OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY



College of Science

Academic Report for 2005-2006

Executive Summary

1. 2005-2006 Highlights

a. Programmatic achievements

▪ Initiatives in support of student engagement and success

▪ Howard Hughes Medical Institute Grant to support Undergraduate Instruction and Research was renewed through the leadership of Dan Arp in Botany and Plant Pathology and the efforts of numerous faculty members in this and other Colleges.

▪ Course offerings in e-campus have expanded significantly which has helped us to provide access and expand the reach of our programs

▪ First four year BS degrees in Computational Physics. Two degree recipients were accepted to Princeton.

▪ New GIS certificate programs launched last year now have a combined approximately 100 students

▪ Major research/scholarship initiatives

▪ Funding of an NSF Science and Technology Center with OHSU (lead PI) and UW; Bruce Menge of Zoology one of the principal PIs

▪ The College, in partnership with ONAMI and the Research Office brought Mas Subramanian to the Department of Chemistry to reinvigorate the Center for Advanced Materials Research)

▪ Botany and Plant Pathology topped all University departments in new grant and contract awards at $8.96M. $5.8 of that was through the College of Agricultural Sciences, $3.1M through the College of Science.

▪ Major outreach/engagement initiatives

▪ The College has been a partner with Oregon Sea Grant in developing a program in Free Choice Learning.

▪ The College continues to coordinate and sponsor Discovery Days, a hands-on learning opportunity for K-12 students that includes participation from a number of OSU departments and community organizations

▪ The Catalyst, a new student publication for Undergraduate Research in Biological Sciences at OSU established

▪ National/International impact of programs and initiatives

▪ Ed Brook’s ice core work featured in national and international media

▪ Jane Lubchenco featured editorial in the International Herald Tribune.

▪ Oregon State University scientists have announced a major discovery in basic plant biology that was featured in numerous international and national news outlets.

b. Faculty recognition and awards

• Jane Lubchenco, received the Public Understanding of Science and Technology Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

• Balz Frei was named a recipient of the Discovery Award by the Medical Research Foundation of Oregon.

• Dawn Wright received the Oregon Assembly for Black Affairs (OABA) Education Award.

• Joe Beckman, Bruce Menge, and Jane Lubchenco were noted by ISI Web of Knowledge as among the nations most “Highly Cited” scientists.

c. Student recognition and awards

▪ Over 70% of our students were admitted to medical schools including Harvard, OHSU, Mayo Clinic, Stanford, Yale, Columbia, Johns Hopkins

▪ Goldwater Scholarships to Eddie O’Donnell, Tari Tan and Anahita Fallahi in Biochemistry and Biophysics

▪ Anvi Bonn (Biochemistry) selected as a Gates Millenium Scholar

▪ Chana Dudoit (Zoology undergraduate) received the Young Crusader's award from the Oregon Invasive Species Council for her work on surveying and reporting the spread of Japanese Eelgrass  in Oregon's Estuaries.

2. Strategic Plan Implementation

a. Focus for 2005-2006: Enhancing student success, increasing research and outreach, and enhancing diversity and community

▪ For each focus area, list the initiatives undertaken and the outcome at the end of the year (include international dimensions within diversity)

Significant effort was spent on financial assessment of the College and implementation of budget restructuring that affects all activities in the College. We initiated discussion of a consolidation of life science units and the creation of a School of Earth Sciences, both of which have major implications for our educational programs and our research directions. We instituted a working group on Community and Diversity but have not been able to complete a College assessment. We completed three major recruitments, including Mas Subramanian in Chemistry to the Harris Chair, Shan de Silva through the Provost’s Faculty Diversity Initiative, and John Faulk and Lynn Dierking in Free Choice Learning in Science and Mathematics Education, in collaboration with Sea Grant.

▪ Provide a brief self-assessment of the unit efforts in the three areas: what worked; areas that need improvement; major barriers

The major barriers to making progress are similar in all three areas: time and resources. We discovered, again this year, that the immediate issue of coping with budget reductions while continuing to manage course access and faculty hiring overwhelmed many of the longer-term initiatives we had hoped to make progress on. Coordination of initiatives and strategy across University units is proving to be a major challenge.

b. Summarize major unit activities during 2005-2006 that helped promote one or more of the thematic areas

Support of hiring in initiatives in all of the five thematic areas. Participation in funding of a Science and Technology Center for coastal ocean observing. Recruitment of Mas Subramanian in materials sciences and Shan de Silva to develop an Earth Hazards Institute.

c. Summarize major accomplishments for 2005-2006 in support of the OSU Capital Campaign

Hiring of a new Development Director for the College. Highest fundraising total in College history. Support for scholarships, facilities, and faculty development, as well as Dean’s unrestricted accounts Planning for Science Complex and initial conversations with potential lead donors

3. Other initiatives and their outcomes [e.g., Faculty/Staff Professional Development Activities]

The College continues to consolidate business services for most of our units into a single, integrated financial office. Most departments except those joint with Agriculture will be assimilated into this system this year.

4. Scorecard

a. Performance on college-level metrics

The College reached a new high in private giving this year, with over $4.5M in gifts and pledges. Grant and contract expenditures continue to increase and we are making progress on some of the other metrics. The most disappointing area is the student to faculty ratio. The financial projections suggest that this ration will increase in the next two to three years, rather than decreasing, because we will be unable to replace the same number of faculty that are retiring. Progress on metrics 2-1 through 2.5 are directly dependent on the number and quality of our faculty. Our number is nearly double the ratio at many of our peers, and is the single most challenging metric we face.

a. Leveraging resources

▪ Initiatives to leverage state resources

We continue to seek avenues to develop funding independent of the state, since our programs and strategies are not in general appropriate for direct lobbing of the Legislature.

▪ Initiatives to improve administrative efficiencies

We are continuing the consolidation of business services across departments in the College.

5. Assessment of your 2005-2006 Priorities

Reviewing this list is somewhat discouraging, in that we did not make progress on very many of the original priorities. As noted above, much of our time and energy was spent on considering financial planning for the future of the College, implementing an initial rebudgeting, and laying the groundwork for some major organizational changes in the College which are required if we are to remain fiscally sustainable. The College leadership needs to set a much more modest set of goals and focus on completing those in the coming year.

6. Proposed Goals for 2005-2006, particularly in the areas of

• Complete the budget redistribution process started in FY06.

• Complete the planning for reorganization of life sciences after discussion with the College of Agricultural Sciences for implementation in FY08.

• Complete at least four faculty hires in the coming year; this may prove extremely challenging given the lack of resources for setup commitments.

