010-11 Communications Subcommittee Officers and Grad Student Liaison:
- Allen Van Deynze, Chair (2nd term) (avandeynze@ucdavis.edu)
- Pat Byrne, Vice Chair (patrick.byrne@colostate.edu)
- Maria Salas-Fernandez, Secretary (newly elected) (mgsalas@iastate.edu)
- Shelby Repinski, Grad Student Liaison (slrepinski@ucdavis.edu)
- Linda Wessel-Beaver, Past Vice Chair (lindawessel.beaver@upr.edu)
Role call: Donn Cummings, Pat Byrne, Shelby Repinski
Old Business:
- Nominees for Secretary of NAPB/PBCC Education Subcommittee and Communications Subcommittee:
- Shawn Kaeppler, UW Madison
- C. Wayne Smith, TAMU
- David Francis, OSU
- Marla Hall, Limagrain
- Aaron Carter, WSU
All nominees agree to serve in secretary role for either Education or Communications committee, if elected. Additional nominations are still being accepted.
We are planning for simple election process at meetings to determine Education Secretary, followed by election of Communications Secretary from remaining nominees.
Shelby inquired about succession for Graduate Student Liaisons. Since this is an appointed leadership role/volunteer opportunity, it will be up to new officers to determine how many and which volunteers to accept into these roles. It is not an official elected office, but the role is beneficial based on recent experience and is anticipated to be an ongoing need for added perspective and value in committee work.
Action Item: Shelby will include a statement on grad student survey form she is developing for next meeting asking for volunteers to serve in Liaison capacity. She will also network at meetings to learn of interested students in attendance and encourage connecting with officers during the meetings.
Action Item:Donn will solicit volunteers orally following elections, in order to supply names/university affiliations to incoming committee officers.
Action Item: Committee officers will review list of volunteers and invite the number desired to participate in committee activities.
- Meeting flow for annual meetings was reviewed and it was noted that next NAPB Executive meeting is Thursday, April 21 at 2pm Eastern.
- White paper – Update? (authors: H. Thomas Stalker and David Knauft). Nothing new to report.
Action Item: Donn to contact Tom for progress update for May 10 meeting.
- Update on Delphi Study on Plant Breeding Curriculum Development (UC Davis). Shelby confirmed 2 Crop Science papers are still in review process, but anticipates availability of Manuscripts for NAPB annual meetings.
Action Item: Shelby will report any progress at our May 10 meeting, and will provide input at NAPB Annual meetings.
- Plant Breeding Education Opportunities. Pat mentioned Charlie Brummer at Noble Foundation is working on online Plant Breeding Textbook that may become a public resource.
Action item: Pat Byrne has started compiling a list of educational opportunities and resources and plans to provide summary of status as part of update for annual meeting committee report session.
- Plant Breeder Education Supply and Demand Trends
Jamie and Allen submitted a letter of intent to the USDA-AFRI grants program to conduct this study. The letter of intent was not supported for follow-up. A new approach is needed.
Action Item: Will need to revisit this when we have more of a quorum to discuss next steps.
- Grad Student Feedback Survey
Action Item: Shelby Repinski has offered to conduct a survey of grad students at the annual meeting, which will be a follow-up to her web survey. The objective is to determine the value of the annual meeting to grad students, and receive input on how to enhance their involvement in NAPB. She will include a call for volunteers to serve as grad student liaisons for committee work. Plan is to have draft for review at our May 10 meeting.
- IP panel at Annual Meetings. The panel will be held Wednesday, May 25, 8-10:30 am to update NAPB/PBCC members on IP trends impacting plant breeding. We will ask that the Panel be covered by Seed World for a news story, and our subcommittee members will also take notes of important points to be blended into a report. Members are also encouraged to think of questions for the panel. Donn contacted the panelist to help set expectations.
Action Item: Donn to continue to work with Allen and others to provide coordination support in preparing for this event. Committee officers encouraged to attend and capture talking points to highlight following the event. All can be thinking of questions to ask during the event for our expert panel.
Action Item: Allen will bring up for discussion at the next Executive Committee meeting how NAPB might address IP issues, e.g., by establishing an IP committee or working group; by developing an IP position statement. (carry-over item from previous minutes).
New Business:
- Plant Breeding Communications Contact List for Institutions. Shelby suggested that we develop a ‘point person’ contact list to facilitate easier communications on campus or with other breeders at institutions. This could be a Plant Breeding Center director, or other volunteer contact, who could easily facilitate communications internal to organizations to help reach more breeders. She suggested graduate student groups could be reached better through a single local representative approach, perhaps. Some messaging might target undergrads, other graduate students and post-docs, or perhaps plant breeding faculty, but having a common contact person could be useful in any number of ways.
Action Item: Add this to goals discussion during committee meeting business breakout session. Begin to assemble such list.
- Communications goals for next year. Pat raised questions on who is our target for communications and what goals we might have for messaging in the coming year.
There will be need to raise such questions to help with planning. A list of starters might help focus discussion, if this is a topic for our business breakout.
Action Item: Pat to consider how to approach this concept and bring ideas to the group at our May 10 meeting.
- Subcommittee Annual Reports: There is a suggestion that a written brief on subcommittee annual reports be prepared and available as a time saver at Annual meetings.
Action Item: Donn and Allen may want to prepare a draft for our May 10 meetings to enable preview prior to Texas meetings.
