From the President
Germán Bollero was named Dean of the College of ACES this past April, after serving as interim Dean of the College since September of 2021. He gave the board an update on current enrollment numbers and a vision for that enrollment in the future. He talked about the creative avenues they have created to support the higher education needs of a variety of students, including the restructuring of majors, expansion of online options, and the ability for students to stack "certificates" (three courses geared at a particular area) to create their own majors. ACES is also partnering with other colleges on campus to provide joint degrees in computer science and increasing their presence in digital agriculture. Overall, we heard about an emphasis on "experiential learning", whereby ACES is making the effort so that each student can get out into the food and agriculture world and explore careers and research in a hands-on way.
Dr. Sarah Low serves as the Head of the Agricultural and Consumer Economics (ACE) department. She presented on the state of her department, including the hiring of new faculty in agricultural finance. Dr. Gerald Mashange, who was introduced to us during the board meeting, recently came to ACE with that focus and has a 50% Extension appointment. He is eager to build up his Extension program and to serve all of you. ACE has hired several new faculty this year, including two focusing on financial planning, one on the economics of food policy, and one on agribusiness management. They have more hires to come this year. ACE is the home of farmdoc, an invaluable resource to our members and staff. ACE is currently working on a strategic plan for the future, with an emphasis on Extension.
We also heard from Jonathan Coppess, recently named the Gardner Endowed Chair. We are grateful for Jonathan's collaboration with Illinois Farm Bureau and how he built the Gardner program to analyze policy questions important to our farmer members. Jonathan has a vision for the Program that includes creating a policy lab to infuse creativity into the policy-creation process and build up the next generation of students and advocates that will create and implement common sense agricultural, environmental, and food policy.
After the presentations, the Board hosted those guests and additional ACES faculty and staff at a reception where we continued to build these important relationships.