The unusually warm and snow-free winter will likely have changed by the time you are reading this. We have all been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Hopefully this change in the weather will not last long, but as a drought management specialist, I can confirm that we definitely need some moisture. However, I would vote for receiving it in liquid rather than solid form.

Faculty Evaluations and the Promotion and Tenure Process

My time this past month has been devoted largely to the evaluation of SNR faculty. This is a critically important task, but also a monumental one. I very much appreciate those faculty who submitted their eARFA before the January 15 deadline. This gave me a nice head start. I am planning to distribute evaluations to faculty for review and comments around February 10. All evaluations must be submitted to IANR administration by February 15. I will then begin meeting with faculty after March 1. The faculty sessions this year will be focused on goals for 2012 and beyond, rather than a review of the evaluation. In other words, the session will be forward- rather than backward-looking.

Two SNR faculty served as guinea pigs this year for the new reporting system being considered to replace the current eARFA system for the 2012 reporting period. This system is called "Activity Insights." The experience of these and other IANR faculty will be documented, along with the impressions of unit heads and other administrators, to see whether this new system will meet the needs of our reporting process.

This year we have nine faculty who have applied for promotion or promotion and tenure. I commend members of the P&T committee for their diligence in reviewing the files of these candidates. Of course, I have also been reviewing these applications. The files for candidates being considered for promotion and tenure were delivered to IANR administration on January 31. Files for candidates for promotion only will be submitted to IANR at the end of February.

International Organizing Committee on National Drought Policy

In January, I reported on my participation in the first meeting of the International Organizing Committee (IOC) on National Drought Policy, organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in December 2011. This past month I have been reviewing the report of this meeting and trying to finalize two documents in preparation for a meeting in March with representatives of country missions based in Geneva, Switzerland. The dates for that meeting are currently being finalized with the secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, Michel Jarraud.

SNR Spring Lectures

Plans have been finalized to bring two speakers to UNL for seminars in SNR in April. These speakers are Michael Roberts from North Carolina State University and Tom Lovejoy from George Mason University. The visit by Michael Roberts will be co-sponsored by the Department of Agricultural Economics. The visit of Tom Lovejoy will be co-sponsored by the School of Biological Sciences. The dates for their visits are:

Michael Roberts, April 5-6

Tom Lovejoy, April 26

Michael Roberts	Tom Lovejoy

Michael Roberts is an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at North Carolina State University. He was formerly with the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and prior to that was with the Economics Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Michael has been working on the relationship between crop production, food security, and climate change. He and I partnered in spring 2011 on a congressional briefing sponsored by the American Meteorological Society.

Tom Lovejoy was the recipient of the endowed Heinz Center Biodiversity Chair in August 2008. He was appointed president of the Heinz Center in May 2002, and has served as the chief biodiversity advisor for the World Bank and as science advisor to the Secretary of the Interior. Tom also served on the science and environmental councils under the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations. His work as biodiversity chair includes chairing the Independent Advisory Group on Sustainability for the Inter-American Development Bank. This effort focuses on Brazil, reflecting his long-time commitment to Amazon rainforest issues.

New Photo Gallery in Hardin Hall

Congratulations to curator Dee Ebbeka and photographer Larkin Powell on the first exhibit in our new photo gallery in the second-floor elevator lobby of Hardin Hall. It features half a dozen photos from the Fulbright year that Powell and his family, Kelly and Tristan, spent in Namibia.

Dee plans to change the exhibit each year, so if you have photos to share that would work well expanded to two by three feet, please contact her.

Proposals Submitted and Grants Awarded

Congratulations to SNR faculty and staff for grants awarded during January. Total funding received during the month was $103,869. The majority of funding received this past month was from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. Those faculty and staff awarded funding included Jim Brandle, Scott Hygnstrom, Craig Allen, and Paul Merani.

Proposals submitted during January 2012 were for funds totaling $3,026,868. SNR faculty and staff submitting proposals included Andy Suyker, Shashi Verma, Cody Knutson, Nicole Wall, Steve Thomas, Don Rundquist, Mike Hayes, Matt Joeckel, Paul Hanson, Don Wilhite, Gene Guan, and Anatoly Gitelson. These proposals were directed to federal agencies, namely NSF and NASA, as well as to the University of Minnesota as part of a collaborative proposal.

The total funding requested so far this fiscal year, July through January, is $14,581,393. The total amount of grants awarded to SNR faculty and staff this fiscal year is $4,680,451. Year-to-date funding requests and awards are broken down by agency in the two charts below.

YTD Funding by Agency, Feb 2012

YTD Funding Requests by Agency, Feb 2012