• Complete the initial phases of the General Science degree restructuring (this is related to the Life Sciences programs).

• Continue with COAS discussions about the Earth Systems Institute.

• Complete a diversity and community assessment for the College.

• Initiate a long-term planning exercise for facilities development. The Science Complex will address only a part of the issues for the Department of Chemistry and the issues are becoming increasingly damaging to the research programs in Gilbert, Cordley, and Weniger.

College of Science

Academic Report for 2004-2005

1. 2005-2006 Highlights

a. Programmatic achievements

o Initiatives in support of student engagement and success

The College has a wide array of student programs at every level. I have limited the examples here to a representative sampling of progress in the College:

Continued work on the development of learning outcomes and assessment tools in all of our academic programs. Progress has not been as rapid on this as we wished.

Ongoing review and revision of Professional Teacher Licensure Program in science and mathematics education incorporating the skills and knowledge of new faculty and responding to evaluation feedback bringing a new level of coherence and rigor to the program.

Increased collaborative efforts with College of Education’s Double Degree.

Shawn Rowe, Rebekah Elliott, and Nam Hwa Kang in Science and Mathematics Education were awarded Center for Teaching and Learning grants.

Rebekah Elliott was awarded a Stewart Foundation grant to develop video, case-based learning

opportunities in collaboration with the Math department and the College of Education

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute Grant to support Undergraduate Instruction and Research was renewed through the leadership of Dan Arp in Botany and Plant Pathology and the efforts of numerous faculty members in this and other Colleges.

The new GIS certificate programs launched last year now have a combined approximately 100 students.  Limited by access to the upper division GIS and remote sensing classes. 

Our course offerings in e-campus have expanded significantly which has helped us to provide access and expand the reach of our programs. In Geosciences our e-campus enrollments have increased by 50% to 1800 SCH and projected to increase by another 50% next year

Strongly positive review of both the undergraduate and graduate programs in Microbiology program review held spring 2005.

Dr. Mary Burke has used “Quizdom,” the instant electronic response system in MB303 General Microbiology to assess success in understanding on a real-time basis. This is another area where we are trying to improve student learning in large service courses.

Publication of "A First Course in Scientific Computing" by Princeton Univ Press (Landau)

Winner of 2005 Choice Award by American Library Assoc

First four year BS degrees in Computational Physics. Two degree recipients were accepted to Princeton.

Second year of Hewlett foundation project, in which Pat Canan and Henri Jansen teamed up to improve teaching of the introductory physics with calculus course (geared towards engineers)

Initial discussions with OHSU about developing a first-year medical student program on the Corvallis campus

Background work with LBCC and Chemeketa CC on the development of a BS degree-completion pathway to complement their nursing programs

• Major research/scholarship initiatives

The College has a diverse and successful portfolio of research and scholarship endeavors. I note here some of the major accomplishments of the faculty, including efforts focused on graduate recruitment and education, which are essential parts of our research work:

o Faculty members in the College were active participants in most of the funded Provost’s Initiatives, including:

▪ Ecosystem Informatics (Mathematics, a new hire)

▪ Rural Communities (Geosciences, new hire on board)

▪ Computational Biology (Microbiology, Zoology, Botany, Biochemistry, each with new hires in this area)

▪ Subsurface Biosphere (Botany, Microbiology)

▪ Water and watersheds (Geosciences, Microbiology; Michael Campagna’s tenure home will be in Geosciences)

The College is providing major financial backing in the faculty positions in all of these areas.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute Grant has been renewed at 1.5M for 4 yrs. Dan Arp, Distinguished Professor of Botany and Plant Pathology is serving as PI.

Funding of an NSF Science and Technology Center with OHSU (lead PI) and UW; Bruce Menge of Zoology one of the principal PIs

The College, in partnership with ONAMI and the Research Office brought Mas Subramanian to the Department of Chemistry to reinvigorate the Center for Advanced Materials Research and to expand our program in materials science.

Botany and Plant Pathology topped all University departments in new grant and contract awards at $8.96M. $5.8 of that was through the College of Agricultural Sciences, $3.1M through the College of Science.

Rebekah Elliott (Science and Math Education) in Partnership with WestED received funding for Researching Mathematics Leader Learning through NSF-TPC program, $2,017,115.

Maggie Niess in Science and Math Education developed collaborative proposals with Dray (Math) on Preparing Middle School Teachers to Teach Mathematics

Larry Flick, Co-PI, NSF project Framing Student Success, interviewed graduating seniors, collected survey and transcript data on course selection and persistence in STEM courses. Investigating the impact of a program of instructional support and career information on student achievement and planning for post-high school education.

Nam Hwa Kang ( Science and Math Education) collaborated with Engineering in a proposal to HP which has just been funded!! This was one of 40 successful proposals out of 300 nationwide. She will be evaluating the effect of technology use on engineer students' learning.

Andy Karplus (Biochemistry and Biophysics) helped lead a large collaborative NIH grant funded to study cellular response to oxidative stress (L. Poole (Wake Forest) PI, Karplus (OSU) coinvestigator)

Our recent hires have stimulated continuing success in our programs in climate research. OSU is now one of the major paleoclimate research centers in the United States.

Kate Field (Microbiology) coordinated the submission of an NSF IGERT interdisciplinary graduate program grant proposal "Waterborne Pathogens: Evolution, Ecology, and Environment." This program brings together faculty from several colleges and departments.

Work by Viktor Podolskiy in Physics (V.A. Podolskiy, N.A. Kuhta, G.W. Milton "Optimizing the superlens: manipulating geometry to enhance the resolution" – Appl. Phys. Lett 87 231113 (2005)) was reprinted in , , gazette times, , , , and another of his papers was named one of the ~20 best publications of J.Mod.Opt during Jan.2005-Feb.2006 [see JOPA highlights 2005]

Physics participates in a leading project in transparent electronics and transparent electronic materials. Janet Tate collaborates with John Wager (EECS) and Douglas Keszler (CH) in a research project to develop the emerging field of transparent electronics. The group has demonstrated some of the best performances in transparent n-channel transistors and recently demonstrated prototype transparent inverters and ring oscillators.

David McIntyre in Physics coordinates ONAMI's OSU nanometrology activities.

The Department of Statistics began a collaboration with BPP in bioinformatics and turned out our first Ph.D. in this area.