Minutes submitted by: Donn Cummings, Chair, Education Subcommittee
NAPB/PBCC Education/Communication Joint Subcommittee Meeting
March 22, 2011 Agenda and Minutes:
Next meetings: April 19, May 10 (2pm CST)
Mission:
Education and Training of Plant Breeders Subcommittee Mission Statement:
Our goal is to develop strategies promoting and enhancing plant breeding education and training opportunities and experiences, fostering future workforce development for public and private global plant breeding, and securing sustained, long-term funds supporting plant breeder development through mentoring. Actions are taken to improve recruitment into plant breeding careers, and to enhance public awareness of issues heavily impacted through plant breeding including, impacts on food security, improved nutrition, healthy landscapes, managing climate change, and sustainable bioenergy.
Communications Subcommittee Mission Statement:
To frame and communicate the messages of the Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee
- 2010-11 Education Subcommittee Officers and Grad Student Liaisons:
- Mitch Tuinstra, Past chair (drmitch@purdue.edu)
- Donn Cummings, Chair (donn.cummings@monsanto.com)
- Jamie Sherman, Vice chair (jsherman@montana.edu)
- Patrick Brown, Secretary (pjb34@illinois.edu) (newly elected)
- John Hart, Grad Student Liaison, (jph248@cornell.edu)
- Xiangye Xian, Grad Student Liaison, (xiao12@purdue.edu)
- 2010-11 Communications Subcommittee Officers and Grad Student Liaison:
- Allen Van Deynze, Chair (2nd term) (avandeynze@ucdavis.edu)
- Pat Byrne, Vice Chair (patrick.byrne@colostate.edu)
- Maria Salas-Fernandez, Secretary (newly elected) (mgsalas@iastate.edu)
- Shelby Repinski, Grad Student Liaison (slrepinski@ucdavis.edu)
- Linda Wessel-Beaver, Past Vice Chair (lindawessel.beaver@upr.edu)
Role call: Jamie Sherman, Allen Van Deynze, Donn Cummings, Pat Byrne
Old Business:
- Nominees for Secretary of NAPB/PBCC Education Subcommittee:
- Shawn Kaeppler, UW Madison
- C. Wayne Smith, TAMU
- David Francis, OSU
- Marla Hall, Limagrain
- Aaron Carter, WSU
Donn verified that 4 of the 5 nominees are willing to be nominees for Secretary of the Communications Subcommittee, if not elected to the Education Subcommittee position. All nominees will be requested to submit a short biographical sketch for posting on the web site prior to the meeting.
Action Item: Allen will follow up with Steve Baenziger to see that bios have been requested.
- White paper – Update? (authors: H. Thomas Stalker and David Knauft)
Nothing new to report.
- Update on Delphi Study on Plant Breeding Curriculum Development (UC Davis)
Two papers are in review for Crop Science, another has been accepted by the J. Nat. Resources and Life Sciences.
Action item: Shelby Repinski will present a poster on the study at the annual meeting.
- Business meeting. Our subcommittee reports will focus on educational opportunities, including the IP Panel on Wednesday of the annual meeting. (See also under New Business).
- Membership fees. The Education/Communications subcommittee strongly supports a fee structure to fund delivery of educational materials and opportunities. This would require a mechanism, potentially hosted by the American Society of Agronomy, to handle accounting functions and host web-based education delivery. A fee structure would also make possible webcasts of annual meetings for those not able to attend. (See also Other New Business below).
- Plant Breeding Education Opportunities.
Action item: Pat Byrne has started compiling a list of opportunities and resources and will circulate a draft to the committee soon.
Post meeting note from Donn: Paul Murphy at NCSU has developed some lectures on Plant Breeding topics that are available online: Access is free at: http://www.plantbreedingcenter.ncsu.edu/lectures/index.html
- Plant Breeder Education Supply and Demand Trends
Jamie and Allen submitted a letter of intent to the USDA-AFRI grants program to conduct this study. Full proposal will be due in June.
- Videography at 2011 Annual Meeting. Allen has been coordinating with Dave Stelly to identify appropriate people and programs for Seed World to interview.
- Grad Student Survey
Action Item: Shelby Repinski has offered to conduct a survey of grad students at the annual meeting, which will be a follow-up to her web survey. The objective is to determine the value of the annual meeting to grad students and receive input on how to enhance their involvement in NAPB.
New Business:
- IP panel at Annual Meetings. The panel will be held Wednesday, May 25, 8-10:30 am to update members on IP trends impacting plant breeding. We will ask that the Panel be covered by Seed World for a news story, and our subcommittee members will also take notes of important points to be blended into a report. Members are also encouraged to think of questions for the panel.
Action Item: Donn will provide guidance to the panel members on the expected scope of their remarks to avoid duplication.
Action Item: Allen will bring up for discussion at the next Executive Committee meeting how NAPB might address IP issues, e.g., by establishing an IP committee or working group; by developing an IP position statement.
- Other New Business
The possibility of making annual meeting sessions available via Internet was discussed and endorsed. This will not be possible at the 2011 meeting, but may be an option at the 2012 meeting at Dow AgroSciences in Indianapolis.
Adjourned
Notes: submitted by Pat Byrne, Vice-Chair, Communications Subcommittee
NAPB/PBCC Education/Communication Joint Subcommittee Meeting
Feb. 22, 2011 Agenda and Minutes:
Next meetings: Mar. 22, April 19, May 10 (2pm CST)
Mission:
Education and Training of Plant Breeders Subcommittee Mission Statement:
Our goal is to develop strategies promoting and enhancing plant breeding education and training opportunities and experiences, fostering future workforce development for public and private global plant breeding, and securing sustained, long-term funds supporting plant breeder development through mentoring. Actions are taken to improve recruitment into plant breeding careers, and to enhance public awareness of issues heavily impacted through plant breeding including, impacts on food security, improved nutrition, healthy landscapes, managing climate change, and sustainable bioenergy.
