Vicky's blog
Progress hiring women and minority faculty
UNL has many things to be proud of and this new data out exemplifies the many great things going on here.
From The Progress Report on Increasing Women and Minority Faculty:
This progress is highlighted by the items below:
- The proportion of female faculty for 2007 exceeded the proportion at peer
institutions.
- The University has averaged a 0.67 percentage point increase through 2007,
exceeding the annual goal for female faculty (an increase of 0.5 percentage
points).
- 39.9% of new faculty appointments in 2007 were females, which represents a rate
greater than the current proportion of female faculty, currently at 33.1%.
Toot toot
School has started. The new PSP students have registered and begun their life has graduate students.
We also have some great news about UNL! The US News and Report rankings are out and are ranking is up! UNL is now placed
"40th out of 164 public universities in the "Top 50" list for public national universities. This places UNL among the top one-fourth of all public universities."
Great news for UNL and all of its students.
Welcome
The Plant Sciences Program would like to welcome Dr. Jeffrey Mower to UNL. He will be part of the Plant Systems Biology program. Definitely check out his PSI page.
Lots of news
I am back from vacation, and there is so much great news to report. UNL just released news about funding!
"External funding for research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln set a record again this year
of nearly $106 million, according to the UNL Office of Research."
This issue is so very important when it comes to graduate student recruitment. If departments and faculty don't have funding, it is much more difficult to have graduate students in their labs. So hearing this funding news is good news indeed.
Vacation
I will be on vacation for the next two weeks. If you need any assistance regarding application, please contact Marlene Busse at mbusse@unlnotes.unl.edu or Susan Kuczmarski at skuczmarski2@unlnotes.unl.edu.
PSP summer students should contact the Graduate School, Britta Osborne at bosborne@unlnotes.unl.edu.
See you in August!
Vicky
News
I'm putting together a list of specific research our Plant Sciences faculty do in regards to biofuels, the food crisis and the impact of global warming. I will be posting it in the next few days.
Yesterday I gave my annual seminar to the summer students about how to get into grad school and what undergrad students need to know to achieve that goal. School websites are designed to give students information about their own programs but often don't give students broad information, the details that make a difference to the student. I offer information to the students about what to look for when making these huge life decisions. Comparing apples and oranges it sometimes is, with offers from different schools, so I offered them some suggestions about funding, and opportunities for such. What they can do to make their personal statement stand out, while still reflecting who they are (which I think is most important). What are the warning signs of a department you might not want to work in, and do not have the student's best interest in mind. Info like that. They seemed to like the info I provided. Information is always of the good.
Have a great day!
Vicky Harris
6/24
Relevance
I just updated our home page with a link to the recent FOA conference on climate change, energy and food.
The research we are doing here in the Center for Plant Science Innovation and the Plant Sciences Program, address several of those issues. With the coming changes in world agriculture, this research couldn't be more relevant. Significant research advances in the Plant Sciences will be necessary to achieve sustainable agricultural systems and a steady supply of renewable resources for, among others, the health and energy industries. Our future depends on students willing to take on these challenges.
We are off
Our Plant Sciences and Bioinformatics Summer Research Program faculty seminar series began today with Dr. Heriberto Cerutti. This is a almost weekly seminar series for undergrads participating in the program. We hope to show them all the broad sorts of science going on just within the Center for Plant Science Innovation. Even though they work with just one faculty member, this allows them to check out all sorts of labs.
6/11
And we're off
Good afternoon! And it is too. The Summer Research Program has officially started, and the students have arrived. They had two orientations today: first with Graduate Studies and we just finished the Plant Sciences and Bioinformatics Program Orientation.
Great bunch of students we are lucky enough to have. They will have a lab safety training tomorrow morning, and then they are off to their labs to begin discussions about their projects.
This is all very exciting, and I am happy to be a part.
6/2