▪ Major outreach/engagement initiatives

The College is committed to working on programs that bring science and mathematics outside the walls of the University. Some of the notable accomplishments this year include:

The College has been a partner with Oregon Sea Grant in developing a program in Free Choice Learning. Shawn Rowe of Sea Grant and Science and Math Education has been work on a project on “Communicating Ocean Sciences to Informal Audiences (COSIA), $66,484”. The Department and Sea Grant have just hired Lynn Dierking and John Faulk, the two leading national scholars in Free Choice Learning to lead this program.

The College continues to coordinate and sponsor Discovery Days, a hands-on learning opportunity for K-12 students that includes participation from a number of OSU departments and community organizations including Botany & Plant Pathology, 
Brad's World Reptiles, 
Chemistry, 
Chemical Engineering, 
Fisheries & Wildlife, 
Geosciences, Hatfield Marine Center, 
Microbiology, 
Nuclear Engineering,
Physics, and 
Science & Math Education.

The College has changed the lecture by the Gilfillan Award lecture to a public lecture corresponding to Discovery Days. The lecture this year was by Stevan J. Arnold, professor of zoology, on “Intelligent Design and Evolutionary Biology: When Worlds Collide.”

The annual lecture by the Harris Award lecture is now a public lecture as part of Golden Jubille. Dawn Wright of Geosciences gave this year’s lecture on "Exploring the Deep: Cracks, Creatures and Creative Maps of the Ocean Floor".

Larry Flick in Science and Mathematics Education with Len Cerny, doctoral student, Developed new course for practicing teachers in science and technology on Teaching Science through Engineering Problems fostering better transfer of learning in science.

Janice Rosenberg, Andre Mack, and Rachel Harrington of Science and Mathematics Education conducted math teaching activities at Linius Pauling Middle School.

The Catalyst, a new student publication for Undergraduate Research in Biological Sciences at OSU established (Kevin Ahern of Biochemistry and Biophysics as advisor); Edited by Tony Tong, Eric Brooks, Tari Tan (all BB majors).

The contribution of undergraduate scholars to paper published in PNAS was featured in Pathways, the OSU Foundation newsletter (Fall 2005, volume 2(1)). (reference to paper Hays, FA, Teegarden, A, Jones, ZJR (BA, 2004), Harms, M (BA, 2004), Raup, D, Watson, J, Cavaliere, E (Senior), and Ho, PS (2005) “How Sequence defines structure: A crystallographic map of DNA structure and conformation,” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., USA, 102, p. 7157-7162).

Microbiology conducted two Open House events designed to make the Microbiology major known to prospective students and high school science teachers. High school students, teachers and uncommitted OSU students attended.

Microbiology discussed with a university institute of marine microbiology in Pusan, South Korea, student exchanges involving graduate students attending OSU and OSU undergraduates studying and teaching English in Korea.

The Paradigms in Physics program continues to organize national workshops to educate other schools about our successful program.

The Survey Research Center in the Department of Statistics collaborated with three state agencies regarding a survey that will result in transfer of funds from ODOT to OSMB

▪ National/International impact of programs and initiatives

The faculty of the College are very visible in the national and international science community. I highlight here cases in which faculty are participating in or leading national science programs or cases in which they have been featured in national media. Some of these people hold joint positions with Science, Agricultural Sciences, or Research Centers (LPI, EHSC, CGRB). Several of these are abstracted from OSU Today (only those with a significant national or international audience). I’ve grouped these under the strategic themes to reinforce the span of the work of the College of Science.

Arts and Sciences:

Scientists call Corvallis home (KVAL-TV)

Many places around the country are often referred to as “college towns” where the local college or university dominates employment, economic and cultural life but a new study suggests that Corvallis and Oregon State University may really deserve that reputation more than most. According to a recent survey of science and engineering indicators issued by the National Science Foundation, Corvallis ranks second in the nation for the number of scientists as a percentage of total employment at 12.7 percent.

Mathematicians go where computers can't (WebIndia123)

As part of the US government's $20-million initiative to have advanced mathematics pick up where sheer computing power is inadequate, the Oregon State University recently received a $647,000 grant from the Department of Energy. In this project, varsity mathematicians will try to model the flow of fluids through a porous medium, such as water through soil. “The use of models that are suitable for laboratory experiments to describe processes on the scale of a watershed will bring any computer to its knees," said Ralph Showalter, professor and head of the university's math department.

Research at OSU oft cited (Corvallis Gazette-Times)

Isaac Newton, it is said, credited his scientific achievements to “standing on the shoulders of giants.” At Oregon State University, there are more giants' shoulders than at any other university in Oregon, as measured by the number of times a scientist's work is cited by peers. A recent report by ISI Web of Knowledge, an international index of scientific information, lists the top 250 scientists in the world in each of 21 subject areas whose work is most often cited in peer-reviewed scientific journals. They comprise less than one-half of 1 percent of all publishing researchers. [Jane Lubchenco, Bruce Menge, and Joe Beckman were on the “most-cited” list, all from Departments in the College of Science]

Business strategist: Oregon universities must win more patents (The Oregonian)

Oregon's universities must do more research and win more patents for the state to be competitive, a Harvard Business School professor told the state's leaders Monday at an economic summit. “Oregon is not in the top tier of innovators,'' said Michael Porter, an expert on business strategy and competition. “We've got more critical building blocks to put in place.'' He said the University of Oregon ranks 75th nationally for the number of patents it wins, and Oregon State University is 135th. [I add this to reinforce the recognition that basic science and mathematics is essential for successful innovation]

Origin, dynamics, and sustainability of the Earth:

Ancient clues to ocean currents (BBC)

The close link between temperatures in the North Atlantic and the strength of ocean circulation is underlined by a new analysis of sea-floor sediments. The sediments were drilled from Blake Outer Ridge off the US east coast. "We have documented these changes in the past and associated them with abrupt climate change,” said Candace Major, who was speaking at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting. And Andreas Schmittner, of Oregon State University, came to the AGU to present the results of the very latest work in this field - a broad analysis that combined nine different computer models of future climate change. These suggested there would not be a shutdown in the next 100 years, but rather a slowdown of about 25%.

Science's communication gap (International Herald Tribune)

Disaster prevention. Scientists know a great deal about the critical protective functions of natural storm-surge barriers like salt marshes, mangroves and coral reefs. The Asian tsunami and this season's Caribbean hurricanes demonstrated the devastating consequences, to both people and property, of their removal. (Editorial by Jane Lubchenco)

Old ice gives new clues to climate change (USA Today)

Drilling deep into Antarctic ice, scientists have extended Earth's climate history by another 210,000 years. The new results, they say, drive home two key points: Today's atmosphere holds concentrations of carbon dioxide significantly higher than at any time in the last 650,000 years; the rise and fall in temperatures track the rise and fall in carbon-dioxide levels as tightly during this additional period as they have over the past 440,000 years. For ice-core scientist Edward Brook, the results are likely to generate the next icon for long-term climate change. The most telling result, he adds, is the relationship between long-term CO2 trends and long-term temperature trends. (Stories on this topic have appeared in more than 170 media since Thursday, Nov. 24).