Communications Subcommittee Mission Statement:
To frame and communicate the messages of the Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee
- 2010-11 Education Subcommittee Officers and Grad Student Liaisons:
- Mitch Tuinstra, Past chair (drmitch@purdue.edu)
- Donn Cummings, Chair (donn.cummings@monsanto.com)
- Jamie Sherman, Vice chair (jsherman@montana.edu)
- Patrick Brown, Secretary (pjb34@illinois.edu) (newly elected)
- John Hart, Grad Student Liaison, (jph248@cornell.edu)
- Xiangye Xian, Grad Student Liaison, (xiao12@purdue.edu)
- 2010-11 Communications Subcommittee Officers and Grad Student Liaison:
- Allen Van Deynze, Chair (2nd term) (avandeynze@ucdavis.edu)
- Pat Byrne, Vice Chair (patrick.byrne@colostate.edu)
- Maria Salas-Fernandez, Secretary (newly elected) (mgsalas@iastate.edu)
- Shelby Repinski, Grad Student Liaison (slrepinski@ucdavis.edu)
- Linda Wessel-Beaver, Past Vice Chair (lindawessel.beaver@upr.edu)
Role call: Jamie Sherman, Pat Byrne, Shelby Repinski, Donn Cummings
Old Business:
- 2011 Slate of Nominees for Secretary of NAPB/PBCC Education Subcommittee by current officers:
“If elected, I am willing to serve” – confirmed by Donn
- Shawn Kaeppler, UW Madison
- C. Wayne Smith, TAMU
- David Francis, OSU
- Marla Hall, Limagrain
- Aaron Carter, WSU
Discussed need to make a plan for rotation of grad student liaisons, which were invited/appointed last year for the first time and are not official elected offices.
Action item: Determine if nominees who are not elected to Education subcommittee are willing to serve as nominee for Secretary of Communications subcommittee. - Donn
- White paper – Update? (authors: H. Thomas Stalker and David Knauft)
Post-meeting update from Tom Stalker: Manuscript is basically done; currently waiting on some responses from universities to fill in some holes; will be ready to go when data is received.
- Update on Delphi Study on Plant Breeding Curriculum Development (UC Davis) – Shelby
One paper accepted in J. Nat. Resources and Life Sciences. Two more being submitted this week to Crop Science. Anticipate having information (maybe some reprints?) for the Annual Meetings.
- Funding of Graduate Student for Annual meetings – New developments?
Jamie discussed funding from TCAP grant.
Action item: Follow up to see that fund flow to meeting account. - Jamie
- Plant Breeding Education Opportunities – Group update
Discussed how to provide a combined source of information for linking to several potential websites.
Action Item: Pat Byrne volunteered to lead this effort and will begin compiling information.
- Plant Breeder Education Supply and Demand Trends
Short discussion on this need and longer term goal. Little new progress or new information.
- Videography project from 2010 Annual meetings – update from Jamie Sherman
Jamie indicated plans to have student(s) work on editing material collected at last year’s meetings.
- Grad Student Survey – Shelby and John update
Shelby has received feedback from about 9 graduate students. Planning to repost survey and summarize feedback for NAPB Exec team. Some interest was expressed for housing sharing to save costs.
Action Item: Shelby to contact Dave Stelly about second posting and to summarize results for meeting planning team. She also plans to communicate further with survey respondents to coordinate further.
- Call is out for Nominations for NAPB Awards – Nominations are currently being accepted and the final deadline is March 1, 2011 (5:00 pm Pacific time).
Early Career Award - recognizing a successful individual active in the plant breeding field.
Life Time Achievement Award - recognizing an individual who has given distinguished long-term service to the plant breeding field in such areas as research, education, outreach and leadership
- eXtension (pronounced E-extension), at http://www.extension.org/plant_breeding_genomics
Discussed this site as potential for posting information, like information on Plant Breeding Education opportunities mentioned in item 5 above.
- SeedQuest
Discussed opportunity to work with representative(s) who may be attending the Annual Meetings.
New Business:
- IP panel at Annual Meetings – Allen and Donn
A panel discussion was added to the Annual Meeting Agenda to educate NAPB and PBCC members on IP trends impacting plant breeding. A panel moderator and panel members have been identified.
Members are encouraged to be thinking of questions for this excellent panel.
Action Item: Donn and Allen to provide further organizational support for this effort and to help coordinate with panelists.
- Planning for Business meeting at Annual Meetings – Donn
- Secretary Election for both Education and Communication subcommittees
- Ed and Comm subcommittee work progress reports (accomplishments)
- Ongoing goals and new goal suggestions – send input to Donn
Other New Business?
None
Adjourned
Notes: submitted by Donn Cummings, Chair, Education Subcommittee
Minutes - NAPB/PBCC Education/Communication Joint Subcommittee meeting.
Jan. 21, 2011
Attendees: Donn Cummings; Jamie Sherman; Xiangye Xiao; Allen Van Deynze; Shelby Repinski
Future Meetings: Feb. 22, Mar. 22, Apr. 19 (2pm CST)
Mission Reminder:
Education and Training of Plant Breeders Subcommittee Mission Statement:
Our goal is to develop strategies promoting and enhancing plant breeding education and training opportunities and experiences, fostering future workforce development for public and private global plant breeding, and securing sustained, long-term funds supporting plant breeder development through mentoring. Actions are taken to improve recruitment into plant breeding careers, and to enhance public awareness of issues heavily impacted through plant breeding including, impacts on food security, improved nutrition, healthy landscapes, managing climate change, and sustainable bioenergy.
