Shane's Blog

Help across the Finish Line

July 6, 2023

Before the start of each academic year at the Land Grant University of Arizona College of Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences (CALES), I’m honored to welcome our incoming first year and transfer students.

This is the start of the next stage of their lives; it comes with excitement, anticipation, fears and worries.

Regardless, my message is always the same: “We promise that everyone here—our faculty, advisors, and staff—will help you on your journey to commencement and the rest of your life. We all know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you belong here; that you can do everything that you will ask of yourselves academically. We know that because you got accepted into this university. Now you have to truly believe what we believe.”

However, too many of our students, with graduation literally as close as one class away, face daunting financial roadblocks. A recent The Chronicle of Higher Education article described these students as “often overlooked. Students who are one blown tire, one sick child, one lost job away from a crisis. Students clinging to the narrow ledge of college.”

They don’t even have a choice when they gut-wrenchingly can’t find as “little” as the few hundred dollars to pay for that last class; they must drop out.

A 2021 survey of nearly 500 emergency fund recipients at a two-year college in Wisconsin found that 93% were still enrolled, had graduated, or had transferred to another institution. A recent analysis found that students at another two-year school in California who had received small amounts of emergency aid were twice as likely to graduate as comparable students who didn’t receive such aid.

In CALES, we prioritize supporting our students in their last hours of dire need.

Although 98% of our college scholarship dollars were accessed by our students in the past academic year, we were missing our students “clinging to the narrow edge”. In 2022, together with our Alumni Council, we launched our Finish Line Fund. This philanthropy initiative ensures students in dire need and with high academic probability of graduating, actually can and do.

During our last batch of Finish Line Funds awarded in May 2023, two students were able to enroll for fall classes because their past-due balance was cleared by Finish Line funding. This is exactly what we want the Finish Line Funds to do—clear that path for students who are so close to being done.

During this program’s life we have awarded $63,062 to 21 students, an average of $3,000 per student. Within six months of receiving Finish Line funds to help clear their balances, 38% of those 21 students re-enrolled, and 19% were able to graduate. Within one year of the award, 58% of our awardees graduated.

This is a major win for our students and fulfills our promise to support them from first-year orientation through graduation.

I’m incredibly grateful to our donors, Alumni Council, and our Development and Career and Academic Services teams for this life-changing initiative.

Celebrating Women's History

March 12, 2021

Margaret Cammack (Ph.D. Chemistry, Columbia University) arrived in Tucson in 1925 to be associate professor of home economics. In 1927, she left the Department of Home Economics to take a primary appointment with the Arizona Experiment Station and by 1935 she was back in a UA department as head of the Department of Human Nutrition.

Margaret published widely in several disciplines, including plant sciences, agronomy, agriculture production, food science, home economics, public health, pathology, environmental toxicology, epidemiology, chemistry and nutrition. She was a national figure in nutrition research. Contemporary documents cited her as “Arizona’s leading nutrition chemist”.

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Cyberinfrastructure

Nov. 19, 2018

Even if you’re new to CALES, you’ve probably heard Bart Cardon’s name. He was CALES’ dean (1980-1987), is an alumnus and his name is attached to donor endowments for a chair, two teaching awards and the Cardon Academy of Teaching Excellence. He also served in WWII and was stationed in post-war Germany where he helped rebuild the University of Munich's Agricultural School, today the Technical University of Munich.

The day before Homecoming, I read his prescient October 1986 remarks: “Our students will need a broad education. They'll need training in economics and business. Computers. They will really need to know about computers so they can handle and manage the tremendous amount of information that will come their way.” I didn’t know about Bart’s statement when I arrived in 2011, but I hope you remember when I interviewed that I said we should aspire be the most cyber-savvy college of our ilk.

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Cooperative Extension Road Trip: Apache, Navajo, Hopi

Oct. 12, 2018

The mission for UA Cooperative Extension is “to bring the university to the people of the state and bring science to bear on practical problems.” Fulfilling that complex mission takes incredible dedication. I saw that dedication demonstrated time and again when Associate Director of Tribal Extension Trent Teegerstrom and I recently toured extension offices on the Apache, Navajo, and Hopi nations.

We covered 1,100 miles in three days through the vast, beautiful scenery of northeastern Arizona and even a bit of New Mexico. I gained a new and much better appreciation for the extension work being done in that region. I will never forget that trip.

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Update on New UA Strategic Plan

May 3, 2018

As we approach Spring Commencement, I am confident we have fully prepared our 2018 graduates for the next chapter in their lives. But what about the classes of 2022, 2026 and beyond? And how will the University of Arizona and our entire enterprise – Agriculture, Life and Veterinary Sciences, and Cooperative Extension – continue to serve our students, state and the world in a decade or two?

On April 24, faculty, staff and appointed professionals engaged in a wide-ranging discussion of the new UA Strategic Plan, which proposes ideas that would touch every corner of this statewide campus. Thank you to all of those who have participated in this dialogue to date. We are some of the most diverse constituents of the university, and your thoughtful contributions can help shape a Strategic Plan which will serve our stakeholders well.

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