Video Captures Underwater 'Brimstone and Fire' (National Public Radio)

For two years now, a team of scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have been doing what no one else has ever done: watching an underwater volcano up close. (William Chadwick of Oregon State University was one of the scientists involved and was interviewed by NPR). [This volcano has been worked on over the years by Geosciences faculty, NOAA and COAS faculty and international colleagues]

Mount Hood glaciers melting (San Diego Union-Tribune)

The seven largest of Mount Hood's 11 glaciers have shrunk by an average of more than 30 percent since the beginning of the last century, according to calculations by a Portland State University graduate student. “It's almost universal that all glaciers are retreating,” said Peter Clark, an Oregon State University professor who's an authority on glaciers. “The signs of retreat are dramatic and accelerating.”

Ice age study offers clue to effects of climate change (The Oregonian)

The enormous ice sheet covering much of northern Europe repeatedly grew and retreated during the most recent ice age, responding in different ways to warming trends -- sometimes even spreading as temperatures climbed. More than one mile thick at its peak, the Scandinavian Ice Sheet dominated the landscape before disappearing about 8,000 years ago as the ice age ended. Scientists at Oregon State University and eight European countries have determined for the first time how the ancient ice sheet responded to climate change, saying their findings may give a glimpse into the future of the temperature-sensitive Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets. Related story…

Warming trend causing frogs' demise (New York Newsday)

From Costa Rica to Peru, a fungal epidemic fueled by global warming may have wiped out dozens of frog species in otherwise pristine environments, a new study concludes. "The basic message is that global warming is already causing species extinctions, and a lot of them," co-author J. Alan Pounds said. Andrew Blaustein, a herpetologist at Oregon State University, said Pounds' new study goes beyond simply making predictions by showing "that global climate change is making an unequivocal impact on a wide range of animals." (Stories about this topic appeared in many media outlets, including the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, ABC News and Los Angeles Times)

Technological change and innovation:

World's First Transparent Integrated Circuit (YubaNet)

Researchers at Oregon State University have created the world's first completely transparent integrated circuit from inorganic compounds, another major step forward for the rapidly evolving field of transparent electronics. The circuit is a five-stage "ring oscillator," commonly used in electronics for testing and new technology demonstration. It marks a significant milestone on the path toward functioning transparent electronics applications, which many believe could be a large future industry.

See-Through Circuit Prelude To Invisible Screens? (San Francisco Chronicle)

Researchers at Oregon State University have created a transparent integrated circuit, a first step toward building see-through display screens that could pop-up on car windshields to guide lost drivers, then vanish. But keep the old printed maps handy for now because the invisible circuit invented by Oregon State electronics engineer John Wager is only the first half of such a futuristic application. "We've done the electronics part," he said. "The display part we haven't done."

[The transparent electronics work is recognized world wide. Janet Tate in Physics, Doug Keszler in Chemistry, and John Wager in EECS have createda very productive collaboration.]

The Department of Physics has instituted cooperative programs with Columbia, Romania, South Africa and Korea in the Computational Physics program.

Managing natural resources:

The Fate of the Ocean (Mother Jones)

The end of big fish in the sea is more than an aesthetic loss. Marine ecologist Mark Hixon of Oregon State University has published widely on coral reef ecosystems, and his work illustrates how biodiversity and community stability thrive in the presence of predators and competitors. The removal of either or both destabilizes the remaining species. Hence big sharks, tuna, swordfish, and halibut are more than picturesque giants; they are keystone species that play greater roles in maintaining ecosystem function than seems obvious based on the size of their population.

A war in the woods
(Seattle Times)

Specialty products harvested from Northwest forests — including moss, salal and slender stalks called beargrass — once were a low-class sideshow to logging, picked by rural folks in need of extra bucks. It since has swelled to a mammoth industry that brings in at least a quarter-billion dollars a year — nearly one-fourth the size of the apple industry. It's impossible to tabulate how much brush is stolen. In a 2004 study, Oregon State University professor Patricia Muir estimated that just the commercial sale of moss, presumed to be worth $5.5 million a year, could actually be $165 million because of poaching.

Parks, plates, passion, and a professor (National Park Service)

“The geology of this national park is way too complicated.” This is the occasional refrain of park staffs charged with interpreting sites set aside for their awe-inspiring geology. Bob Lillie's answer to this comment is “Yeah, but so is a lizard.” Lillie, a professor of geology at Oregon State University, has served as a Geoscientists-in-the-Parks participant in eight units of the National Park System and as a seasonal ranger at Crater Lake (Oregon) and Yellowstone National Parks (Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho).

OSU Researchers Propose Sea Floor Map Plan (Los Angeles Times)

Researchers at Oregon State University and other state agencies are proposing the most ambitious mapping ever done of the sea floor off Oregon -- and are hoping for state and federal funding to get it done. Their idea is to produce a highly detailed map using multibeam sonar of the 3-mile-wide strip of ocean bottom along Oregon's coast, an area of 950 square nautical miles of undersea terrain that is now understood only in crude terms.

Marine Census Shows Diversity, Declines (CBS News)

A massive census of all the fish and other marine life in the world's oceans has reached the halfway point with new evidence of the rich diversity under the sea along with warnings about the alarming decline of many species. Jane Lubchenco, an Oregon State University marine biologist and president of the International Council for Science, said the census will help raise awareness about the urgent need for international cooperation to preserve marine life. "I think there's definitely increasing recognition that we can no longer think about the ocean as infinitely vast, infinitely bountiful and infinitely resilient," Lubchenco said. "There are problems everywhere." (This story has appeared on nearly 100 news Web sites, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer, Forbes, New York Newsday, Los Angeles Times, the Oregonian and Seattle Post-Intelligencer).

On forest's floor, a cash crop (Chicago Sun-Times)

Moss is the all-purpose sponge of the forest, storing water, releasing nutrients and housing tiny critters. But across Appalachia and in the Pacific Northwest, it's more than that. It's a way to make ends meet when jobs are few. Pat Muir, a botanist at Oregon State University, figures mossing was an $8.4 million to $33.7 million business in 2003, with anywhere from 4.2 million to 17 million pounds being harvested in the two dominant regions, Appalachia and the Pacific Northwest. (This Associated Press story appeared in several places, including Pittsburgh, San Diego, Fort Worth, Texas, and Charlotte, N.C.)