Communications Subcommittee Mission Statement:
To frame and communicate the messages of the Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee
Minutes:
(Action items in bold)
Our Dec. 21 meeting was cancelled due to lack of quorum near holidays
- Call was made for nominations for Education Subcommittee Secretary to be elected at the upcoming May meetings. New names will be accepted at Feb. 22 meeting. It was recommended to look back as last year’s list of nominees that might still be eligible candidates:
2010 slate of Nominees who were not elected:
Maria Salas-Fernandez, Assistant Professor, Agronomy, Iowa State University
Arron Carter, Assistant Professor, Washington State University
Janet Lewis, Assistant Professor, Crop and Soil Sciences, Michigan State University
C. Wayne Smith, Professor & Associate Department Head, Soil and Crop Sciences, Texas A&M University
Shawn Kaeppler, Professor of Agronomy, Agronomy, University of Wisconsin – Madison
(Donn to verify willingness to remain on 2011 nomination list, and will accept new names)
- Call is out for Nominations for NAPB Awards – Nominations are currently being accepted and the final deadline is March 1, 2011 (5:00 pm Pacific time).
- Early Career Award - recognizing a successful individual active in the plant breeding field.
- Life Time Achievement Award - recognizing an individual who has given distinguished long-term service to the plant breeding field in such areas as research, education, outreach and leadership.
(Submit nominations if you have any)
- Discussion/Reminder: Publications promoting plant breeding needed with message supporting continuity of breeding programs being critical to capacity to react to emerging threats
- An NAPB Newsletter is being planned; it is important to development of NAPB association. A press list to aid in distribution process is being developed.
(Communications subcommittee will be supporting this initiative)
- NIFA released first RFA’s for AFRI grant proposals
The six priority areas include:
- Plant health and production and plant products;
B) Animal health and production and animal products;
C) Food safety, nutrition, and health;
D) Renewable energy, natural resources, and environment;
E) Agriculture systems and technology; and
F) Agriculture economics and rural communities.
(For more information: http://www.nifa.usda.gov/funding/afri/afri.html)
- Jamie Sherman described aspects of the $25M grant awarded for wheat and barley that will include 30 PhD fellowships, 11 of which a expected to be filled by fall semester. There may be some support in the grant that can support NAPB speakers, and potentially student participation in NAPB/PBCC annual meetings. Jamie is the PI on the grant.
- Discussions about activities in the area of distance learning modules that are being developed at several universities were entertained. ISU is rolling out an MS level online course for this fall. UNL and several other universities are active in this area. It is anticipated that there will be many more options for learning more about plant breeding in the years ahead.
- Shelby Repinski reported on progress in Delphi publications. The first paper describing industry perspectives has been re-submitted addressing reviewers comments to the Journal of Natural Resources and Life Sciences. It should be close to publishing by around the May meeting time. Other papers are in progress, including one comparing public and private sector needs for training plant breeders, one comparing developing and developed country needs in response to the survey, and one that is more of an educational theory paper.
- Allen Van Deynze reported on a National Web Resource now available as an online community housed at eXtension (pronounced E-extension), at http://www.extension.org/plant_breeding_genomics. More than 170 items are now available online at this site. eXtension is an educational partnership of more than 70 land grant universities.
(take a look at this resource)
- Plant Breeder Supply/Demand
- Allen led the team in discussion of a draft proposal to generate funding support for a project to look into plant breeder supply/demand dynamics. More work is needed and anticipated for this to progress.
(Allen Van Deynze to keep the group informed of progress)
- GIPB is working on assessment of plant breeding capacity, particularly in developing nations. Fred Bliss has been invited to speak to NCCPB group at their summer meetings in June updating industry leaders on progress in this area.
- SeedQuest willing to post information on fellowships
- Donn Cummings and Allen Van Deynze have both had conversations with François at SeedQuest. There is an opportunity for development of an Educational portal that would enable posting of Plant Breeding Fellowship availability.
(opportunity here for further brainstorming and development by the team)
- Shelby Repinski and John Hart developed a questionnaire to submit by a linkserve list to survey last year’s graduate student annual meeting attendees for ideas and potentially a room sharing/housing matching initiative for the upcoming May meetings. Shelby asked team members to send comments on draft questionnaire.
(Shelby and John to follow up and summarize results for feedback to NAPB exec team)
- NCCPB Plant Breeding Graduate Student Awards were made in Chicago in December (2010 recipients were Leah Visselmann, UW and Joana Novais, UIL)
- Website enhancement:
Seth added links to Gebisa Ejeta World Food Prize and Ron Phillips Wolf Prize in Ag
(please continue to send ideas for NAPB web enhancement to Seth)
- Donn reminded the team to think about topics/accomplishments for our committee to report at the May annual meetings.
(send ideas to Donn so we can start a list)
Minutes from PBCC Education Subcommittee November 16th, 2010
Participants:
- 2010-11 Education Subcommittee Officers:
- Donn Cummings, Chair (donn.cummings@monsanto.com)
- Jamie Sherman, Vice chair (jsherman@montana.edu)
- Patrick Brown, Secretary (pjb34@illinois.edu) (newly elected)
- John Hart, Grad Student Liaison, (jph248@cornell.edu)
- Xiangye Xiao, Grad Student Liaison, (xiao12@purdue.edu)
- Mitch Tuinstra, Past chair (drmitch@purdue.edu)
- 2010-11 Communications Subcommittee Officers:
- Maria Salas-Fernandez, Secretary (mgsalas@iastate.edu)
- Shelby Repinski, Grad Student Liaison (slrepinski@ucdavis.edu)
- 2010-11 Officers:
- Seth Murray, Web editor (sethmurray@tamu.edu)
Minutes:
(Action items in bold)
• General discussion on NAPB vs PBCC: how to maintain “Separate but harmonious” roles.
• Old business: Publishing white paper in Journal of Plant Registration. It was agreed that it would be highly desirable to have reprints to distribute by May 2011 meetings in Texas (or at least submitted and in review, as a fallback goal). Mitch has talked to Tom Stalker and will maintain regular contact and progress reports.
• Plant breeder education supply and demand trends: GIPB-FAO is looking into plant breeding capacity on a global scale, particularly developing countries—there should be connectivity. Donn had previously suggested that we pursue a USDA planning grant to move this along, and Jamie agreed to pursue. Other funding sources also need to be considered since USDA would probably only be able to provide - seed money.
• USDA/Purdue site currently has profile of “Plant geneticist/plant breeder” as a “Priority occupation” in a list of employment opportunities for college graduates. However there is only a clickable link for Plant Geneticist. Should we attempt to create an additional link for Plant Breeder? John suggested a direct link from plantbreeding.org to a “What is a plant breeder” page, with links to various related disciplines. John and Shelby will work on this.
Link:
(http://www.ag.purdue.edu/usda/employment/pages/default.aspx)
• Ideas for next year’s meeting: a grad student social or round-table at the beginning of the meeting? A resource to facilitate room-sharing by graduate students?
• Plant breeding job opportunities: Francois at SeedQuest is happy to accommodate us. SeedQuest has a self-filling careers website, we just need to link to it. Seth will talk to Allen.
• Todd Wehner has ideas for creating book/laboratory modules for teaching plant breeding—invite him to participate on future call. Donn to invite Todd to update the group on his concept.
• Seth reminded us that materials cannot be made available on website before they are published in a journal Mitch and Donn to keep Seth looped on publication progress in for timely management.
General news to be posted on website:
• 47th annual Corn Breeders’ School at UIUC March7th-8th 2011 (already posted on website and on Facebook)
• Iowa State is launching an on-line, non-thesis Masters in plant breeding.
• 3rd Borlaug book is out
• www.hungerfighters.org has a Borlaug blurb
• ASTA meetings in Chicago in December: 2 student awards.
• updated minutes from previous meetings.
• Next meeting: Dec 21st
• Following meetings: Jan 18th Feb 22nd Mar 22nd
Minutes from PBCC Education Subcommittee October 12th, 2010
Participants:
- 2010-11 Education Subcommittee Officers:
- Donn Cummings, Chair (donn.cummings@monsanto.com)
- Patrick Brown, Secretary (pjb34@illinois.edu) (newly elected)
- John Hart, Grad Student Liaison, (jph248@cornell.edu)
- 2010-11 Communications Subcommittee Officers:
- Allen Van Deynze, Chair (2nd term) (avandeynze@ucdavis.edu)
- Shelby Repinski, Grad Student Liaison (slrepinski@ucdavis.edu)
- Maria Salas-Fernandez, Secretary (mgsalas@iastate.edu)
Minutes:
(Action items in bold)
• Need to publish white paper, possibly in J. of Plant Registration. Last week, Mitch agreed to follow up with Kim Campbell. Donn will get in touch with Mitch.
• Plant breeder education supply and demand trends: Donn suggested that we pursue a USDA planning grant to move this along. Last week, Jamie agreed to pursue.
• Last year a survey on distance education in plant breeding was conducted by Iowa State researchers. Maria will contact them to get results.
• Donn incorporated the Communications and Education subcommittees’ mission statements and sent to Rita. Next it will be sent to Seth Murray for posting on-line.
• Seth Murray will participate in future meetings of the Education and Communications subcommittees.
• UC Davis Delphi study on plant breeding curriculum development: Shelby reported that the 1st paper is published in the Journal of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Education: it focuses on preparing students for private- sector breeding.
• Funding graduate students for annual meetings. John Hart indicated that the Cornell plant breeding grad student association is planning fund-raising activities in order to attend next year’s meeting. It was suggested that other schools might do the same.
• Ideas for next year’s meeting: Concurrent sessions? Grad student presentations concurrently with Business session? Discount for registering early?
• Plant breeding job opportunities: should SeedQuest host or mirror? Should NAPB site postings link directly to SeedQuest? Allen will talk to Francois at SeedQuest.
• Change NAPB web site to a format where users can post? Facebook? Wiki?
• Reminder: at next meeting, set up dates for following ~3 meetings.
• Next meeting: Tuesday, November 16th, 3-4PM EST
2010 Subcommittee - Education and Training of Plant Breeders
Minutes at NAPB/PBCC 4th Annual Meeting – Aug. 15-17, 2010, Johnston, Iowa
Joint Session of the Subcommittee on Education and Training of Plant Breeders and the Communications Subcommittee
This report was prepared by: Donn Cummings, Mitch Tuinstra, and Jamie Sherman
- 2010-11 Education Subcommittee Officers:
- Mitch Tuinstra, Past chair (drmitch@purdue.edu)
- Donn Cummings, Chair (donn.cummings@monsanto.com)
- Jamie Sherman, Vice chair (jsherman@montana.edu)
- Patrick Brown, Secretary (pjb34@illinois.edu) (newly elected)
- John Hart, Grad Student Liaison, (jph248@cornell.edu)
- Xiangye Xian, Grad Student Liaison, (xiao12@purdue.edu)
-
2010-11 Communications Subcommittee Officers:
- Allen Van Deynze, Chair (2nd term) (avandeynze@ucdavis.edu)
- Pat Byrne, Vice Chair (patrick.byrne@colostate.edu)
- Maria Salas-Fernandez, Secretary (mgsalas@iastate.edu) (newly elected)
- Shelby Repinski, Grad Student Liaison (slrepinski@ucdavis.edu)
- Past Vice Chair: Linda Wessel-Beaver (lindawessel.beaver@upr.edu)
- White paper and One-pager:
- White paper is completed (authors: H. Thomas Stalker and David Knauft)
- 1-pager is completed (authors: M.R. Tuinstra, D.P. Cummings, and R.H. Mumm)
- Action items:
- Need to publish white paper in 2010-2011
- Suggested corresponding with Kim Campbell about publication in the Journal of Plant Registration as a perspective paper. Tom Stalker revising original draft.