The Institute for Transboundary Water and its cooperative educational program are working on expanded funding from the U.S. State Department and USAID.

Life sciences and health:

Basic plant biology discovery announced (United Press International)

Oregon State University scientists have announced a major discovery in basic plant biology that might lead to profound advances in biotechnology. The researchers say they have identified a protein that can cross plant cell membranes, functioning as a toxin, to kill the cell. It's been known viruses and bacteria can penetrate cell wall barriers and disrupt plant cells, but never has a protein been found that could do the same.

This paper by Lynda Ciuffetti (Botany and Plant Pathology) and Andy Karplus (Biochemistry and Biophysics) in Plant Cell describes a protein toxin that permeates plant cell walls: it was showcased in many places including Science Daily, Innovations Report (Germany), (pharmaceutical site), KCBY, etc.

Lean Gene Machine (Scientific American)

Some 25,000 genes code for the proteins required to build each human being, a figure representing only 1 or 2 percent of our entire genome. The remainder is "junk DNA"--base-pair sequences that do not directly code for proteins. An oceanic bacterium, Pelagibacter ubique (or SAR11), one of the smallest self-replicating cells known, has only 1,354 genes, investigators report in the August 19 Science. "SAR11 has almost no wasted DNA," says Stephen J. Giovannoni, a microbiologist from Oregon State University.

A paper on the formation of DNA junctions in solution (Ho) listed as “Hot Article” and was recognized as one of the top 20 most accessed papers in 2006 in the journal Biochemistry

Microbiology faculty published 81 peer-reviewed articles and 7 reviews in international scientific journals. Three of these were published in the high profile general science journals Nature and Science.

b. Faculty recognition and awards

Faculty members in the College were recognized by a variety of awards inside the College and University and outside the university. I have included here largely recognition external to OSU, including a couple grant awards that were based on reputation as much as proposal review. I have included one or two significant OSU awards:

Oregon State University has selected nanotechnology chemist Douglas Keszler and marine biologist Patricia Wheeler as “distinguished professors,” the highest honor the university gives to faculty members. Keszler is a professor and chairman of the chemistry department and a member of the leadership team for the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI). Wheeler is a professor in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences and an expert in upwelling and nutrient-phytoplankton relationships.

Jane Lubchenco, the Wayne and Gladys Valley Professor of Marine Biology at Oregon State University, has received the Public Understanding of Science and Technology Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This award from the world's largest general scientific society was made Wednesday at the group's annual meeting and recognizes Lubchenco's “commitment to communicating science and technology to such diverse audiences as civic groups, school children, local, national and international leaders, as well as religious leaders and captains of business and industry.”

Balz Frei, director of the Linus Pauling Institute (and faculty member in Biochemistry and Biophysics) was named a recipient of the Discovery Award by the Medical Research Foundation of Oregon last week. The foundation, an affiliate of the Oregon Health and Science University Foundation, honors leaders in the state's scientific community.

Dawn Wright, a professor in the Department of Geosciences, has received the Oregon Assembly for Black Affairs (OABA) Education Award. The OABA is a non-profit, non-partisan statewide organization whose purpose is to improve the political, educational, social, legal and economic status of African-Americans in Oregon. Wright was cited for her many presentations to community youth about mapping and exploring the oceans, including the Corvallis NAACP Awards ceremony and GIS Day.

Joe Beckman, Bruce Menge, and Jane Lubchenco were noted by ISI Web of Knowledge as among the nations most “Highly Cited” scientists. This is a list of top 250 scientists in the world, in each of 21 subject areas, whose work is most often cited in peer-reviewed scientific journals. They comprise less than ½ of 1% of all publishing researchers

John Faulk (Science and Math Education) was invited to participate with the Informal Science Education Division of the NSF in forming a national advisory group to advise ISE on their next 20 years. 

John Falk and Lynn Dierking (Science and Math Education) represented free-choice learning research at the Research Agenda in Science Education (RAISE) conference, at the National Research Council.

John Falk and Lynn Dierking presented to National Research Council blue ribbon Learning Science in Informal Environments committee that is undertaking a two-year comprehensive synthesis of research on science learning in informal environments.

P. Andrew Karplus was named the 2005 Sigma Xi Researcher of the year.

Kevin Ahern (Biochemistry and Biophysics) received the 2005 Dar Reese Excellence in Advising Award.

Peter Bottomley (Microbiology) will receive the inaugural Graduate Faculty Mentor Award from the Graduate School; Janine Trempy (Microbiolgy) will receive the Elizabeth P. Ritchie Distinguished Professorship through the Faculty Senate.

Rubin Landau was named News and Analysis Editor of IEEE/AIP Computing in Science & Engineering.

Henri Jansen was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society

Janet Tate serves on the American Physical Science Committee on Education

Andrew Blaustein (Zoology) was cited by the Society of Conservation Biology for having published the 10th most cited paper in the history of journal, Conservation Biology.

Courtesy Faculty Anna Jolles’ (Zoology) paper was singled out for recommended reading by the Faculty of 1000 in Ecology: Jolles AE, Cooper DV, Levin SA. 2005. Hidden effects of chronic tuberculosis in African buffalo. Ecology 86:2358-2364

Phil Brownell (Zoology) received a Fulbright grant to go to Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich, Germany for Winter & Spring 2006.

Lan Xue (Statistics) won a Laha Travel Award to attend the Joint Statistics Meeting in

Minneapolis in August 2005 and a Travel Award to attend the New Researchers

Conference in Seattle in August 2006.

Virginia Lesser (Statistics) is serving on an NAS panel (Committee on the Review of the National Institute of Safety and Health/BLS Respirator Use Survey Program)

c. Student recognition and awards

Students in the College of Science are among OSU’s very best. Some notable accomplishments by our students this year include:

We are concluding perhaps the strongest-ever year for medical school admissions at OSU. While there may still be some last minute changes due to alternate lists, over 70% of our students were admitted to medical schools (compared to the national average of 45%). The acceptances include Harvard, OHSU, Mayo Clinic, Stanford, Yale, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth, University of Michigan, UCLA, University of Texas Southwestern, University of Washington, and Washington University. Applicants were primarily from the College of Science (80%), with the remainder from Engineering, Liberal Arts, Health and Human Sciences and Agriculture.
 Several were student athletes. All of the applicants from groups underrepresented in medicine were accepted (includes two African Americans, two Hispanics, one Native student) and two of the three applicants who are economically or educationally disadvantaged were accepted.

 

Gogot Suharwoto research was recently recognized by the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators through the National Technology Leadership Institute award.  This is a national award announced at the AMTE conference.

Carlos Rios received an EarthScope Internship. He will work with his fellow intern to develop and run a short project over the summer. This project should result in a paper suitable for publication in a peer-reviewed journal such as Eos or Journal of Geosciences Education.

Heidi Schmook has received a Holt Marine Education Fund Award.

F or "Studying the learning of Spanish-speaking families in a free-choice setting 

and assessing the long-term impacts of a free-choice learning experience" 

Karen Bledsoe in recognition of her teaching excellence was awarded a plaque from Linn-Benton Community College: “Excellence in Teaching Presented to Karen Bledsoe - By word and deed, your presence has enriched the lives of students and served as an example for all.”

Kristine Robinson (grad student Biochemistry): 2005 Young Investigator Award at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Free Radicals; 2006 P. F. and Nellie Buck Yerex Graduate Fellowship (OSU)

Heather Bolstad (BS, 2006, Biochemistry): Finalist for Marshall Scholarship; Drucilla Shepard Scholastic Award

Goldwater Scholarships: Eddie O’Donnell, Tari Tan and Anahita Fallahi (Goldwater Scholars starting next year) will join Nancy Lee and Heather Bolstad (current Goldwater Scholars). These five students in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics account for all five Goldwater Scholarships in COS and five of the six Goldwater Scholarships at OSU.

Anvi Bonn (biochemistry): Gates Millenium Scholar

Daniel Albershardt (Biochemistry): AACR Thomas J. Bardos Award from the American Association for Cancer Research

Crystal Hammer Biochemistry: Mortar Board Jameson Award; Clara L. Simerville Award

Waldo Cummings Awards to Biochemistry students included: Tari Tan, Jessica Page, Eddie O'Donnell

Undergraduate students in Biochemistry were co-authors on a number of publications:

• Mahadevan, B, Luch, A, Bravo, CF, Atkin, J, Steppan, LB, Pereira, C, Kerkvliet, NI, and Baird, WM (2005). “Bibenzo[a,l]pyrene-induced DNA adduct formation in vivo.” Cancer Letters, 227:25-32 .

• Liu PP, Koizuka N, Homrichhausen TM, Hewitt JR, Martin RC, Nonogaki H. (2005) “Large-scale screening of Arabidopsis enhancer-trap lines for seed germination-associated genes.” Plant J. 2005 Mar;41(6):936-44.

• Parsonage, D., Youngblood, D.S. (BA2005), Sarma, G.N., Wood, Z.A., Karplus, P.A. & Poole, L.B. (2005) “Analysis of the link between enzymatic activity and oligomeric state in AhpC, a bacterial peroxiredoxin” Biochemistry, 44: 10583-92.

• Humann, J., Andrews, S.,  and W. Ream.  VirE1-Mediated Resistance to Crown Gall in Transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana.  Phytopathology, 96: 105-110 (2006).

• Mahadevan, B., Mata, J., Albershardt, D., Rodriguez-Proteau, R., Pereira, C., and Baird, W.M. (2005) The effects of red raspberry extract on PAH transport across Calu-3 cell monolayer, an in vitro cell model.   Int. J. of Chemoprevention, In Press.

• Corgan, AM., Singleton, CA, Santoso, CB, and Greenwood, JA. "Phosphoinositides Differentially Regulate ±-Actinin Flexibility and Function," Biochem. J. submitted.

•

Chelsea Byrd, national finalist for the CGS/UMI Distinguished Dissertation Award

A. Govyadinov, Ph.D. student at Physcis has received a graduate student travel grant to attend CLEO/QELS 2006 and present his talk

J. Elser, Ph.D. student at Physics has received a grant to attend a workshop on Grid Computing

Darren Johnson (grad student, Zoology) received a NSERC PGS D2 scholarship

Dafne Eerkes-Medrano (grad student, Zoology) received a NSERC PGS D3 scholarship

Laura Petes – (grad student, Zoology) received a University Club Foundation Fellowship

Laura McMullen (grad student, Zoology) received an NSF fellowship

Joe Tyburczy – (grad student, Zoology) received an EPA fellowship

Barbara Han – (grad student, Zoology) received a Budweiser Conservation Scholarship

Chana Dudoit (Zoology undergraduate) received the Young Crusader's award from the Oregon Invasive Species Council for her work on surveying and reporting the spread of Japanese Eeelgrass  in Oregon's Estuaries.

Chana Dudoit presented her research to the PERS (Pacific Estuarine Research Society) meeting at the U. of Washington Friday Harbor Labs and won an award for the best undergraduate student paper.

Ph.D. candidate Leigh Ann Harrod received a Student Travel Award to present a

paper at the Joint Statistics Meeting in Minneapolis in August, 2005.

Ph.D. candidate Kathryn Irvine won a second place award for a paper to

be presented to the Statistics and Environment Section at the Joint Statistics Meeting in Seattle in August, 2006.

2. Strategic Plan Implementation

a. Focus for 2005-2006: Enhancing student success, increasing research and outreach, and enhancing diversity and community. For each focus area, list the initiatives undertaken and the outcome at the end of the year (include international dimensions within diversity)

The specific initiatives and priorities for FY2006 are discussed in Section 5, as is a synopsis of what worked and what didn’t. I include here a few notable initiatives or general accomplishments in each area.

The principal work we pursued this year was not in fact on the original list of priorities. The beginning year fiscal situation and the outcomes of the rebasing work prompted a major review and restructuring or budgets in the College. This includes an examination and change in some of the major organizational units in the College and extensive communication with the faculties of the College. This work is only partially complete, and will consume significant energy this coming year.

• Enhancing student success

We began discussions about consolidating the College’s four life science units (Zoology, Botany and Plant Pathology, Microbiology, and Biochemistry and Biophysics) into two units. The goal is to coordinate and improve our undergraduate degree programs, focus research in life sciences, and create a structure for long-term fiscal stability. The discussions are complex as two of those units are jointly administered with the College of Agricultural Sciences. Half the majors in the College of Science are interested in health and life science, so this is a major effort for us.

The College managed to provide access to almost all required seats in our service and baccalaureate core courses in the last year. While not an initiative, doing this consumes a very large amount of our energy for planning and management.

Individual members and units in the College have pursued pilot projects or initiatives with the Center for Teaching and Learning, International Programs, and the Academic Success Center. These have not been highly coordinated, as we seem to lack a forum for discussing jointly directions and planning for undergraduate program support and development.