- Old Business
- Reorganization of Subcommittee:
- A slate of Nominees was presented for 2010 secretary by the current officers:
- Maria Salas-Fernandez, Assistant Professor, Department of Agronomy, Iowa State University
- Arron Carter, Assistant Professor, Washington State University
- Janet Lewis, Assistant Professor, Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Michigan State University
- Patrick Brown, Assistant Professor, Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
- C. Wayne Smith, Professor & Associate Department Head, Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Texas A&M University
- Shawn Kaeppler, Professor of Agronomy, Department of Agronomy, University of Wisconsin – Madison
- Patrick Brown, University of Illinois was elected
- 2 Graduate Students representatives were added to the Education Subcommittee as liaisons for 2010-11:
John Hart, Cornell; Xiangye Xian, Purdue
- 1 Graduate Student representative was added to the Communications Subcommittee as liaisons for 2010-11: Shelby Repinski, UC Davis
- It was decided to include members of the Communications Committee in future Education Subcommittee working meetings, since these two committees share important goals and activities
- New Business
- Mission Statements for both the Education Committee and the Communications Committee were reviewed and accepted:
Education and Training of Plant Breeders Subcommittee Mission Statement:
Our goal is to develop strategies promoting and enhancing plant breeding education and training opportunities and experiences, fostering future workforce development for public and private global plant breeding, and securing sustained, long-term funds supporting plant breeder development through mentoring. Actions are taken to improve recruitment into plant breeding careers, and to enhance public awareness of issues heavily impacted through plant breeding including, impacts on food security, improved nutrition, healthy landscapes, managing climate change, and sustainable bioenergy.
Communications Subcommittee Mission Statement:
To frame and communicate the messages of the Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee
- Update on Delphi Study on Plant Breeding Curriculum Development (UC Davis)
- Shelby Repinski described the Delphi Study at UC Davis and pending publications in progress. She provided a poster and flyers for interested parties
- The Delphi study is an iterative consensus building survey process involving a diverse population of expert participants.
- Goals for the study included:
- Updating and improving curriculum of plant breeding education
- Help to better prepare graduate students for careers
- Develop new and interactive programs
- Funding of Graduate Student for Annual meetings
- Donn Cummings lead discussion of need for ways to handle funds to enable more and better support for graduate students to participate in NAPB/PBCC annual meetings
- Action item: participate in ongoing development of this goal and interim solutions for next annual meetings
- Plant Breeding Education Opportunities
- Discussion was held regarding ways to enable connecting students with Plant Breeding Fellowships and funding support in a more user friendly manner. It was suggested that opportunity may exist to partner with an organization like SeedQuest which already provides a popular Career Website
- Action Item: Communications committee to pursue connecting to with SeedQuest to explore options
- Plant Breeder Education Supply and Demand Trends
- The group discussed the value of facilitating a study in supply/demand for plant breeders. While challenging to deliver, there seemed to be consensus that such a goal has considerable merit to a number of potential user groups. Jamie Sherman indicated interest in pursuing this further.
- Action Item: Education Subcommittee may consider developing more manageable goals around this topic for the coming year
- GIPB global plant breeding directory has been developed
(http://km.fao.org/gipb/). If you are not already registered on GIPB, you will need to create a username and password.
- Click on the "PBDirectory" link on the right hand side of the top menu (note: "PBDirectory" will not appear until you are logged in)
- Click on the "Profile" tab to access your profile page
- Click on "edit your profile" to customize your profile
- Fill out all the requested information. Please provide feedback to clair.hershey@fao.org. Your input will be greatly appreciated for creating the final version of the directory
- Videography project attempted
- An attempt was made to capture video clips of participants discussing various aspects of plant breeding for future use by the Communications Subcommittee.
2009 Subcommittee - Education and Training of Plant Breeders
This is the report from the subcommittee on a Education and Training of Plant Breeders. It met as part of the Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee in Madison, Wisconsin on Aug 3-5, 2009.