The College has continued to refine our professional advising program under the direction of the College Head Advisor, Mary Ann Matzke.

• Increasing research and outreach

Recruited Mas Subramanian from the Dupont Corp as the Harris Chair of Chemistry. Support for ONAMI, Engineering, and the Research Office , as well as emerging partnerships with the University of Oregon were essential in the recruitment. Dr. Subramanian will oversee a new beginning for the Center for Advanced Materials Research.

Developed a major proposal to the Murdock Foundation, NSF and NIH for new nuclear magnetic resonance imaging system that would provide unique capabilities in the Northwest.

Initiated discussions about replacing and upgrading our facilities in electron beam instrumentation.

Supported two recruitments in the Initiative for Computational Biology, completed a search in Mathematics for the Ecosystem Informatics initiative. Completed searches in Physics. Three new faculty have joined the Science and Mathematics Education Dept. in the last three years.

Began conversations about a reorganization and consolidation of life sciences to focus our research efforts.

Initiated discussion about creating an Institute for Earth System Science and an associated School of Earth Sciences.

• Enhancing diversity and community

Successful Tenured Faculty Diveristy Initiative hire of Shan de Silva as Professor of Geosciences – currently head of Space grant, chair of Space Studies at UND. 

Recruited a junior African-American scholar in Mathematics Education

Established a working group on community and diversity in the College

Participation in dual career hires with History, Exercise and Nutrition, Agricultural and Resource Economics

▪ Provide a brief self-assessment of the unit efforts in the three areas: what worked; areas that need improvement; major barriers

The major barriers to making progress are similar in all three areas: time and resources. We discovered, again this year, that the immediate issue of coping with budget reductions while continuing to manage course access and faculty hiring overwhelmed many of the longer-term initiatives we had hoped to make progress on. All but two of the departments in the College could reasonably be assessed as understaffed, judging from the comments that recur in every undergraduate and graduate review. There are too few faculty for the size of graduate programs (or those programs are shrinking), class sizes are large and increasing, and the facilities are failing us in a number of regards. Each year it seems that are new issues or problems in one or more of those areas and that crisis management consumes more time than does strategic planning.

A second barrier that seems to be developing is lack of coordination of efforts across campus. We have found during the year that initiatives are starting in various places on campus (Center for Teaching and Learning, Academic Success Center, International Programs, other Colleges) that either are parallel to initiatives by units or parts of the College or are in somewhat different directions to those initiatives. We are starting a number of good programs and pilot projects, but we have not had any group discussions on a coordinated strategy for some of them.

My assessment of the situation is that one of the issues for us is lack of administrative time to run all of the initiatives, partnerships, and potential paths to ground. However, the only solution to that is increasing the amount of administrative FTE in the College or in the Departments, and that is not a palatable solution in the face of the other resource constraints the faculty and students in the College face. I believe the necessary strategy is to identify a much smaller number of initiatives and aim to make smaller steps than we had originally considered.

b. Summarize major unit activities during 2005-2006 that helped promote one or more of the five thematic areas

The College has a major role in each of the five strategic areas, as is probably clear from the breath and depth of what is described above. Some of the major areas of contribution include:

Arts and Sciences:

o Continued delivery of core general education and service courses to the campus

o Partnerships in research and instruction in mathematics, statistics, life sciences and all of the physical sciences

o Promotion and development of the Professional Science Masters Program

o Activities in each of the other thematic areas promotes progress in the basic sciences

o Recruitment of three new junior faculty in Science and Mathematics Education and two senior scholars with Sea Grant in free choice learning

Life Sciences and Health:

o Support of hires in the Computational Biology Initiative

o Completion of fundraising for the mouse model organism facility

o Keck grant for the development of next generation mass spectrometry

o Planning for consolidation and refocusing of life science programs

Natural Resources:

o Support of hires for the Ecosystem Informatics Initiatives

o Support of hire to participate in Rural Communities Initiative

o Participation in development of Transboundary Water Program; retention of Aaron Wolf and recruitment of Mike Campagna

Earth Systems:

o Funding for NSF Science and Technology Center for Coastal Ocean Observing

o Completion of laboratory for analysis of ice core air bubble gas composition

o Planning for an Earth System Institute initiated

o Hire of Shan de Silva to develop an Institute for Earth Hazards

Enterprise and Innovation:

o Recruitment of Mas Subramanian to Chemisty and ONAMI

o Retention of Vince Remcho in Chemistry

o Continued leadership by Janet Tate in Physics and Doug Keszler in Chemistry on Transparent Electronics research

b. Summarize major accomplishments for 2005-2006 in support of the OSU Capital Campaign

Hiring of a new Development Director for the College.

Highest fundraising total in College history. Support for scholarships, facilities, and faculty development, as well as Dean’s unrestricted accounts.

Planning for Science Complex and initial conversations with potential lead donors.

Fundraising included cultivation of prospects who provided University level scholarship support.

Details of fundraising goals and projects are available in the Foundations summary reports.

3. Other initiatives and their outcomes [e.g., Faculty/Staff Professional Development Activities]

The College continues to consolidate business services for most of our units into a single, integrated financial office. Most departments except those joint with Agriculture will be assimilated into this system this year.

We have initiated discussions at the direction of the Provost on moving towards a business center for the Colleges of Science and Liberal Arts with collaboration with Business Affairs and Human Resources. We are a bit stuck on next steps but there is significant potential for changing how we manage the business affairs of the College.

4. Scorecard

a. Performance on college-level metrics

The last version of college-level metrics are copied here.

The College reached a new high in private giving this year, with over $4.5M in gifts and pledges. Grant and contract expenditures continue to increase and we are making progress on some of the other metrics.

The numbers for Metric 2.5 are probably misleading, simply because they seem significantly too high for the number of majors in the College. This is likely because of self-reporting by students who are most engaged in research or other activities with individual faculty members.

The most disappointing area is the student to faculty ratio. The financial projections suggest that this ration will increase in the next two to three years, rather than decreasing, because we will be unable to replace the same number of faculty that are retiring. Progress on metrics 2-1 through 2.5 are directly dependent on the number and quality of our faculty. Our number is nearly double the ratio at many of our peers, and is the single most challenging metric we face.

b. Leveraging resources

▪ Initiatives to leverage state resources

To be honest, I’m not sure what this category is looking for. The answer here remains basically the same as last year. In many ways, the College’s entire financial strategy is premised on developing resources that are independent of the state budget. This is in some ways more replacing state resources than leveraging them. Some significant efforts in this area include:

o Grant and contract expenditures in excess of RAM plus tuition budget to College

o Development of soft-money faculty in a number of units, particularly in the life sciences

o Development of significant distance education programs (Geosciences, Math, Chemistry) and pursuit of an integrated science degree

o Expanded summer term offerings

o Focus on potential for licensing and equity income

o Increased pursuit of partnerships for faculty support (CAS, CVM, Sea Grant)

The College does not have the opportunity (and is actively discouraged) from lobbying for specific policy packages or investments for our programs.