This report was prepared by: Donn Cummings, Rita Mumm and Mitch Tuinstra
- Officers:
- Rita Mumm, Past chair (ritamumm@uiuc.edu) – also secretary of PBCC for 2010
- Mitch Tuinstra, Chair (drmitch@purdue.edu)
- Donn Cummings, Vice chair (donn.cummings@monsanto.com)
- Jamie Sherman, Secretary (jsherman@montana.edu)
- White paper and One-pager:
- White paper is completed (authors: H. Thomas Stalker and David Knauft)
- 1-pager is completed (authors: M.R. Tuinstra, D.P. Cummings, and R.H. Mumm)
- Action items:
- Need to publish white paper
- Session 1 – Old Business
- Reorganization of Subcommittee:
- The Education Subcommittee decided to continue without restructuring, keeping and advancing current leadership as previously planned
- Fred Bliss moved and Neil Anderson seconded the nomination of Jamie Sherman for 2010 secretary
- Jamie Sherman was elected
- Survey Results:
- Rita Mumm presented results from a survey conducted in 2008 by the Education Subcommittee
- Discussion led to conclusion that the 56% response rate was good, but significant institutions were not represented, and survey was deemed not complete enough to be published
- Action items: Need further action on survey validity and follow-up in 2010 was encouraged
- Response from key universities that didn’t submit a completed survey e.g. University of California, Cornell, NDSU, SDSU
- Consider 2nd phase follow-up with all responders to learn more on categories of students e.g. molecular, computational, quantitative, seed science/foundation
- Alan Van Deynze, UC Davis, indicated need for improved communications. Out of the discussion came the idea that a communications, liaison, and outreach committee might be warranted. (Alan was eventually elected chair of this newly formed committee in the joint session)
- Session 2 – New Business
- Update on Delphi Study on Plant Breeding Curriculum Development (UC Davis)
- Fred Bliss described a proposed Delphi Study at UC Davis for which additional funding support is currently being welcomed (contact Fred, if interested in donating)
- The Delphi study is an iterative consensus building survey process involving a diverse population of expert participants (at least 60 per group) from:
- Developed Countries – Public Sector
- Developed Countries – Private Sector
- Developing Countries – Public and Private
- Recently graduated, early career plant breeders
- Additional volunteers to participate in the Delphi study are being solicited for consideration
- Goals for the study include:
- Updating and improving curriculum of plant breeding education
- Help to better prepare graduate students for careers
- Develop new and interactive programs
- Networking among graduate students
- Group discussion ensued on how we might foster increased networking among plant breeding graduate students using social networking tools like Facebook and Ning. This will likely fall to the new communications committee to pursue, but the education committee may add inputs.
- Session 3 – Looking Ahead
- “Ask” lists
- Each subcommittee to assemble a needs list; also indicate what will be delivered/accomplished by satisfying the stated needs. In particular, state how delivery will affect the following areas that Audrey Troutman highlighted as key to the National Institute of Food and Agriculture
- US competitiveness
- Science and technology
- Entrepreneurship
- Health and well-being
- Needs of the private sector
- Quality of life in rural America
- Filling professional gaps
- Graduate student value in PBCC meetings
- Graduate student attendance and participation in PBCC is highly valued and encouraged
- Suggestions were solicited on how to add value to the meetings for attending graduate students
- Something to connect job seekers to employers
- Mentorship pairing of students with scientists at meetings
- Continue to encourage scientific posters
- Graduate student input needed here
- Participating attendees in this workgroup:
- Rita Mumm (ritamumm@illinois.edu)
- Mitch Tuinstra (drmitch@purdue.edu)
- Donn Cummings (donn.cummings@monsanto.com)
- Jamie Sherman (jsherman@montana.edu)
- Seth Murray (sethmurray@tamu.edu)
- Ben Hable (ben.hable@syngenta.com)
- Robert Gelin (robert.gelin@syngenta.com)
- Audrey Trotman (audrey.trotman@usda.gov)
- Piya Kittipadakul (kittipadakul@yahoo.com PhD student
- Anyamanee Auvuchanon (anya_auvu@yahoo.com PhD student
- Somrudee Onto (nu_mam@yahoo.com) PhD student
- Nick Crowley (ncrowley@huskers.unl.edu) PhD student
- Marcelo Carena (macelo.carena@ndsu.edu)
- Selby Repinski (slrepinski@ucdavis.edu) PhD student
- Fang Du (duxxx107@umn.edu) PhD student
- Neil Anderson (ander044@umn.edu)
- Dan Parfitt (deparfitt@ucdavis.edu)
- Suzanne Mickelson (suzanne.mickelson@pioneer.com)
- Ryan Brace (rcbrace@iastate.edu) MS student
- Sarah Potts (smanthey@illinois.edu) MS student
- Sydney Jarrett (sgjarret@ncsu.edu) MS student
- Charles Stuber (cstuber@ncsu.edu)
- Istvan Rajcan (irajcan@uoguelph.ca)
2008 Subcommittee - Education and Training of Plant Breeders
(return to PBCC main page)
This is the report from the subcommittee on a Education and Training of Plant Breeders. It met as part of the Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee in Des Moines, Iowa on June 16-18, 2008.
This report was prepared by: Todd Wehner and H. Thomas Stalker
- Officers
- Thomas Stalker, Past chair (Tom_stalker@ncsu.edu)
- David Knauft, Chair (dknauft@uga.edu) - had to step down early
- Rita Mumm, Vice chair (ritamumm@uiuc.edu) - became chair
- Mitch Tuinstra, Secretary (drmitch@purdue.edu) - became vice chair
- Position of secretary currently open
- White paper
- White paper is completed and comments should be sent to H. T. Stalker by July 15
- A 1-pager is in progress
- A plant breeding educational survey is being circulated to universities to obtain data for 1-pager
- Action items:
- Need data concerning company needs for plant breeders
- Need list of USDA plant breeders
- Subcommittee objectives:
- To assess the needs for plant breeding education and develop a plan that will assure a future workforce in public and private segments of the industry
- To develop strategies for attracting students into plant breeding
- To lead efforts for image building and outreach programs about plant breeding
- To assess the needs and develop a plan to obtain plant breeding educational materials such as videos, slides, textbooks, and information sheets
- Secure long-term funding at a national level for programs to assure continued education of plant breeding students
- Proper curriculum: courses and universities
- Outline of ideal curriculum (Fred Bliss, 2005); basic list: genetics, statistics, pathology, breeding, advanced breeding, breeding lab, resistance, molecular, quantitative, evolution
- Various textbooks are being used ( Aquaah, Fehr, Simmonds, Allard, Briggs and Knowles), each with ‘good’ chapters, but non serve the needs for an entire semester course
- Universities with few plant breeding faculty cannot cover all areas of discipline in the classroom
- Action items:
- Determine the need for plant breeding textbooks for undergraduate and graduate education
- Determine the need for distance education courses in plant breeding; identify courses needed most often; explore options to develop distance education courses
- University funding and programmatic support
- State funding has dropped since the 1980s
- Grant and other external money (gifts, memos) is a major source of funding for most plant breeding programs vs. support through experiment stations
- Plant breeding faculty hiring and support
- New NIFA funding may include plant breeding
- NIH, NSF, NRI: mostly basic biology research funding, but potential exists to acquire funding for curriculum building
- Department of Education is non-traditional source of funding for plant breeding education
- Endowment funding: fellowships ($1,000,000 gives $40,000/yr)
- Action item:
- Explore feasibility of establishing a national endowment for plant breeding education (possible board of directors from Monsanto, Syngenta, Pioneer, etc)
- 2009 workshop (Madison WI):
- Develop a plan: visit Washington DC
- Action item:
- Develop a program to present to commodity group leaders at next years meeting emphasizing needs for plant breeders, educated graduates, and funding for programmatic research support and education. to next year
- Outreach:
- Plant breeding outreach is poorly done in the U.S., with few videos and other information about the discipline
- Action item:
- Develop a Plant breeding website (independent of SCC080 and NCSU)
- Consider hiring of web editor as half-time position
- Gather animations, videos, PowerPoints from industry, universities
- Hire graphic artists, sociologists, marketing experts
- Shawn Kaeppler Univ. of Washington has a grant for plant breeding videos (YouTube); Univ. of Florida has initiated agricultural outreach programs
- Mentoring/Internships:
- Summer internships with universities, seed companies serves as a mechanism to attract students into plant breeding
- Reach K-12 students ( e.g., YouTube, MySpace- WheatCAP:grant funding for outreach, PowerPoint, animations)
- Undergraduate plant breeding courses or labs (sophomore, junior, senior level) are needed at universities
- Plant breeding needs to be presented as an alternative to business, law, medicine
- Participating attendees in this workgroup:
- Anyamanee Auvuchanon (anya_auvu@yahoo.com) graduate student
- Ali Bakhsh (bkali_33@hotmail.com) graduate student
- William Bevis (wdbeavis@agron.iastate.edu)
- Everton Brenner (evertonb@hotmail.com) graduate student
- Christian Buffard (cjuffa@monsanto.com)
- Arron Carter (ahcarter@wsu.edu) graduate student
- Chris Cramer (cscramer@nmsu.edu)
- Ted Crosbie (dapierc@monsanto.com)
- Nicholas Crowley (ncrowley@bigred.unl.edu) graduate student
- Jose Cubero (ge1cusaj@uco.es)
- Donn Cummings (donn.cummings@monsanto.com
- David Douches (douchesd@msu.edu)
- Candice Gardner (Candice.gardner@ars.usda.gov
- Geoff Graham (Geoff.graham@pioneer.com
- Humberto Gutierrez (humberto.gutierrez@mansanto.com
- Steve Hague (shague@tamu.edu)
- Candice Hansey (cnhansey@wisc.edu) graduate student
- Jim Hawk (jhawk@udel.edu)
- Don Jones (djones@cottoninc.com)
- Don LaBonte (dlibonte@agctr.lsu.edu)
- Gustavo Lobos (globosp@utalca.cl )
- Kevin Matson (Kevin.w.matson@monsanto.com
- Steve McKeand (Steve_McKeand@ncsu.edu
- Rita Mumm (ritamumm@uiuc.edu)
- Herbert Ohm (hohm@purdue.edu)
- Somrudee Onto (nu_mam@yahoo.com) graduate student
- Jim Orf (orfxx001@umn.edu)
- Cintia Orsi (cho6@cornell.edu) graduate student
- Kari Perez (kwp6@cornell.edu) graduate student
- Jesse Poland (jap226@cornell.edu) graduate student
- Jeff Poch (jposch@dow.com)
- Istvan Rajcan (irajcan@uoguelph.ca)
- Eric Riedeman (riedeman@wisc.edu) graduate student
- Maria Salas (mgs34@cornell.edu) graduate student
- Dipak Santra (dipak@wsu.edu)
- Hui Song (hsong5@wisc.edu) graduate student
- Tom Stalker (tom_stalker@ncsu.edu)
- Charles Stuber (cstuber@aol.com)
- Christian Thill (Thill005@umn.edu)
- William Tracy (wftracy@wisc.edu)
- Mitchell Tuinstra (drmitch@purdue.edu)
- Todd Wehner (todd_werner@ncsu.edu)
- Roger Weyhrich (rawehy@monsanto.com)
- Adnan Younis (youni004@umn.edu)
2007 Subcommittee - Education and Training of Plant Breeders
(return to PBCC main page)
- Subcommittee membership
- Thomas Stalker, chair
- David Knauft, secretary
- Donn Cummings
- Fikret Isik
- Calvin Qualset
- Introduction
- Subcommittee of the Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee
- Objective
- Develop materials for use in educating plant breeders
- Materials
- Posters from meeting, February 2007
- Resources for use in plant breeding talks