▪ Initiatives to improve administrative efficiencies

The College has tried to keep a low administrative overhead. We currently have 1. 0 FTE split between two Associate Deans. We are continuing with the consolidation of our business services. We have also agreed to share a marketing and science writing position with Advancement. We are considering putting a Facilities manager in place given the number of issues we face and our difficulties managing renovation projects.

5. Assessment of your 2005-2006 Priorities

These are the priorities noted in last year’s annual report. I note in orange where significant progress was made and in blue where we’ve made little progress.

a. Enhancing student success

o Completion of program outcomes in every unit and implementation of course-level learning outcomes in half the College. Only minor progress. Units were asked to work directly with Academic Affairs on some of these issues so the College was not aware of all of the steps being taken. Work on this was derailed in part by units issues in budget and resource management.

o Strategy for implementation of students-at-risk support in collaboration with ASC. No progress, insufficient time for associate deans.

o Review and revision of pre-calculus mathematics curriculum. All groups working on pre-calculus math have met, as has a math-working group. A pilot project is being run to assess the use of a revised MTH 103 as a vehicle for students lacking sufficient preparation.

o Restructuring of the General Science degree to an Integrated Science degree, with a distance delivery vehicle. Proposal submitted to eCampus for course development; funded so most work will be in this coming year

o Development of content pathways in each discipline to complement the double-degree program. No progress, departments engaged in other issues.

o Refinement of teaching portfolio concept and development of faculty training and development opportunities with the CTL. No opportunity to pursue this yet.

o Completion of planning for the Student Learning Center. Minimal participation but other groups made progress on planning.

o Articulation tables for major programs with Community Colleges. No progress.

▪ Increasing research/scholarship and outreach

o Completion of the transgenic mouse facility. Funding complete but space management issues have stalled construction initiation.

o Completion of planning for the Science Complex and identification of the lead gift for the project. Significant progress on pre-planning and on fundraising ground work.

o Restart of the Center for Advanced Materials Research. Significant progress with the hiring of Mas Subramanian.

o Development of a coordinated K-12 outreach program with pre-College programs. No progress.

o Completion of plan for central support of analytical facilities; development of a plan for electron beam instruments at OSU. Modest progress and discussion.

o Groundwork for a paleoclimate initiative and center. Minor additional progress by principal scientists.

o Completion of work on Ecology and Evolution program and Applied Mathematics and Computational Science program. Few further discussions. Subsumed by discussions on consolidation of life science departments.

c. Enhancing diversity and community, including international dimensions

o Create a comprehensive international programs strategy with International Programs. No progress, although there are apparently initiatives in International Programs we have not been involved in any of them.

o Add two new international partnerships. None completed.

o Complete a college-wide diversity and community assessment. No progress on assessment.

o Develop a pilot case for the integration of diversity and community issues in the introductory classroom at both the baccalaureate core and service course level. No lead person identified.

o Complete one targeted hire in cooperation with the Provost’s Diversity Initiative. Shan de Silva in Geosciences.

Two more general goals are to complete the budget rebasing activity and to raise our philanthropic giving to the level required to be successful in a seven-year campaign. The initial redistribution and rebudgeting within the College was completed this year and will continue next year. Significant progress was made on the laying the Foundation for work in the Capital Campaign.

Reviewing this list is somewhat discouraging, in that we did not make progress on very many of the original priorities. As noted above, much of our time and energy was spent on considering financial planning for the future of the College, implementing an initial rebudgeting, and laying the groundwork for some major organizational changes in the College which are required if we are to remain fiscally sustainable.

This suggests to me that the College leadership needs to set a much more modest set of goals and focus on completing those in the coming year.

6. Proposed Priorities for 2005-2006

The following seem, at the present time, as the most pressing priorities for the College in the coming year.

• Complete the budget redistribution process started in FY06.

• Complete the planning for reorganization of life sciences after discussion with the College of Agricultural Sciences and implement those organizational changes to be in place in FY08.

• Complete at least four faculty hires in the coming year, including at least one each in Physics and Chemistry. This may prove extremely challenging since the research office lacks the ability to commit to additional setup commitments and it appears that the College will have few or no spendable reserves remaining at the end of FY06.

• Complete the initial phases of the General Science degree restructuring (this is related to the Life Sciences programs).

• Continue with COAS discussions about the Earth Systems Institute.

• Complete a diversity and community assessment for the College.

• Initiate a long-term planning exercise for facilities development. The Science Complex will address only a part of the issues for the Department of Chemistry and the issues are becoming increasingly damaging to the research programs in Gilbert, Cordley, and Weniger.

Some of the issues on the agenda for my department heads include:

o Complete review of the Undergraduate Program in Biochemistry and Biophysics

o Initiate complete reorganization of undergraduate and graduate curriculum around 4 major options in Biochemistry: Biochemistry, Molecular/Cell Biology, Structural/Computational Biology, and Pre-health

o Continue discussions with the Honors College to begin offering more introductory sections.  Nothing has been decided.  Most likely candidates are Geo105 and Geo201.  Our intermediate goal is to get enough credits so that we can have Honors majors in conjunction with the courses offered in COAS.

o improve the research opportunities for undergraduates. 

o Find a strategy to improve graduate student stipend levels.  We are simply not competitive with our peer institutions. 

o Reexamination of undergraduate program to improve efficiency and coordination within the Microbiology major and with the Biology major.

o A goal for the department will be build on funding partnerships to enhance our programs and build opportunities for students in research & scholarship, and service.

o Follow up on IGERT proposal in Microbiology and other opportunities to advance the area of Water-borne Infections, which the Department of Microbiology has adopted as its signature theme.

o New models for delivery of 20x courses in Physics to increase faculty participation while reducing faculty time

o Support new faculty member’s goal of working in Portland urban areas with students of color.

o Improve integration of international visiting faculty into the activities of the department and maximize their interaction with pre-service and doctoral programs.

o Develop faculty sensitivity to international students communication capabilities associated with cultural and language differences. Develop faculty skills in improving international student written and verbal communication.

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